Proposals to change recommendations and curb conspiracies were sacrificed for engagement, staff say.

Illustration: Graham Roumieu
By Mark Bergen
Updated on
A year ago, Susan Wojcicki was on stage to defend YouTube. Her company, hammered for months for fueling falsehoods online, was reeling from another flare-up involving a conspiracy theory video about the Parkland, Florida high school shooting that suggested the victims were “crisis actors.”