Videos on Youtube showing the devastating Notre Dame fire were accompanied by fact-boxes debunking conspiracy theories about the September 2001 terror attacks.

Links to an Encyclopedia Britannica article giving the history of the New York 9/11 attacks appeared under videos from news channels. The links were added by Youtube's algorithms responsible for confronting the spreading of conspiracy theories on the video sharing website. But the algorithms identified videos showing the burning spire of the Paris Cathedral as being videos of the terror attack.

YouTube later disabled the panels on videos showing the Notre Dame fire.

YouTube spokesman said: “We are deeply saddened by the ongoing fire at the Notre Dame cathedral. Last year, we launched information panels with links to third-party sources like Encyclopaedia Britannica and Wikipedia for subjects subject to misinformation.

“These panels are triggered algorithmically and our systems sometimes make the wrong call. We are disabling these panels for live streams related to the fire.”