The Rise of Flat Eartherism on YouTube

A lot of Flat Eartherism online are not just reading the material but they're creating their own YouTube channels. The fact that people invest real money and their real reputation in this theory is pretty significant. They can often alienate friends and family and at that point I think people who were joking would have realized it's not so funny anymore and disengaged with the theory. So for about five years from 2014 to 2019, YouTube's recommendations heavily promoted Flat Earth until they were able to flip the switch and make those videos a little more obscure.