So long as advertising revenue rules everything around me, I don't see this problem going away. Whether it's addictive right-wing videos or addictive left-wing videos, websites like YouTube will always prioritize "engagement" and adviews over safe and neutral and boring and reliable. Good times...
The Making of a YouTube Radical
51–60 of 169 posts
Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see whats wrong about suggesting videos to users that they like to watch.
Same. There is this pessimist view that Google is evil. In my life, Google is the single best entity I'm aware of. Incredible amounts of free stuff that makes my life better. Any addiction to their platform has been due to bliss.
Should have named yourself "totallydontworkatgoogle."
Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical
#53> Google Brain’s researchers wondered if they could keep YouTube users engaged for longer by steering them into different parts of YouTube, rather than feeding their existing interests. And they began testing a new algorithm that incorporated a different type of A.I., called reinforcement learning. > The new A.I., known as Reinforce, was a kind of long-term addiction machine. It was designed to maximize users’ engage…
> It saddens me that so many of our smartest engineers are working on stuff like this. Does it sadden you if it's instead worded as "The entertainment platform worked on improving their promoted content selection to prevent users from getting bored". Really, we can have a discussion about ML algorithms running wild and achieving far different results than intended, but trying to exploit every angle for the sake of th…
> "The entertainment platform worked on improving their promoted content selection to prevent users from getting bored".
This summary crucially omits that the platform's goal was not to prevent users from getting bored, it was to make more money. They were optimizing for time spent watching ads, not user experience.
I'll refrain here from passing judgment either way, but it's an important clarification to make.
Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Paul Joseph Watson (prisonplanet) is the most conspiratorial of the anti-left, he works for InfoWars. There are plenty of anti-left (a more apt term, as many are liberal/libertarian) that add quite a bit to the conversation. Karen Straughan, 1791L, Sam Harris, Janice Fiamengo, Brett/Eric Weinstein, sometimes Jordan Peterson, Independent Man, Computing Forever, ShortFatOtaku, Asian Capitalists, among others.
sure and there's other tamer lefttube people like Jenny Nicholson, Lindsay Ellis, etc. I was comparing hard to hard. "Hard left" youtube seem to be great people, whereas "hard right" youtube is utter trash. One has to stretch "both sides are bad" to great extremes to pretend that the problem is intractable.
>I was comparing hard to hard. "Hard left" youtube seem to be great people, whereas "hard right" youtube is utter trash.
Or you know, that's a version of "everyone I agree with is good, everyone I disagree with is Hitler".
Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a fan of all of those YouTubers, but quite a few of the big ones (i.e. Crowder, Shapiro, Peterson) detest racism, and have openly and many times said that they do not support white supremacy and think Nazis are racist morons. Someone asked why neo-Nazis were attending one of their conferences, and the speaker (Peterson) said he had no idea and wanted them to leave for being idiots. Doesn't change the fact tha…
> but quite a few of the big ones (i.e. Crowder, Shapiro, Peterson) detest racism ... Yes, but the YT recommendation algorithm doesn't know that, and even if it could know it wouldn't care. It's enough to watch a few IDW (Intellectual Dark Web) videos, the system will assume that you want racist, far-right, etc. content and that's what will pop up in your recommendations and "Up Next" video plays. That's an entirely…
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Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical
#56While there are lots of "far right" channels out there, the majority of of the channels shown as screenshots have nothing to do with the "far right" or conspiracy theories. Looks like their main crime is being conservative.
I just scrolled down the screenshot section where it showed the videos he watched in one time period, are you really trying to say Stefan Molyneux, Paul Joseph Watson, thunderf00t and a lady complaining about "cuckservatives" aren't "far right" or conspiracy theorists?
Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical
#57While there are lots of "far right" channels out there, the majority of of the channels shown as screenshots have nothing to do with the "far right" or conspiracy theories. Looks like their main crime is being conservative.
A far cry from the conservatives of my time, hence the "alt" label. As the article mentions, how much discussion of a balanced budget is there in any of these videos? Do you think someone like former Senator McCain or Romney would be watching these? It's all about race and sex and identity issues.
Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical
#58Quick Question: You are worried about right-ring rabbit holes, NYT. If I watched a bunch of NYT, Vox, and other such videos, are you _sure_ I wouldn't be sucked into a Left-wing rabbit hole?
You're trying to make a "both sides" argument about this: a "left-wing rabbit hole" is not equivalent to a "right-wing rabbit hole" in terms of content. There is no cosmic balance between left-wing and right-wing. What are the consequences of the left-wing rabbit hole vs the right-wing rabbit hole? Not all viewpoints are equal or even valid.
>You're trying to make a "both sides" argument about this: a "left-wing rabbit hole" is not equivalent to a "right-wing rabbit hole" in terms of content.
Really? Why? Because conservative/right = bad, and liberal/left = good?
Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also a very misleading and dishonest journalism, as many of YouTubers displayed in the final stages have nothing to do with the alt-right.
I'm not a fan of all of those YouTubers, but quite a few of the big ones (i.e. Crowder, Shapiro, Peterson) detest racism, and have openly and many times said that they do not support white supremacy and think Nazis are racist morons. Someone asked why neo-Nazis were attending one of their conferences, and the speaker (Peterson) said he had no idea and wanted them to leave for being idiots. Doesn't change the fact tha…
> I think the problem here is that they support some policies which white supremacists, as a group, also like supporting. Just because two groups can agree on something doesn't mean those groups are allies.
I'm probably going to bleed karma for this, but whatever - I think Trump's campaign had the same problem. I don't believe he's explicitly a white supremacist or that he wanted the support of neo-nazis, if for no other reason than that would be a stupid move politically, but for whatever reason neo-nazis seem to consider him their champion.
Likely in part it's a combination of his antagonistic (politically incorrect) demeanor and his populist rhetoric, but also (just to put it out there) the Republicans and Tea Party have been sort of low-key courting favor with racists for years, so there were already plenty in the base to begin with, they just needed to find their anti-establishment dark horse.
Even if they're less "white supremacist supporting" as "white supremacist supported," that's still a problem. They still feed on and profit from that element.
Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical
#60I closed out of the article at the suggestion that the likes of Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, and Dave Rubin are "radicalizing" anyone. The New York times is such unbelievable garbage.
Joe Rogan and Dave rubin just have casual chats with stefan molyneux on their shows where they give him attention and let him just talk. They just give a platform to a literal white supremacist.