You're listening to Unexplained Season 6 Episode 28, The New Sphere Part 2 of 3.

In February 2018, 13 Russian nationals were indicted by the FBI for their alleged role

as part of widespread Russian governmental interference in the 2016 United States presidential

election. The defendants were charged with creating fake social media accounts in which

they posed as US citizens to ferment distrust about the candidates and generally undermine

the democratic process. The indictment pointed the finger squarely at companies such as Facebook

and Twitter, both are routinely accused of allowing fake news to spread, giving credibility

to false narratives through a complicated system of algorithms that enable some stories

to be promoted above others on account of how popular they are, regardless of whether

they are true or not. In March 2017, Google, the world's most widely used search engine,

was also accused of spreading fake news by promoting false narratives through its featured

snippets in search function, which gives short answers to common queries through the company's

speaker device, Google Home. If users of this device back in 2016 had asked, is President

Barack Obama planning a coup, for example? Google Home would have replied,

according to details exposed in Western Center for Journalism's exclusive video,

not only could Obama be in bed with the communist Chinese, but Obama may in fact be planning

a communist coup d'état at the end of his term in 2016. This was of course a complete fabrication

and a little ironic considering what later came to pass on January 6th 2021.

Concerned by this trend, ex-Google engineer, Guiom Shalo built a program to investigate bias

in YouTube content. Talking to Paul Lewis for the Guardian newspaper in 2018,

Shalo concluded that, quote, fiction is outperforming reality, and the channel's algorithmic preferences

frequently pushed videos that are divisive, sensational and conspiratorial.

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