NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- When the war on COVID began, so too did the war on misinformation. Over the last year it’s been an uphill battle for both physicians and politicians as citizens and colleagues have fallen prey to the vast, uncorroborated conspiracies that plague the web. What started with the virus, has now mutated along with the vaccine.
This week, however, one social media giant finally put its foot down. YouTube vowed to specifically ban anti-vax misinformation once and for all.
The Google-owned site says it will no longer be a home for harmful videos that push beliefs that have been repeatedly disproven. It’s also terminating the accounts of prominent anti-vax influencers.
As necessary as the company believes the decision might be, it’s drawn bipartisan backlash. Those against it have raised the question of whether it’s an extreme exercise of censorship. While those for it are asking “What took so long?”
On this week’s episode of 1010 WINS In Depth, we take a look at all the angles of this issue.
Firstly, we speak to Bloomberg’s Mark Bergen and try to understand why YouTube decided to pull the plug in the first place.
Secondly, we speak to Brian Southwell, a professor at both Duke and North Carolina universities who studies misinformation. He’ll explain how it crosses all race, gender, and socio-economic lines.
Lastly, we speak to Lisa Fazio, the Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Development at Vanderbilt University. She has a surprisingly simple solution for combatting the mob mentality of misinformation.