Youtube to filter some misinformation

SAN FRANCISCO — Whether it is a video claiming the Earth is flat or the moon landing was faked, conspiracy theories are not hard to find on Google’s Youtube. But in a significant policy change, Youtube said Friday that it planned to stop recommending them.

After years of criticism that Youtube leads viewers to videos that spread misinformation, the company said it was changing what videos it recommends to users. In a blog post, Youtube said it would no longer suggest videos with “borderline content” or those that “misinform users in a harmful way” even if the footage does not violate its community guidelines.

Youtube said the number of videos affected by the policy change amounted to less than 1 percent of all videos on the platform. But given the billions of videos in Youtube’s library, it is still a large number.

Youtube’s recommendation engine has been denounced for pushing users to troubling content even when they showed little interest in such videos. It has also been blamed for widening the political divide in the country, pushing already partisan viewers to more extreme points of view.

The new policy is also the latest example of Youtube taking a more aggressive approach to content that many find distasteful even if it is not in violation of the service’s community guidelines.

In late 2017, Youtube started putting “controversial religious or supremacist” content in a “limited state” so the videos are not monetized with advertising and features such as comments and likes are turned off.

Youtube said Friday it is not taking down the misinforming videos, and it will still allow them to appear in search results and recommend them to users who subscribe to a channel that creates such content.

“We think this change strikes a balance between maintaining a platform for free speech and living up to our responsibility to users,” Youtube wrote in the blog post.