YouTube 'mistakenly' links 9/11 with Notre Dame blaze

News outlets began live-streaming broadcasts of the blaze which erupted in the UNESCO world heritage landmark in the French capital on YouTube, but below some of the clips an unusual text box popped up - an entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica about the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States.

In those attacks, Al-Qaeda militants hijacked two passenger planes and flew them into the towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, causing them to collapse, while a third hijacked jet smashed into the Pentagon. Some 3,000 people were killed.

A spokesman for YouTube, which is owned by Google, said the text box feature - which is currently only available to users in the US and South Korea - had been disabled for live streams related to the fire.

"These panels are triggered algorithmically and our systems sometimes make the wrong call," the spokesman told AFP. "We are deeply saddened by the ongoing fire at the Notre-Dame Cathedral."

The feature, which also links to other outside sources such as Wikipedia, was introduced last year after YouTube faced intense criticism over videos containing misleading and extreme content. 

The panels are supposed to combat misleading videos about well-known events - such as the first successful manned landing on the moon - by presenting well-established facts, in a bid to stop the spread of conspiracy theories.

YouTube, Facebook and Twitter came under fire last month after a horrific video of a gunman's deadly rampage at two New Zealand mosques was circulated on the sites. 

The Christchurch massacre, in which 50 people were killed, was live-streamed on Facebook, which moved to block the footage. But it was then shared repeatedly on the other two sites.

Monday's fire in Paris, which at one point threatened the entire edifice, was extinguished on Tuesday - around 15 hours after it first broke out.

Hundreds of people gathered on the bridges of Paris downriver to witness the scene, some filming the images with their smartphones. Meanwhile, millions watched from around the world as the spire and roof of the gothic cathedral collapsed.

Hundreds of millions of euros have been pledged to help rebuild the 850-year-old building.

Two French business magnates, both go which behind many of France's top luxury brands, had pledged about €300m ($339m; £259m) between them by early on Tuesday.

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