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YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

nytimes.com

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Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#111

Post by losvedir »

im3w1l wrote: post #94

If I understand the methodology correctly, he built a spider that recursively followed all outgoing recommendations. He was able to find fringe content when starting with mainstream content. But is that so strange? I remember playing the "Hitler wikipedia game" where you start on a random page and try to find the Hitler page with the minimum number of clicks and it's typically possible to get there in a handful of cl…

This is a good point. It seems plausible to me that a recommendation algorithm should "feel out" a user by putting a variety of options in the sidebar.

What I don't totally understand is how it determines the directed nature of the recommendation graph, and how the destinations are labeled. What does it mean to "end up" at "alt right" videos? Do the recommendations have to exclusively lean right or just mostly? What about higher vs lower recommendations? If there are recommendation patterns that go left but don't end up in a tight loop are they considered somehow? There could also be some dependence from the chosen starting video / topic. I'd be curious to see the results from a variety of starting points.

Basically, it's an interesting exploration but I'd like to see it with the rigor of a peer reviewed paper, more than just the NYT.

Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#112

Post by zimablue »

You have to remember that these articles are to some extent manual stitchers writing critiques of the sewing machine. The newspapers are what is getting killed by new media, and honestly they deserve it. They've had an oligopoly on pushing their agenda for a long time, and it's hurt people (eg. beating the war drums for Iraq, leaving the American people objectively misinformed). There are criticisms to make but these people are not the ones to make them.

Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#113

Post by krapp »

abhiminator wrote: post #107
krapp wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's as if YouTube forgets about your previously viewed videos and channels, and tunnel-visions you into watching content around your most recently viewed single video. Which, if your primary concern is maximizing engagement, makes perverse sense. Viewers are more likely to be attracted to content similar to what they just watched than content they watched less recently. Edit: I just realized the opposite might be t…

>primary concern is maximizing engagement, makes perverse sense. I agree. But considering online platforms have, more or less, become de facto town squares, it's no longer responsible for a tech company to ruthlessly optimize for user engagement at the cost of stability of democracy.

There appears a conflict of interest for those platforms because they don't intend to act as de facto town squares... they are businesses, and arguably don't have an obligation to anything but profit, regardless of their popularity or ubiquity.

Despite this, their nature as "town squares" affects the market whether they want it to or not. If enough viewers disengage because of their their ruthless tactics, or change their behavior in ways that don't fit their algorithm, that creates a business case for more ethical behavior... which would probably be more compelling to them than an argument for preserving the social fabric or democracy.

Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#114

Post by deltron3030 »

dnomad wrote: post #108
pas wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate please on the atheist community going extreme? Regarding the recommendation algorithm: it's utter bullcrap. The simplest and dumbest collaborative filtering for category and popularity system that they can get away with. Yet it works. YT is addictive.

> Could you elaborate please on the atheist community going extreme? I read a paper on this some time ago... and now can't find it. There are many blog entries that discuss the evolution of the Skeptic community and the whole anti-SJW out there but can't find the actual researcher who was quantifying this using YouTube data.

[flagged]

Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#116

Post by benbenolson »

abhiminator wrote: post #96

> Users searching for news on Chemnitz would be sent down a rabbit hole of misinformation and hate. And as interest in Chemnitz grew, it appears, YouTube funneled many Germans to extremist pages, whose view counts skyrocketed. As a long time YouTube user, I've noticed this myself. The starting video doesn't even have to be extreme. For example, watching a 5-minute daily news video on Fox News channel primes YouTube's…

1791L? How is that an "extreme position?"

Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#117

Post by benbenolson »

Alex3917 wrote: post #5

See also Danah Boyd's talk on how media literacy classes push some students toward extremism. The gist is that schools have been promoting programs where students are taught not to take what they see in the media at face value, and to go Google/YouTube it for themselves. Which, because of the sorts of things discussed in this article, results in a certain percentage of students becoming radicalized and basically (or…

> We should all blindly trust what news articles tell us, otherwise we risk becoming Nazis.

I search facts behind news articles all the time, but never find anything even closely related to the Third Reich. Am I doing it wrong?

Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#118

Post by claydavisss »

benbenolson wrote: post #116
abhiminator wrote: post #96

> Users searching for news on Chemnitz would be sent down a rabbit hole of misinformation and hate. And as interest in Chemnitz grew, it appears, YouTube funneled many Germans to extremist pages, whose view counts skyrocketed. As a long time YouTube user, I've noticed this myself. The starting video doesn't even have to be extreme. For example, watching a 5-minute daily news video on Fox News channel primes YouTube's…

1791L? How is that an "extreme position?"

Right...very few people seem able to differentiate "radical" views with views they merely oppose.

What does "radical" even mean? Opinions that are not part of the present consensus? How is society supposed to evolve?

A society that cannot express "radical" views with society's support may eventually express these ideas violently. The downvote button only works for so long.

Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#119

Post by pjc50 »

b0rsuk wrote: post #23

This was addressed more broadly in "We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads" by Zeynep Tufekci on TED. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15891014 She remarked that Youtube's recommendation system invariably pushes people towards more extreme views on anything , not just politics. Interested in vegetarianism? Here's something about veganism. She has a hypothesis it works this way because the goal…

As has been pointed out, in lots of areas a "balanced" view doesn't make sense. I'm reminded of the judgement of Solomon dictating that, to settle a dispute between two women as to whom a baby belonged to, it should be cut in half and they be given half each. For a lot of social issues, being given the midpoint solution is like being given half a baby.

"All humans are created equal and endowed with rights" is a radical proposition which we are still working out all the implications of after several hundred years; any deviation from that (ie "some humans are intrinsically (not as a result of their actions) inferior") starts you down the road of partitioning society and justifying worse and worse treatment of those deemed inferior.

Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#120

Post by DanBC »

pmorici wrote: post #83
yesenadam wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, I and, I assumed the OP was talking about America since the statement that there aren't any leftist extremist groups is obviously untrue if you look at it from a world wide perceptive. That section on Wikipedia absolutely lists the left wing extremism that was common in America from the 1960's to the 1980's. I didn't look into the source of the stat listed there. But the point still stands, left wing extremism h…

Sorry, I thought it was obvious I was talking about active groups killing people today, and not about no longer active groups killing people in the previous century.
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