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YouTube’s Rabbit Hole of Radicalization [pdf]

arxiv.org

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Re: YouTube’s Rabbit Hole of Radicalization [pdf]

#51

Post by jakeogh »

fastball wrote: post #5
minimaxir wrote: post #3

It should be noted that this research was likely published with a specific agenda in mind: https://twitter.com/mark_ledwich/status/1210743217982803970?... > My new article explains in detail. It takes aim at the NYT (in particular, @kevinroose) who have been on myth-filled crusade vs social media. We should start questioning the authoritative status of outlets that have soiled themselves with agendas. From the linked…

Less of an agenda than the aforementioned NYT article. Sure, this research doesn't use 2018 algos, because it's 2019. I guess the NYT and others should've done the research in the first place then. It certainly doesn't invalidate the research - it shows that the claims made by others are probably not accurate in 2019 on YT.

They dont like the competition. https://imgur.com/VUdcIou

Re: YouTube’s Rabbit Hole of Radicalization [pdf]

#52

Post by psandersen »

faizshah wrote: post #23

Difficult to take this analysis seriously when CNN is categorized with The Young Turks as “Partisan Left.” Regardless of what you think of either channel the programming of these two channels is dramatically different. The fact that the tags were manually created by the experimenters and were manually assigned by the experimenters throws the results even more into question.

Its interesting seeing how arbitary all points are along the 'Overton window'; I'm not from the US so CNN strikes me as center right wing, low regulation, anti-union and moderately pro war etc.

This illustrates the danger of ranking everything relatively... if enough people watch infowars like content then every university will be marked as radical left wing etc. There needs to be some way of anchoring the spectrums in actual facts or we're firmly in the 'post truth' era.

Re: YouTube’s Rabbit Hole of Radicalization [pdf]

#53

Post by Tempest1981 »

rapnie wrote: post #43
faizshah wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view it’s a good example of why the manual labeling is flawed as CNN regularly criticizes progressives and airs republican views that TYT then responds to and criticizes CNN for. To categorize them both as “Partisan Left Focused on politics and exclusively critical of Republicans ” is a stark example of why manual labeling of these channels, especially by the two authors and some unnamed person the authors trus…

Note I did not downvote you. These links provide some info on bias of the 2 channels: CNN: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cnn/ TYT: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-young-turks/

Iirc, stations like FoxNews and CNN have (had?) segments of traditional breaking/daily News, and segments that are commentary.

Maybe the lines are now blurred, but it would be interesting to see the amount of bias in the traditional daily News segments. Obviously the commentary segments are much more biased.

Re: YouTube’s Rabbit Hole of Radicalization [pdf]

#54

Post by metamet »

fastball wrote: post #5
minimaxir wrote: post #3

It should be noted that this research was likely published with a specific agenda in mind: https://twitter.com/mark_ledwich/status/1210743217982803970?... > My new article explains in detail. It takes aim at the NYT (in particular, @kevinroose) who have been on myth-filled crusade vs social media. We should start questioning the authoritative status of outlets that have soiled themselves with agendas. From the linked…

Less of an agenda than the aforementioned NYT article. Sure, this research doesn't use 2018 algos, because it's 2019. I guess the NYT and others should've done the research in the first place then. It certainly doesn't invalidate the research - it shows that the claims made by others are probably not accurate in 2019 on YT.

I believe the 2019 algo was dramatically changed recently, meaning that the core of the 2018 algo was present throughout the majority of 2019.

Re: YouTube’s Rabbit Hole of Radicalization [pdf]

#55

Post by sandworm101 »

dfabulich wrote: post #2

For the convenience of those who can't conveniently read a PDF on their current device: > The role that YouTube and its behind-the-scenes recommendation algorithm plays in encouraging online radicalization has been suggested by both journalists and academics alike. This study directly quantifies these claims by examining the role that YouTubes algorithm plays in suggesting radicalized content. After categorizing near…

Whether it works one way or the other, I find what it recommends to me very disturbing.

Example: I'm a former rock climber and am very interested in knot and knot-tying. I watched some vids on hemp ropes, including "braiding" strands of rope. That points me to a video on hair braiding, which I watch as I do find it mildly interesting, a knot system that won't bind into a mess. Now youtube is recommending me very odd videos of little girls doing makeup and gymnastics. And all the static ads are suddenly only dating aps, "find flirty women in your area" junk.

What do I need to watch to get out of this inappropriate category?

