Educational pages (e.g., definitions, research, academic papers), news stories, or other pages that have a beneficial purpose of informing society should not be considered Harmful to Specified Groups. Similarly, historical documents/videos that aim to capture the beliefs of different eras should not be considered Harmful to Specified Groups.
Examples of content that should not be considered Harmful to Specified Groups include: ● A historical documentary of WWII featuring speeches from Nazi leaders ● A stand-up comedy routine that plays off of stereotypes in a way that is not mean-spirited ● A newspaper article about a hate organization ● The dictionary definition of a slur ● A discussion about a particular religious text and its views on women
7.3
Harmfully Misleading Information
Use the Lowest rating for pages that mislead people in ways that can cause harm to people and society. Misleading pages may have been produced with the intent to misinform people, or the content creator may believe that the inaccurate information they are sharing is true. There is an especially high standard for accuracy on YMYL topics or other topics that can cause harm. Be sure to research consequential facts or claims as necessary and to the extent the task time allows. Pages should be considered to contain Harmfully Misleading Information when they contain at least one of the following: ● Harmful and clearly inaccurate information that can easily be refuted by straightforward and widely accepted facts (e.g., false claims that a world leader has died, misleading or false statistics on gun violence, etc.) ● Harmful claims that contradicts well-established expert consensus (e.g., claims that lemons cure cancer), with expert consensus defined as a set of positions, facts, or findings that are widely agreed upon by authorities in the relevant field (e.g., widely-adopted medical guidelines, an investigative report put forth by a relevant watchdog group, etc.) ● Harmful unsubstantiated theories/claims not grounded in any reasonable facts or evidence, especially those that could erode confidence in public institutions. This includes unsubstantiated theories that have either been thoroughly debunked (e.g., the 9/11 attacks were planned by the United States government) or are too outlandish to be given credence (e.g., several world leaders are lizard people). Harmfully Misleading Information can occur from any websites or content creators - even seemingly "expert", "authoritative" or "official" ones. Any type of page with Harmfully Misleading Information should be rated Lowest, regardless of source. However, note that some types of information are subjective, debatable, unverifiable, or inconsequential. For example, pages should not be considered to contain Harmfully Misleading Information if they exclusively contain: ● Non-YMYL content created with a clear entertainment purpose, containing no hard claims of factual accuracy and are not harmful to people or society. Examples include many types of fiction, satire or parody, astrology, folklore, myths, and urban legends. ● Reviews expressing personal preferences, opinions, or value-based judgments about a product, restaurant, book/movie/TV show, etc. ● Claims or statements that are reasonably debatable when there is not a single established correct answer or truth (e.g., discussions about the relative effectiveness of different healthcare systems) ● Insignificant errors or inaccurate information about a trivial topic (e.g., inaccuracies in the height of a celebrity) Pages that aim to persuade others that a certain position or perspective is correct are fairly common on the Internet. Pages with one-sided/opinionated/controversial/polarizing content should not be considered to contain Harmfully Misleading Information unless they could create harm to individuals or Specified Groups (as described above) and contain clearly inaccurate information, contradict well-established expert consensus, or are not grounded by reasonable facts/evidence.
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