2.4: Social Media as an Amplifier of Hate and Lies

Social media functions as a double-edged sword. While it has expanded opportunities for civic engagement and collective action, it has also become a primary infrastructure for the rapid spread of misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech—intensifying polarization and placing democratic systems under strain. In some contexts, these dynamics have contributed to offline harms, including ethnic violence, religious conflict, and hate crimes. The case of Alex Jones is among the most visible in the United States, but he represents only one of many actors who exploit platform logics to amplify falsehoods at scale.

YouTube has been criticized as a hotbed of misinformation. Creator Shane Dawson—who began posting comedy videos in 2008 and amassed more than 20 million subscribers—released a 104‑minute film in January 2019 titled Conspiracy Theories with Shane Dawson, compiling numerous false claims. Among them: iPhones secretly record every user’s voice; children’s TV includes subliminal messages encouraging suicide; and California wildfires were arson plots for insurance fraud. None were true, yet within six months, 30 million people had watched the video. Dawson also flirted with theories that the Earth is flat and the Apollo 11 moon landing was staged.

Controversy also centers on YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, a key to its success. By learning user preferences and suggesting related videos, it can gradually push viewers toward increasingly extreme content — the so-called “rabbit hole.” Critics argue this dynamic has made YouTube one of the most radicalizing forces of the 21st century (Liu et al., 2025; Yesilada, 2022).

In South Korea, concerns have mounted that fake news has “taken over” YouTube. A 2018 editorial in The Hankyoreh warned that far-right agitation and fabricated stories were surging because provocative content drives subscriptions and revenue (The Hankyoreh, 2018). According to a nationwide survey by the Korea Press Foundation, a large majority of users—87%—reported that fake news on YouTube constituted a “very serious” social problem (KBS World, 2021). More recent research also documents how online misinformation networks continue to evolve and intensify within the South Korean media ecosystem (Sheehy, 2025).

As conspiracy theories increasingly produce real-world harm, Silicon Valley companies have come under heightened scrutiny. In the United States, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields internet platforms from liability for most user-generated content. Critics argue that platforms frequently hide behind this “neutral intermediary” status while failing to curb harmful or extremist material (Hughes & Lipschultz, 2021; Force v. Facebook, 2019).

In 2019, YouTube announced that it would remove thousands of videos and channels promoting white supremacy and other extremist ideologies under a strengthened hate-speech policy (Dwoskin, 2019). Around the same time, Facebook banned multiple extremist figures and organizations—including Alex Jones, Louis Farrakhan, and Milo Yiannopoulos—from Facebook and Instagram, citing their promotion of hateful or violent ideologies (Faulconbridge & Paul, 2019). Facebook defended the move by stating, “We have always banned those who promote violence and hate,” but many analysts argued the actions were too little, too late, given the platform’s long-standing amplification of harmful content (Faulconbridge & Paul, 2019).

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