I don’t need YouTube or any other media service nannying me with annoying messages pointing out facts of which I am already aware. That’s nearly as rant-inducing as having ads rammed down your throat which is why I subscribe to YouTube Premium. Also, it’s bad enough having the state plaster warning labels on food products that contain high amounts of ingredients that we all love and indulge in, without YouTube et al assuming the mantle of protectors.
I believe these irritating context panels were introduced during the pandemic when misinformation about Covid 19 was rife, so I would counter that if we are stupid enough to drink bleach or indeed, inject ourselves with household cleaning products, we’ve only got ourselves to blame. Are we really that stupid? Sadly, some people are, but I digress…
This morning I woke up feeling a tad groggy with symptoms of a cold coming on, or could that be the infamous man flu? Anyway, my usual morning routine is to brew a huge mug of strong tea and scan the news on my shiny new laptop in the peace of the kitchen at around 6 am. So, bearing in mind recent events in the USA, YouTube’s creepy algorithm recommended Jonathan Pie’s take on the aforementioned events in America, so I clicked on it. I must stress here that, although I really enjoy watching the wit of Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, and Jon Stewart, the raucous laughter and cued clapping, very often drown out what the host is saying, which drives me nuts. But back to Mr. Pie, who I watch because he is usually outside the UK parliament and thus without an irritating studio audience and about thirty seconds into his rant, entitled Trump 2.0: A New World Order, I spotted the topical context panel with a link to a Wikipedia page:
The New World Order is a term used in several conspiracy theories which hypothesize a secretly emerging totalitarian world government.
Well thanks, YouTube, for pointing out what I already knew and didn’t need to be reminded of or nannied about in a manner that implies that we are all so stupid that we are unable to carry out our own fact-checking. It also probably escaped the algorithm’s notice that the title of the video is attention-grabbing and most likely, very tongue-in-cheek, so surely it’s up to us to draw our own conclusions on that score?
There’s no denying that there is more disinformation than ever before flying around today, and with AI on the rise, it’s often hard to distinguish fact from fantasy. But have we all become such utter dorks that we need our hands held at every step? Well clearly today was not the day to get my gander up ( I still feel like shite) and after a quick search, I found an extension on the Chrome Web Store that removes the topical context panel forever until the end of time, so I immediately added it to Opera and sanity has been restored.
What’s hilarious is that the Web Store page for this extension shows several screenshots pertaining to a flat earth conference with a topical context panel reminding us that in fact, the Earth is not flat or shaped like a plane or disk, adding that it’s a concept that has been scientifically disproven.
Really?
May God help us!
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