so as misinformation spreads about the coronavirus it's also a growing concern for the science community overall anti science videos are easily accessible on the Internet and some schools and both public and private are making it tougher to actually separate fact from fiction so the newest CBS n originals episode adam Yamaguchi takes a look at how politics religion and social media are driving distrust and what's being done to fight it here's a preview what's the endgame here what is your goal world domination sense that no critical mass what has happened is we have been skewing younger
and younger I have been introduced to more families over the last 12 months than I have in the previous three years once the kids start talking about it if you can get it's like holy you're in the platter I think that eventually because we're skewing younger and younger I think it will be taught in schools I guess you need your papers from yesterday and a pencil so how can I identify misleading information when you're talking about misinformation and fake experts in a classroom for sixth graders it's been a while since I've been in a classroom
right but it's shocking that kids are having to navigate and that kind of a world and I think for me that's the thing that's to me that's what I need to do for them it's more than not so much just the science but it is how to navigate this world that's changing in that way because of you they have this skill to be able to find when somebody's misleading them with like a political ad or if somebody is misleading them with you know any kind of you know pseudoscience you know anti backs or Flat Earth
or anything like that that's that's going around right now so it's it's a survival skill in this day and age all right cbsn originals correspondent and executive producer Adam Yamaguchi is joining me now Adam I think this is sort of the great irony of the information age that we have access to more information than we've ever had before and as a result the concept of a fact has become something movable and and mutable and you know it's not a single thing anymore when it was like it was when we could you know go to the
Encyclopedia Britannica and there it was Pluto is a planet or it's not a planet now we don't know and so now part of the curriculum you show us a sixth grade teacher trying to teach kids how to differentiate between fact and fiction how do you do that I know adults they can't figure that out yeah I mean washing back that video hearing it back it brings chills you know through my spine because it's it's insane that this is something that is having to be taught at a young age but you know it's important because kids
you know when parents are away when teachers are away what a kids have to have YouTube and there's a wealth of information a lot of misinformation and you pointed out one of the great ironies of today is just that it's never been there's never been an easier time to doubt signs or to poke holes and signs or or or politics or any of anything else if you if you want to believe something else and and that's what's at the root of this there are there are actors online who are willfully spreading misinformation knowing that it's
misinformation but knowing that there's a huge audience for it and and so you've created a an ecosystem where everything is sort of equally based and and one of the one of the issues that we've seen on YouTube is that the recommendation engines just gear people towards this content this novel and thought-provoking content and it and it creates a sort of a feedback loop create more and more believers as you go now some of those algorithms have been tweaked as of late there's a lot of controversy over this there's been a lot of pressure put on
YouTube and Facebook to change that but the information is out there and people are looking for it so I understand you know it's challenging for government to regulate this sort of stuff because it's free speech right so you have to kind of put the pressure on these these tech companies to do what they can but what are the real-world consequences of the dissemination of this misinformation right well we're seeing it play out in many ways every single day today with the spread of the corona virus I mean panic widespread panic is probably one of the
greatest dangers to come out of all of this you know masks or shortages and whatnot you don't want to create a mass hysteria and and there is at this moment there is a lot of misinformation flowing online and you can kind of understand it you know people are looking for answers or seeking out answers they perhaps are suspicious of government but those are these sort of entry points for these conspiracy theorists to really really spread yeah yeah I know I am forever sort of flabbergasted and disappointed and how unsophisticated very intelligent people can be about
the information that they see on the Internet I see a lot of stuff being read by people who I consider smart so this why this documentary is so important Adam thank you so much all right so you can stream this latest CBS n originals episode right here right now any time just head to CBS news.com slash anti-science
