- YouTube promoted a conspiracy theory video that claims one of the Florida school shooting survivors is a paid actor.
- The video was first in the site's list of trending videos Wednesday morning.
- YouTube continues to struggle with people gaming the site to promote fake news.
A video that claims to show evidence that one of the survivors of the school shooting in Florida last week is a paid actor was promoted by YouTube as the top video in the site's trending section on Wednesday morning. The video was removed from the trending section later in the morning after several news stories and tweets about it started to spread.
The video shows a local news clip featuring David Hogg, one of the shooting survivors who has made several news appearances over the last few days calling for gun control. The segment comes from a CBS Los Angeles local newscast from last summer that shows Hogg telling a reporter how he got into an argument with a lifeguard. Conspiracy theorists say the clip is proof that Hogg shows up in media appearances as a paid actor.
Searching for Hogg's name on YouTube also brought up a large number of conspiracy videos as the top results.
A YouTube spokesperson said in a written statement to Business Insider that the conspiracy video made it to the top of the site's trending section by mistake. Since the video uses a clip from an "authoritative news source," the system allowed it to sneak past its safeguards.
Here's YouTube's statement:
"This video should never have appeared in Trending. Because the video contained footage from an authoritative news source, our system misclassified it. As soon as we became aware of the video, we removed it from Trending and from YouTube for violating our policies. We are working to improve our systems moving forward."
The spokesperson did not immediately respond to a followup question as to why other conspiracy videos about Hogg were showing up as top results in searches.
Hogg has become a central figure in a the far-right's effort to discredit the survivors of last week's shooting as they call for tighter gun control laws.
The problem spread on Facebook too. Hogg was one of the top topics in Facebook's "Trending" module Wednesday morning. Clicking his name brought up several videos promoting the conspiracy that he's a paid actor.
YouTube has failed to weed out fake news and conspiracy theories from its trending sections, search results, and other corners of the site that are promoted through algorithms in the wake of several major news events over the last several months. It happened with the mass shooting in Las Vegas last fall. It happened with the Amtrak crash involving Republican members of Congress. It happened too many times to count.
YouTube has said it made changes to its search algorithms to make sure it promotes news videos from "trusted" sources. The company has also said it plans to hire thousands of human content moderators to make sure videos comply with its policies. So far, those efforts haven't solved the problem.
The trending YouTube video had more than 200,000 views Wednesday morning before it was removed. A Facebook representative did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
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