A conspiracy theory channel on YouTube with more than 1 million subscribers has published 25 videos in less than 40 days spreading falsehoods and rumors about the incidence of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus in Latin America. The Conciencia Radio channel kept publishing — and people kept watching — false claims even after a fact-checking agency debunked the channel’s content.

YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world, behind only its parent company, Google. In December 2019, the platform announced measures to slow the spread of disinformation and misinformation on its website, such as steering viewers to trustworthy sources when they look for coronavirus-related information. The case of Conciencia Radio, nonetheless, shows that falsehoods about the virus are still being shared on YouTube.

At the time of publishing, more than 95,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in at least 75 countries, leading to over 3,200 deaths, according to public health data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University. In Latin America, Brazil confirmed the first case on February 26, Mexico identified four cases between February 28 and 29, and Ecuador registered its first case on February 29. The YouTube channel Conciencia Radio, meanwhile, started spreading the claims prior to any confirmed infections in Latin America.

More rumors, more views

Conciencia Radio was created in March 2008 by conspiracy theorist Alexander Backman. According to his blog, his interests include alien abductions, chemtrails, the Illuminati, biblical giants, and preparing for End Times. Although the channel’s location is set to the United States, the content has been published in Spanish and appears to target mostly Latin American audiences. The channel has a verification badge, given by YouTube to channels with more than 100,000 subscribers, that identifies the person or organization running the channel.