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The Making of a YouTube Radical

nytimes.com

61–70 of 169 posts

Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical

#61
post #19

Earlier 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 don't think most of the people I listed are tame, I think they're "hard liberal" or "hard libertarian." One of the problems is that there are really 3 camps in most western countries at this point. There is

1.) the authoritarian left, which prioritizes racial and gendered identity, collectivism, equity, all facilitated by the state.

2.) the anti-authoritarian liberal, which prioritizes individual liberty, universality under the law, accountability and self-determination.

3.) the authoritarian right, which prioritizes tradition and national identity.

An extreme person in any of these camps would not result in "great people." I do not think that the left's collectivization of society along racial and gendered lines is "great." I do not think the left's conviction in its moral superiority and subsequent willingness to censor and deplatform is "great." I do not think that the left's disassociation of merit and value in pursuit of arbitrary equity is "great." These are very dangerous things. Radical leftism is responsible for tens of millions of deaths.

Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical

#63
post #19

Earlier 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.

both sides are bad, the US president said so

Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical

#64

This piece of "journalism" is very biased towards the left. I have noticed that the left has increasingly declared traditional right-wing values as "extremist" or "alt-right" to attempt to whittle down what being right-wing means. An example of this is abortion. No matter how you feel about it, saying that abortion is murder and should be banned is now, in the NYT's opinion, "alt-right" and "extremist" even though ab…

I was struck by the apparent bias of the article. Not until the very end did the author note that the “right-wing rabbit hole” is not the only dangerous rabbit hole to be found on YouTube.

[flagged]

Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Agreed. However, at the same time, this happens with almost _everything_ on YouTube. I bet you 5 Fake Bitcoins that if you watch a lot of Left-leaning videos from NYT, Vox, and others, that you will be in your own rabbit hole.

As a left leaning person, absolutely! I viewed a few of hbomberguy's tamer videos, next thing you know I've got videos with commenters suggesting we bust out the guillotines. But hey, thats what gets the eyeballs and the ad revenue flowing!

Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical

#66
post #58
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes. Is that what you wanted me to say?

Also, don't flamebait like this.

Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical

#67

Quick 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?

I think there is a fundamental difference though. At some point the far right will start to promote really hateful messages such as anti-gay, anti-jew, anti-woman, etc. At the far left end, on the other hand, the hate is stared at the capitalist system and public figures benefiting from it.

Far left is just as dangerous as far right. Just google how many deaths can be attributed to far left ideologies (communism, marxism, etc.)

Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical

#68
post #58
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because the deep-right youtubers are white supremacists?

Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical

#69

> 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…

I don't see whats wrong about suggesting videos to users that they like to watch.

I see it from both sides. I love browsing youtube and finding relevant suggestions, I can kill hours of time clicking and watching. However I sometimes feel like a victim of some kind of manipulation. Youtube has incredible power to persuade you down certain paths (in the pursuit of maximizing # of views).

I think there is a difference here compared to other platforms: they slowly nudge you down paths of interest and you willingly oblige in watching it. And if you have lost interest in a subject, don't worry, it will pop up on your home page sooner or later, dangling it above your head "still interested? come over here, click on me!".

Sure I paint a sinister picture, perhaps it is exaggerated, but I truly believe that google knows more about me than everyone that I know personally, and maybe even myself. That is scary. If they combines all this information across their platforms, they are in possession of an incredibly accurate profile of myself. If they use this profile to suggest videos, I suppose it may not be as harmful as I have stated, but what if they were to use it for other purposes in the future? This is my greatest fear.

Re: The Making of a YouTube Radical

#70
post #56
post #44

While 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?

I haven't watched Stefan Molyneux or thunderf00t, so can't tell.

I've watched a few Paul Joseph Watson videos. I've also watched Shapiro, Milo, and Peterson, recognized from the screenshots shown. You can agree or disagree with the positions they take (e.g. Milo plays the extravagant provocateur for laughs and money), but where are those "conspiracy theories"?

Of course in these days, everything is labeled a "conspiracy theory" too. I keep the term for things involving the illuminati and aliens.

Regular corporatist interests and politicians conspire all the time -- the more open version is called lobbying.

Heck, politics is all about conspiring (including very covertly spy-shit, Nixon-Watergate like) against other parties and ideologies...

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