What YouTube is doing to fight fake coronavirus videos

Google said YouTube has been removing thousands of misleading and dangerous videos on Covid-19.

YouTube has been introducing new measures to help tackle misinformation on coronavirus. (REUTERS)

Google CEO Sundar Pichai had recently said that the company has been actively removing misleading or dangerous videos pertaining to coronavirus. This is being done through an Artificial Intelligence-based technology.

In a blog, he mentioned how Google is taking various steps to direct people to reliable content when it comes to YouTube.

"On YouTube, we are using the homepage to direct users to videos from the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] or other locally relevant public health agencies. We are highlighting content from authoritative sources when people search for COVID-19, and inserting information panels to provide additional context from high-quality sources," said the post.

Pichai assured that such dangerous videos are being removed from across the many platforms of the search giant.

"We're also removing COVID-19 misinformation on YouTube, Google Maps, our developer platforms like Play, and across ads," said Pichai.

While promoting helpful information and directing a user to reliable source are very important, what cannot be ignored is the fact that the fake and misleading videos still exist. In order to deal with that YouTube has been removing thousands of misleading and dangerous videos on Covid-19.

"On Google Maps, our automated and manual review systems continue to take down false and harmful content such as fake reviews and misleading information about healthcare locations," Pichai wrote.

In a blogpost in January this year, the Google CEO had mentioned how his company has blocked hundreds of thousands ads that have been trying to capitalise the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

Strict action and measures have also been taken against ads which have attempted to capitalise on the pandemic. A ban on ads pertaining to medical masks and respirators has been imposed.

"Since January we've blocked hundreds of thousands of ads attempting to capitalize on the coronavirus pandemic, and last week we announced a temporary ban on all ads for medical masks and respirators," said the post.