Your Source for NPR News & Music
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

We Need To Talk About YouTube

With guest host John Donvan.

How did YouTube go from this, its first video …

… to a platform that feeds disturbing videos and conspiracy theories to young children, all while a video game vlogger shares racial slurs and racist pranks with tens of millions of visitors and another network star shows his followers a dead body?

YouTube reaches more than 80 percent of Internet users, and the controversies listed above have brought new scrutiny to the network.

It’s a powerful combination of advanced algorithms and payments to creators that keeps people posting and consuming. But even though it controls the servers and the checkbook, is YouTube really in control of its content?

GUESTS

Renee diResta, Policy specialist, Data for Democracy; @noUpside

Louise Matsakis, Staff writer, WIRED; @lmatsakis

Anthony D’Angelo, Board member, Internet Creators Guild; his YouTube channel is “Lego-Shark-Productions”; @coolwebfriend

For more, visit https://the1a.org.

© 2018 WAMU 88.5 – American University Radio.

Copyright 2018 WAMU 88.5

Related Stories