How credible is that You Tube channel?

[Susannah]

Here something I’ve been thinking about lately.

A lot of You Tube videos are posted on this forum. The thing about You Tube is that anyone can get a channel and quite a bit of money can be made with a popular channel. No expertise or qualifications are required to expound on any topic. It’s up to the consumer to check them out and I don’t think most people bother to do that. They should at least do a search on the creator.

It’s good to check the Wikipedia page for the person who made the video as well. Sometimes you find good things about the person. Sometimes the person making the video doesn’t have anything in their background that qualifies them to expound on their topic. Sometimes there is something nefarious there.

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[Jacob Petersheim]

Wikipedia is notoriously problematic. Almost everything you find there needs to be peered at through squinted eyes. The bias there is heavy, and very real. Especially when the topic at hand is controversial at all.

What is the credibility of "newspaper" sites and those trying to present themselves as such? The slicker they are, the bigger the "stable" of writers they have, the more likely they are to be corporate arms or tentacles of shadowy well-funded interests.

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[Susannah]

Newspapers, TV and radio news establish a reputation. I think we all know that Fox News is considered conservative, CNN is considered liberal and many people weigh what we hear from them in that light. The same is true of newspapers. But You Tube, Blue Sky, X and other similar sources are made up of many individual creators and sources. Some of those creators are AI and some are information from someone in China or Russia posing as a legitimate source.

All I’m saying is a wise consumer of information checks their source. At least see what the source says about themself. It’s good to check further, especially if it’s a serious topic.

Videos are more time consuming than a tweet on X or scanning a news article. I’m much more likely to invest my time to watch a video if the person who posts it gives a brief description or says something about the creator of that video and his credibility.

Just something to think about for 5 seconds or not.

 

[Don Alaska]

There is a group called Ground News that shows bias in everything they cover. It is a paid service though, so not everyone can afford or want it.

Ground News

Top Stories from around you and around the world. Compare how different news publishers frame the same news

ground.news

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

I don't see why one should "trust" some corporate web site with 35 words of content you have to struggle to pick out of a pile of fluff while you fight a full-on Vegas Strip of huckster advertising that pops in, pops, up, pops out, and struggles to harvest every last bit of personal data and browsing history out of you with the massive scripts it has running in the background.

I think the anti-YouTube bias stems from a preferred narrative more than its unfortunate number of crap videos.

 

[Marie Mallory]

Well, I'm still confused. I watch lots pf controversial sites, although mostly we like people kist living their lives on land and water.

 

[Susannah]

There is a group called Ground News that shows bias in everything they cover. It is a paid service though, so not everyone can afford or want it.

Ground News

Top Stories from around you and around the world. Compare how different news publishers frame the same news

ground.news

Thanks, Don. I’m sure your intentions are good. I do have a lot of trusted sources that I use.

And I do sometimes click on your videos but never on Jacob’s.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

People are so afraid that their narratives might crumble!

 

[Axel Slingerland]

Here something I’ve been thinking about lately.

A lot of You Tube videos are posted on this forum. The thing about You Tube is that anyone can get a channel and quite a bit of money can be made with a popular channel. No expertise or qualifications are required to expound on any topic. It’s up to the consumer to check them out and I don’t think most people bother to do that. They should at least do a search on the creator.

I've been telling people almost since YouTube started, it is only an entertainment site. Don't get your news there, get it from a reliable source. Do people listen? Of course not. There are people that talk about things they actually do know about, but they are few and far between. Do a little research on them with a search engine. People with credentials are always going to be verifiable.

It’s good to check the Wikipedia page for the person who made the video as well.

Just about all of the things you mentioned about YouTube also tend to apply to articles posted on what I have always referred to as Whackypedia, taking the differences in media into consideration. Anybody can write anything about anything on there, but at least with YouTube they have to make a channel, and if YouTube (or Google) gets enough complaints about them, they may have their videos deleted or their channel could get cancelled.

A better plan to verify things you see on YouTube is a simple topic search on your favorite search engine. If you come up with no matching or similar stories, chances are it's fake news. But if all the search results are all about the same thing, it could be legit. I say could be because there are no guarantees about accuracy with anything you see on the Internet.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

The "credentialed priesthood" argument is not only incorrect but immature. If you are dumb enough to wallow a steady diet of corporate "journalism" you are looking at the world in a funhouse mirror.