Re: YouTube’s Rabbit Hole of Radicalization [pdf]

#56

Post by fruffy »

nothingtos33 wrote: post #31
XPKBandMaidCzun wrote: post #25

I see the term radicalization is being brought up, do we serve ourselves by focusing on superficial presentations that won't be the same in 10 years rather than how similar everyone is: Feeling enlightened, competitive and lack consideration that their perceived "ideological adversary" is every bit vulnerable, needy, and scared as themselves? How is this different from couple's therapy, just at long distances w/ grou…

Youtube recommended this to my son: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4LfJnj66HVQ Please watch it and tell me what you think of it.

What do you mean? Gucci Gang is a pretty well known hip-hop track liked by the "youth". I am not surprised it was recommended to your son since most of his peers probably have watched it.

Re: YouTube’s Rabbit Hole of Radicalization [pdf]

#57

Post by LifeLiverTransp »

war1025 wrote: post #32
Thorentis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CNN and TYT are both partisan left. They both published content showing extreme dismay at the election of Trump. That's fine, they're allowed to do that. This just shows their political bias. The same way Fox was airing pro-Trump things at the same time. This isn't a dispute over whether they are right, just over what type of content they publish. I see no problem putting CNN and TYT on the same side of the political…

I've found the downvotes tend to come from those who believe "reality leans left." I.e. there is no "left" content, because that content is just the truth. And any "right" content should in their view be properly labeled as "wrong" content.

The problem on HN is that some left/right fanatics have automated downvoting. If you antagonize somebody they will set there voting bots on you, to downvote your entire comment history. Until you are dead.

Re: YouTube’s Rabbit Hole of Radicalization [pdf]

#58

Post by pitay »

joe_the_user wrote: post #24

This quote raises questions: "The scraped data, as well as the YouTube API, provides usa view of the recommendations presented to an anonymous account. In other words, the account has not ”watched” any videos, retaining the neutral baseline recommendations, described in further detail by YouTube in their recent paper that explains the inner workings of the recommendation algorithm[38]. One should note that the recomm…

Have the recommendation system mix it up, put niches that are somewhat similar in the recommendations not quite as often, put things a bit further away less often, etc. This should have the algorithm recommend counterpoints which are clearly visible to the user.

This is assuming things that are partisan one way are similar to things that are partisan in the other way and counter partisan content.

Avoid censorship, censorship is too easily abused.

Re: YouTube’s Rabbit Hole of Radicalization [pdf]

#59

Post by js8 »

datashow wrote: post #28
faizshah wrote: post #23

Difficult to take this analysis seriously when CNN is categorized with The Young Turks as “Partisan Left.” Regardless of what you think of either channel the programming of these two channels is dramatically different. The fact that the tags were manually created by the experimenters and were manually assigned by the experimenters throws the results even more into question.

I don't follow your logic. Yes, CNN and TYT are very different. This only means they can be tagged differently, but it doesn't mean they cannot be tagged under same category. For example, The Selfish Gene and Advanced Algebra are two very different books, but they can be both categorized as nonfiction. Maybe you are right with the conclusion, i.e. CNN or TYT should not be both categorized as “Partisan Left,” but you…

I think the more distinct categorization is relevant in this particular paper.

I think TYT is much further left than CNN (to an European, CNN is actually center-right). So, if you want to study whether there is a "funnel" from the center to the (extremist?) left, then you have to distinguish them, otherwise your results will be biased (at the very least, biased towards right-wing extremism).

Second, we don't know if YT recommender treats them differently or not. There is some evidence that it treats "mainstream" channels (i.e. TV stations) differently than "alternative" channels. Whether TYT falls into the latter is not clear.

Re: YouTube’s Rabbit Hole of Radicalization [pdf]

#60

Post by pitay »

khawkins wrote: post #46
on_and_off wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't realized :/. Do you have some examples ? Now that I think about it, I distinctly remember is that at some point Youtube started throwing lots of "it's always sunny in philadelphia" scenes at my face. I am not even angry, I discovered my favorite show this way.

I used to see a heavy dose of my subscribed channels in my recommendations, now only a fraction of them are represented. We're talking channels where I watch nearly every video they post but they won't show up in my recommendations. There's clearly stuff Youtube "likes" and even a naive recommendation engine would perform better.

Same here. That's why I changed a couple of subscribed channels to send me notifications, it puts updates of these channels in the notifications area and sends me an email for every update. The June 2019 change of algorithm was that big and hostile that I had to turn on notifications.
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