Analyzing Disinformation and Crowd Manipulation Tactics on YouTube

YouTube, since its inception in 2005, has grown to become largest online video sharing website. It's massive user-base uploads videos and generates discussion by commenting on these videos. Lately, YouTube, akin to other social media sites, has become a vehicle for spreading fake news, propaganda, conspiracy theories, and radicalizing content. However, lack ineffective image and video processing techniques has hindered research on YouTube. In this paper, we advocate the use of metadata in identifying such malicious behaviors. Specifically, we analyze metadata of videos (e.g., comments, commenters) to study a channel on YouTube that was pushing content promoting conspiracy theories regarding World War III. Identifying signals that could be used to detect such deviant content (e.g., videos, comments) can help in stemming the spread of disinformation. We collected over 4,145 videos along with 16,493 comments from YouTube. We analyze user engagement to assess the reach of the channel and apply social network analysis techniques to identify inorganic behaviors.