Sketchy YouTube videos will now come with fact checks

Anyone who has ever fallen into a YouTube conspiracy theory wormhole just got thrown a lifeline.

YouTube announced Tuesday that it would begin rolling out "fact check panels" in the U.S. What does that mean? The company said in a blog post that if a user searches a topic on YouTube that has been debunked by fact checkers, a shaded box will appear at the top of the query results that identifies the claim and rates it as "false."

The feature rolled out in India and Brazil last year, but the post said that the spread of coronavirus misinformation helped show the urgent need for this feature to become more widespread.  Read more...