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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]

#81

Post by kristopolous »

pharke wrote: post #79
baking wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who regularly browses their Youtube recommendations knows that the algorithm changed dramatically a few months ago.

They pretty much nerfed it entirely. At least to my eyes, it seems to only "recommend" more videos of exactly the same topic from the same channels more often than not. It used to show videos that were along the same lines as the ones I watched but not necessarily exactly the same topic. It seemed to be better about following somewhat tenuous links between videos that ofter turned up new and interesting channels and…

I honestly think it's designed for infants and toddlers who watch the same videos hundreds of times.

Almost every child I've seen in the past 5 years has had YouTube in their hands.

I would expect all their data points to the idea they should suggest the same video over and over again.

I've also noticed the infants of my friends don't know how and have no interest in skipping the ads.

So long as Google can continue to plausibly claim it's women in their 30s-40s watching the nursery rhyme video (because that's who's logged in), they can continue to rake in the more expensive advertising associated with that demographic.

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

#82

Post by trekrich »

hooande wrote: post #80

I think this study is testing the wrong hypothesis. Their idea is that people get "radicalized" by being recommended extremist content after watching mainstream news videos. ie, fox news -> 911 conspiracy videos. They demonstrate that this doesn't happen often. But the real problem wirh youtube is intra category recommendations. If someone watches one conspiracy video, then their recommendations become all conspiracy…

Heaven forbid if people looked at other ideas than the official narrative! And not all conspiracy theories are far right content! Do you have much bias?!

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

#83

Post by irthomasthomas »

I devised a simple test for this. After the last US election there was some analysis and discussion of Google's youtube recommendations engine which appeared to show a strong bias towards conspiracy videos, which in turn led to videos that generally promoted Trump over Clinton. Now, I'm not American, and don't care who your president is, but it was around this time that I realised youtube's search engine had become pretty useless for me. Since then I only use youtube for watching tutorials or technical talks (and old TV shows that are hard to find elsewhere). I try to avoid the search engine and recommendations altogether.

Ok so that's the why, now what's this simple test? Just search youtube for CERN and note the mix of results. I found that most of the results could be categorised as either pro-science or anti-science/conspiracy. In an ideal world I would expect to see the official CERN channel at the top, followed by sciency videos about CERN, and finally the fringe conspiracy videos about wormholes to other dimensions and such. It's fun to use tor to see how the results vary by country. The last time I did this was 2017, and I don't have the data to hand, but it was roughly 70-80% of results in the first few pages where conspiracy related.

Here's a screenshot of my result in 2017 when I'm logged in. https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/28928495/71557922-...

I just had a quick look now and my first impression is that results have certainly changed and improved, but it's a mixed bag. I will find my old data and update it soon.

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

#84

Post by pixl97 »

taneq wrote: post #69
cirno wrote: post #67

This applies every bit as much to Google's web search as it does YouTube search. I know of many marginalized people targeted by online hate groups that have been smeared with proven-false allegations and doxxed online, and these stalking websites are consistently ranked as the top results in Google search and Google Images search results for their names. Google's AI is clearly trained to recognize and promote controv…

I've been convinced for a while now that Facebook tries to start fights between people of opposite ideology. I'm sure it's just that their algorithms have picked up that pro-skub people are highly likely to reply to anti-skub comments in pro-skub threads (since that was the pattern I was seeing) but it sure comes across as trying to cause drama.

Kind of reminds me of CGP Grey's this video will make you angry.

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

#85

Post by jansan »

hooande wrote: post #80

I think this study is testing the wrong hypothesis. Their idea is that people get "radicalized" by being recommended extremist content after watching mainstream news videos. ie, fox news -> 911 conspiracy videos. They demonstrate that this doesn't happen often. But the real problem wirh youtube is intra category recommendations. If someone watches one conspiracy video, then their recommendations become all conspiracy…

If someone watches one conspiracy video, then their recommendations become all conspiracy videos which inevitably leads to them consuming more and more far right content.

Just in case you didn't know, conspiracy theories aren't an exclusively right wing thing.

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

#86

Post by icebraining »

chrisco255 wrote: post #73
thinkingemote wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To most Europeans the US Democrats are center / right wing. There are no major left wing political parties in the US and no major left wing media outlets.

The left-right paradigm is obviously limited in its scope for explaining the nuanced differences between parties and political movements and especially across international and cultural boundaries.

Still, there's a marked difference between CNN and Jacobin.

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

#87

Post by krapp »

jansan wrote: post #85
hooande wrote: post #80

I think this study is testing the wrong hypothesis. Their idea is that people get "radicalized" by being recommended extremist content after watching mainstream news videos. ie, fox news -> 911 conspiracy videos. They demonstrate that this doesn't happen often. But the real problem wirh youtube is intra category recommendations. If someone watches one conspiracy video, then their recommendations become all conspiracy…

If someone watches one conspiracy video, then their recommendations become all conspiracy videos which inevitably leads to them consuming more and more far right content. Just in case you didn't know, conspiracy theories aren't an exclusively right wing thing.

>Just in case you didn't know, conspiracy theories aren't an exclusively right wing thing.

Exclusively, no. Primarily, yes. At the moment, right-wing extremism is enjoying a global surge in popularity, so that ideology currently dominates conspiracy narratives online, and contributes to their virality.

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

#88

Post by throwaway294072 »

The far-right radicalization effect is well known.

You can test easily with a dedicated account.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-youtube-pulled-these-men-d...

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/sep/18/report-youtube...

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/youtube-conspiracy-radic...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nrz4-FZx6k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P55t6eryY3g

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

#89

Post by Mountain_Skies »

We can keep doing study after study but the kernel of all of this seems to be an inability of certain academics and tech industry titans to understand that not everyone thinks alike them or holds the same values. There is an undercurrent in all of this confusion that if we can just control what others are and hear, we can make them believe the exact same things we believe. Afterall, we are right, they are wrong, so the error must be due to some contamination of their minds by dangerous content. Eliminate access to that content and all will be well. Banning wrong think from YouTube might be good for advertisers and Google's bottom line but it's not going to make thoughts that have been around since the dawn of humanity magically disappear.
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