Artificial intelligence (AI) has been spreading false information online through videos targeted at children.

A team of journalists from the BBC found that YouTube videos pretending to feature “educational content” are actually featuring content that is deliberately misleading and false.

Videos found on more than 50 YouTube channels were spreading disinformation to young people. This sort of information presents itself as fact, but is actually fake. 

The videos were being made to appeal to children by promoting themselves as good STEM (Science Technology Engineering Maths) tools. YouTube was also recommending them alongside real educational videos, making it very difficult to tell the difference between them.