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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]

#91

Post by corey_moncure »

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…

The 9/11 event is by definition the outcome of a conspiracy. The parties to the conspiracy and the methods employed are where some disagree with the official analysis. Regardless of your political stance, do your fellow human beings a credit and acknowledge that it wouldn't be the first time a government lied to it's people and it won't be the last.

Also it's kind of a weird take that extremism == far right. It seems like far left would be included, again as a matter of definition.

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

#92

Post by golergka »

pjc50 wrote: post #66
pitay wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, ce…

We should not classify "refusal to ever recommend X because you know X to be untrue or defamatory" as censorship.

It's not censorship, but this position makes you not simply a neutral platform, but an opinionated editor.

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

#93

Post by Mountain_Skies »

psandersen wrote: post #52
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…

CNN, along with most media companies, seems to be more pro-conflict than anything else.

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

#94

Post by pjc50 »

golergka wrote: post #92
pjc50 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should not classify "refusal to ever recommend X because you know X to be untrue or defamatory" as censorship.

It's not censorship, but this position makes you not simply a neutral platform, but an opinionated editor.

The platform is not and cannot be neutral; they necessarily remove porn and copyright infringing material, plus whatever they are legally obliged to do in various countries. An endless series of judgement calls.

Moreover, we're talking about the recommendation algorithm. The only neutral recommendation algorithm is a random number generator. Everything else is making a decision that video X is "better" than video Y for user Z. What it means to be "better" is difficult to analyse, but Google themselves must be constantly reviewing that question.

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

#95

Post by gherkinnn »

shadowgovt wrote: post #42
motohagiography wrote: post #12

Does Youtube radicalize? Edward Snowden made an observation during his Joe Rogan interview that compartmentalization within the CIA is necessary so that no person can see all the bad stuff at once and freak out at its total enormity. As a sysadmin, he was in effect radicalized by seeing the bigger picture at NSA that wasn't visible to other analysts. I think Youtube shows you an analogous bigger picture that makes th…

FWIW, I'd note that Snowden was a CIA contractor, not operative or spy, so his understanding of why compartmentalization is done should maybe be taken with a grain of salt. (For example, another---and if I understand correctly, the main---reason compartmentalization is done is so a single compromised agent can't give "the whole farm" to an enemy intelligence organization. It's not about protecting agents from 'the re…

Both aspects are far from mutually exclusive.

This does not change the fact that splitting people and processes in little groups is an excellent way to get otherwise unspeakable deeds done.

Ben Griffin, an ex UK SF trooper turned pacifist, talks about compartmentalisation in detail [0] (00:30:10).

Yes, Goodwins law. And yes, Ben has an obvious agenda. In our context here, he does bring forth a few valid and concrete examples that underline Snowdens observations.

0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6tHvtFibhic

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

#96

Post by pjc50 »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #89

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 t…

> we are right, they are wrong

Vaccines work; the safety risks are minimal; there is no reliable evidence that they cause autism and the primary proponent of the theory was eventually struck off for malpractice. Getting this wrong will cause the unnecessary suffering and death of small children.

The earth is spherical, and this has been known since ancient times. Some things are not a matter of opinion.

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

#97

Post by jakeogh »

pjc50 wrote: post #65
jakeogh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

George Will and the National Review crew are neo-cons. AKA not-Conservatives. Straussians. They are the fake "right" of the modern pro-global government party. Watching people aruge over what's "left" and "right" is surreal. The real differences (if one wants to find them) are sovereignty of nation states vs a permenant ruling class that sets quazi-global policy. To anyone who thinks they are "left": Consider watchin…

> Consider watching the current presidents UN speeches. I can't. They're a nonsensical standard of English full of insultingly untrue things. > sovereignty of nation states vs a permenant ruling class These two things are not in conflict; historically most nation states have a fairly fixed ruling class. There was a paper a while ago showing how many of the ruling families of 14th century Venice were still in signific…

"untrue things"

What second hand info were you given?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp71VWgqURQ

The commoners are aware of the various power centers. The conflict you pretend does not exist happens when that status is challenged. From the perspective of power, it should not be possible; hence their PR firms (FOX/CNN/xNBC/NYT etc) losing control of the "pick A or B" directive.

You stepped over the mention of the quazi-global policy. The narrative is that does not exist, or you are a "insert negative words" if you talk about it. The concentration of power is in conflict with the idea of a soverign nation state. Modern language engineering, like the constant attempts to asscoiate liking one's country with ethnic supremicy (kinda hard with the US:) is one rather transparent technique used to attempt to shape how people think about it.

73rd UN Session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6XXNWC5Koc

74th UN Session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzufjsnCa7Y

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

#98

Post by [deleted] »

pjc50 wrote: post #96
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #89

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 t…

> we are right, they are wrong Vaccines work; the safety risks are minimal; there is no reliable evidence that they cause autism and the primary proponent of the theory was eventually struck off for malpractice. Getting this wrong will cause the unnecessary suffering and death of small children. The earth is spherical, and this has been known since ancient times. Some things are not a matter of opinion.

[deleted]

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

#99

Post by suby »

sandworm101 wrote: post #55
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…

Perhaps removing it from your watch history? There should be some ui somewhere on yt to do this, or at the very least there used to be.

Personally, Youtube seems to only recommend me mainstream media now (CNN, MSNBC, even The Daily Show). It's better than pushing me towards right wing independent media like Sargon and Ben Shapiro, which is what it used to do every chance it got, but I very much don't want to watch either option. As a Bernie Sanders supporter, I'm not exactly wanting what either of them are pushing. It's not that I want an echochamber, but it'd be nice to have political commentary which did not try to either obviously lie, or selectively tell the truth in order to paint a false narrative.

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

#100

Post by amanaplanacanal »

kristopolous wrote: post #81
pharke wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> 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.

That stops working when the advertisers realize they aren’t making any sales from those ads.

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