The conspiracy theorists cashing in on YouTube’s algorithms

He is thought to have amassed “around £45,000” in donations through his conspiracy website as well as through funding campaigns on CrowdJustice, while other fundraisers set up for Stop New Normal are worth “at least £3,700”.

An investigation by The Independent also found that Spotify, Apple and YouTube have all distributed podcasts featuring Corbyn “during which he shares mistruths” and calls the pandemic a “hoax”. 

William Coleshill

A former Tory councillor in Enfield, north London, Coleshill is now is edior-in-chief of Resistance GB, a conspiracy theory-peddling news platform that was instrumental in distributing videos of Starmer being mobbed in Westminster.

Footage of the incident bearing the Resistance GB logo is “being shared widely across anti-vaccine social media networks and beyond” said The Guardian. On Telegram, a social media platform used by many far-right activists, a post showing the video was viewed 90,000 times in less than 24 hours. 

Coleshill was suspended from the Conservative Party in 2018 for making “racist remarks” about a Labour colleague, reported the Enfield Independent. 

The Independent reported in October that Coleshill also recorded himself chasing Michael Gove through Whitehall, demanding: “How do you justify the illegal lockdowns that have been pushed on this country?” According to The Guardian, he has also “confronted” Labour MP Jess Phillips and the BBC journalist Nick Watt.

Remeece

Edward Freeman, an anti-lockdown rapper who goes by the stage name of Remeece, made headlines after he toured UK schools “blasting his anti-vaccine anthem Don’t Tek Di Vaccine to pupils outside school gates”, said The Observer. 

A video on his YouTube channel features the lyrics: “You’re injecting who? We’re taking our kids out of school, Pfizer you’re a big dirty fool, Try to walk a mile in my shoes, Footsoldiers we don’t watch the news, Burn down tyrannical rules.”

The monetised video has been watched almost 20,000 times, “alongside advertising from companies including Smile Direct Club, the orthodontic company”, said The Times.

The Observer reported that his songs are being “actively promoted” to Spotify users in “playlists generated by its content recommendation engine”.

Some songs had references to other conspiracy theories, “including claims that satanic paedophiles run the world, and that the Sandy Hook school shooting in the US, which left 26 dead, was a hoax”.

Spotify removed several of the songs that had been flagged by the paper, which it said breached rules banning content that promotes “dangerous, false, or deceptive content about Covid-19” that may pose a threat to public health. 

Article source: https://www.theweek.co.uk/covid-19/955757/conspiracy-theorists-cashing-in-youtube-algorithms