Can Wikipedia really fight YouTube's conspiracy theories?

From 9/11 to Moon Landing to recent Florida school shooting, there are hundreds of ludicrous videos on YouTube spreading misinformation, propaganda and fake news. The case in point is the most recent Florida school mass shooting, after which the top trending video on YouTube depicted the shooting as a staged one and suggested survivor David Hogg was an actor.

Though the video was pulled later, it had already done the damage. Now to fight this sort of misinformation, YouTube will display additional information from Wikipedia in an effort to flag such conspiracy theories.

YouTube CEO, Susan Wojcicki announced the new feature, which she called "information cues," during a talk at the ongoing South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. For example, a video calling into question whether humans have ever landed on the moon might be accompanied by the official Wikipedia page about the Apollo Moon landing in 1969. Wojcicki said the feature will only include conspiracy theories right now that have "significant debate" on the platform.

There are two problems with this approach. Firstly, Wikipedia that will be deployed as a saviour did not know about the plan and secondly it is not clear how can collaboratively-edited online encyclopedia Wikipedia help during breaking news events. Also, can't conspiracy theorists take it upon themselves to try to edit what Wikipedia says on the relevant topics.

Even Wikipedia acknowledges it’s not best equipped to handle breaking news events: “Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a newspaper ... as a result, our processes and principles are designed to work well with the usually contemplative process of building an encyclopaedia, not sorting out the oft-conflicting and mistaken reporting common during disaster and other breaking news events.”

Though YouTube's thought may be commendable, the problem to too complex and nuanced to have a clear cut solution in Wikipedia.