The BBC’s Marianna Sprigg is at it again.

The Orwellian titled ‘specialist disinformation and social media reporter’ notes the ‘concerning’ but unsurprising ‘increase in highly polished videos promoting conspiracy theories being shared on YouTube.

Unsurprising because, according to Sprigg, accurate information shared by trusted public Health bodies ( meaning the WHO and anyone who peddle their narrative ) tends to be more complex than the simple easy to fall for nature of so called ‘conspiracy’ videos.

A gentle way of insulting the intelligence of millions of people who not only seek clarity and understanding in today’s madness, but also seek alternative explanations – something which Sprigg, the BBC and other mainstream media outlets are hell bent on making sure you are not presented with.

It ( the message of trusted public Health Bodies ) lacks ‘the popular appeal’ she says ‘of the conspiracy videos, which give misleading explanations to worried people who are looking for quick answers, or someone to blame.’

Or, I might add, they are seeking alternative information because they doubt what is being peddled by the so called ‘trusted’ health bodies, and their messenger the Ministry of Truth (BBC). Why? Because mainstream journalists have failed to do their honourable duty by reporting unbiased news, providing a platform for all to give their opinions, whilst remaining impartial. It’s a difficult job but can be done.

But of course Sprigg reminds us that we are too stupid to understand the so called trusted health experts, so we ignorantly accept the alternative view because:

‘High-quality production values and interviews with supposed experts can make these videos very convincing. Often facts will be presented out of context and used to draw false conclusions.’

Sorry, I thought you were discussing conspiracy theory videos not Neil Ferguson’s computer model. Which I am still waiting for Susan Wojcicki to remove due to violating community guidelines.

But no.

For Sprigg the quality of production and supposed experts being interviewed ( she names none ) are what convinces our silly little minds in believing silly little things.

It’s not about the videos message. It’s not about the data / evidence that is being displayed. It’s not about our ability to think for ourselves and go on to investigate further if we so wished.

No.

It’s all about the front. The production costs, the snazzy colours, dramatic music and the white coats. Perhaps this is the way Sprigg draws her conclusions ?

To bolster her claim, she does cites a paper titled: ‘YouTube as a source of information on COVID-19: a pandemic of misinformation?’. The paper analysed 69 out of a total of 150 YouTube videos using the keywords ‘coronavirus’ and ‘COVID-19’. They found, surprise, surprise, that:  ‘Over one-quarter of the most viewed YouTube videos on COVID-19 contained misleading information.’

Now, anyone with a university education knows that the deployment of one study isn’t sufficient to support one’s claim; it also needs corroboration and a criticism of any evidence that is contrary to it. But in a graver sense, this single ‘study’ fails, just like Sprigg, to provide a clear definition of what ‘disinformation’ means. Claiming that it is anything that goes against the message of the World Health Organisation, the Centre for Disease Control or any other major public health agency is not a sufficient definition in terms!

A more reliable study would have reported exactly what videos were screened and assessed. It would have recorded exactly, and in context, the sentences, paragraphs and/or phrases that were deemed misinformation and then checked and verified not only against the narrative of major public health agencies, but against the available evidence that is elsewhere. This obviously requires time and a very very meticulous approach to reading and study.

True the authors include some examples ( see Box 1 in their study ). But these examples in themselves are not sufficient since they include out of context statements such as ‘the only way to eat is to be violent’ ( what the hell does that even mean ?! ), as well as flagging up what they believe is non-factual when one could argue that it is in fact factual e.g. ‘the Chinese virus’ – true since this pandemic began in China. (Notice the slight dig at Trump though?)

The lazy reliance on authoritarian sources is not science. We must not assume that authority is correct and therefore not open to question and / or scrutiny. Like everything else, one must always check their sources for validity and investigate further to see if any corroborating and/or contradictory evidence exists. Something that neither Sprigg nor this study did which, in my mind, makes the whole project invalid.

But then what are we to expect from the BBC’s Ministry of Truth?

Certainly not the truth!

Reference to the study: https://gh.bmj.com/content/5/5/e002604#boxed-text-2