YouTube Flags Notre-Dame Fire as 9/11 Conspiracy, Says System Made ‘Wrong Call’
- Google video site says software sometimes makes ‘wrong call’
- Company has been fighting the spread of conspiracy theories
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Soon after a fire engulfed Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on Monday, news outlets began streaming live broadcasts on YouTube. Below several of the clips was an odd box of text: A snippet from Encyclopedia Britannica about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
YouTube, a division of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, introduced this text box feature last year to combat the spread of conspiracy theories, including those that question the 9/11 attacks. On Monday, YouTube’s software mistakenly labeled the plumes of smoke in Paris as footage from 2001, triggering the panel below the video.