Did YouTube flatten the Earth?
50 years on, scepticism about the Moon landings is growing online.
An episode of the Beyond Today podcast, hosted by BBC Radio 4, titled "Did YouTube flatten the Earth?" was published on July 16, 2019 and runs 19 minutes.
July 16, 2019 ·19m · Beyond Today
Summary
Today marks exactly 50 years since the launch of the Apollo 11 mission to put the first man on the Moon. Ever since that day in 1969 conspiracy theories have sprung up alleging that the whole thing is a hoax, and now there is a growing community of people who don’t even believe the earth is round. In this episode, Marco Silva, a reporter for BBC Trending introduces us to Dave from Sheffield, a man who is convinced that the earth is flat. He is part of a group whose false ideas have spread with the help of the YouTube algorithm. We learn about the people trying to address the misinformation problem and what YouTube is doing about conspiracy theories on its platform.If you want to know how dangerous medical misinformation can be spread by health bloggers, you can listen to our anti-vax episode here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072rpnk Producers: Lucy Hancock and Alicia Burrell Editor: John Shields
Episode Description
Today marks exactly 50 years since the launch of the Apollo 11 mission to put the first man on the Moon. Ever since that day in 1969 conspiracy theories have sprung up alleging that the whole thing is a hoax, and now there is a growing community of people who don’t even believe the earth is round. In this episode, Marco Silva, a reporter for BBC Trending introduces us to Dave from Sheffield, a man who is convinced that the earth is flat. He is part of a group whose false ideas have spread with the help of the YouTube algorithm. We learn about the people trying to address the misinformation problem and what YouTube is doing about conspiracy theories on its platform.
If you want to know how dangerous medical misinformation can be spread by health bloggers, you can listen to our anti-vax episode here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072rpnk
Producers: Lucy Hancock and Alicia Burrell Editor: John Shields
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