Joanne Gray

An increasing number of people globally say they avoid the news. But are they avoiding the news or the news media? In a longitudinal ethnographic study of Australian social media users, we repeatedly observed self-identified news avoiders encountering information about major news events, in the form of memes, hot takes, call outs, and comment threads.

We studied YouTube comments posted to Covid-19 news videos featuring Bill Gates and found they were dominated by conspiracy theories. Our results suggest the platform’s comments feature operates as a relatively unmoderated social media space where conspiracy theories circulate unchecked. We outline steps that YouTube can take now to improve its approach to moderating misinformation.