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October 5, 2017 10:16 am - NewsBehavingBadly.com

The former game show host wants to talk about “fake news” again.

His comments come after the leaders of the panel said Wednesday it is still investigating whether there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential race.

“The committee continues to look into all evidence to see if there was any hint of collusion,” Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) told a room packed with reporters.

Okay, Donald. Let’s talk about the fake news network owned by Google! It’s not as if they don’t have the tools on hand to stop this from happening:

YouTube is promoting conspiracy theory videos claiming that the Las Vegas mass shooting was a hoax, outraging survivors and victims’ families, in the latest case of tech companies spreading offensive propaganda.

It’s only been days since a gunman inside the Mandalay Bay hotel opened fire on a music festival, killing 58 people and injuring more than 500. But videos questioning whether the shooting really happened and claiming that the government has lied about basic facts have already garnered millions of views on YouTube and are continuing to run rampant.

It appears YouTube is actively helping these videos reach wide audiences. Searching for “Las Vegas shooting videos” immediately leads to a wide range of viral videos suggesting that law enforcement and others have purposefully deceived the public. Some label the tragedy a “false flag”, a term conspiracy theorists typically use to refer to mass shootings they say are staged by the government to advance gun control.

Back in April, in the wake of rising criticism and awareness of phony news, related in particular to Russian trolls attempting to influence American voters, YouTube took the bold move of – wait for it – starting a campaign to educate kids about fake news.

First, it seems that adults are in need of a rigorous course in identifying, tagging, and fighting back agains fake news.

Second, as of the end of July it was not a resounding success – to say the least:

You’ve got to hand it to YouTube: despite overwhelming odds, Google’s video wing keeps pushing through with its Internet Citizens program. By its count, the video service has educated some 500 people about the dangers of misleading or outright fake news. YouTube wants to boost that number by quite a bit. The hope is to reach 20,000 more people via workshops, youth workers and schools in the UK, it writes.

D.B. Hirsch
D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.