“It’s an algorithm” was never a good excuse, but YouTube’s had plenty of time to fix this one, and they don’t even pretend to care anymore, even after media began to set quotes from anguished victims against those of smugly indifferent anonymous spokespeople.
The Guardian:
YouTube is promoting conspiracy theory videos claiming that the Las Vegas mass shooting was a hoax, outraging survivors and victims’ families, in the latest case of tech companies spreading offensive propaganda. … YouTube told the Guardian that this footage and other specific conspiracy videos that appeared after a generic search did not violate its standards.
It is a sewer, the search results a fatberg of fake news and fury.
We can only suppose why Google (and Facebook, for that matter) refuse to deal with the problem, but it looks like they want their tracking and interaction-optimizing bullshit to do its work with the absolute minimum of dataset-polluting editorial moderation. They will only interrupt it when force–legal, regulatory, media, and public protest–is applied. And, frankly, the first three aren’t working. Which leaves it to… you?
UPDATE: YouTube “tweaked” the search results to remove the high-ranking conspiracy videos, reports the WSJ.