 

[Susannah]

I've been telling people almost since YouTube started, it is only an entertainment site. Don't get your news there, get it from a reliable source. Do people listen? Of course not. There are people that talk about things they actually do know about, but they are few and far between. Do a little research on them with a search engine. People with credentials are always going to be verifiable.


Just about all of the things you mentioned about YouTube also tend to apply to articles posted on what I have always referred to as Whackypedia, taking the differences in media into consideration. Anybody can write anything about anything on there, but at least with YouTube they have to make a channel, and if YouTube (or Google) gets enough complaints about them, they may have their videos deleted or their channel could get cancelled.

A better plan to verify things you see on YouTube is a simple topic search on your favorite search engine. If you come up with no matching or similar stories, chances are it's fake news. But if all the search results are all about the same thing, it could be legit. I say could be because there are no guarantees about accuracy with anything you see on the Internet.

Good comments, Axel.

I do agree with you about Whackypedia but because people can edit I sometimes find info posted there that points out something about the person or topic I’m researching and that’s exactly what happened with the video creator. I took that info from wiki and verified it elsewhere.

More often if it sounds like clickbait or unlikely I just ignore it.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

I'm glad you can spot clickbait, and that you know YouTube is just an entertainment site for the most part. There people there that are well known to present accurate, true information in an unbiased manner, such as...

Nick Zentner, who is a Geology instructor at Central Washington University, is very good at what he does and he records his lectures a lot.
Mike Poland, the Scientist-in-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, who posts accurate monthly short videos on the Yellowstone Hotspot and things happening in the park.
Rick Beato, is a musician, recording engineer and music producer with a very active music related channel.

There's a few others I know of, but three examples is enough.

 

[Susannah]

Thanks for the recommendations, Axel. Yellowstone comes up as a topic in my part of the country so those are useful to me. I’ll mention a couple, as well.

You might already be aware of Andy Ngo. He’s an expert on Antifa and they’re in the news again. He’s had a lot of first hand experience starting in 2020 and has a huge database on the groups in the northwest. You’ll find him on X daily but he’s on YT as well.

Peter Tregos is a practicing attorney in Florida. The Lawyer You Know is the name of his channel. He uses it to teach about law by following high profile trials. He’s fascinated with juries and how they come up with verdicts. Interesting guy.

Lately I’ve been following Tousi TV. This guy is reporting on a lot of the political and war stuff going on in Europe. He seems pretty solid to me but I haven’t followed him long enough to be positive.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

Thanks for the recommendations, Axel. Yellowstone comes up as a topic in my part of the country so those are useful to me. I’ll mention a couple, as well.

Among other places in the region, such as West Yellowstone, Montana and Teton Village, Wyoming, I used to live in the Old Faithful Lodge when I worked at the Old Faithful Inn back in the 1970s when I was "still wet behind the ears", as my Mom used to say. I spent four summers working there. If you want a nice backyard, that's a great place. But sadly, my band couldn't work from there, it was too remote.

You might already be aware of Andy Ngo. He’s an expert on Antifa and they’re in the news again. He’s had a lot of first hand experience starting in 2020 and has a huge database on the groups in the northwest. You’ll find him on X daily but he’s on YT as well.

I do my best to stay away from Antifa and MAGA... Too many screaming wingnuts for my taste.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

I find it interesting to follow quite a few different viewpoints.

This really helps shine a light on how crazy many of them are. People and their "communities" can be found who advocate and justify some truly incredible positions, often entirely missing that many of these range from absurdly impractical to self-destructive.

Some of these are incredibly childish. "Free stuffers" abound, demonstrating incredible levels of ignorance of the world and the economy while displaying levels of laziness that have to be seen to be believed. They often advocate and try to justify gambling as a legitimate path to improving their financial position. This is accompanied by discussions of schemes for extracting handouts and laundering funds intended to help them live above the poverty line into liquid cash they can blow on sports and gambling apps. There is a lot about selling goods via eBay and the like which barely obscure the fact that much of this is stolen goods or medical appliances and drugs obtained by wheedling the system for maximum value.

The amount of quack medicine around products derived from marijuana alone is astounding. But this also extends into harder drugs including prescription opiates.

It has been eye-opening to get a glimpse into the professional victim subculture.