Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube’s Rabbit Hole of Radicalization [pdf]

arxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 125 posts

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

#101

Post by ben_w »

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.

> The earth is spherical

Well, close enough for most people.

But I think the problem is that just trying to suppress dangerous untruths doesn’t seem to work in our society, and the greater the capacity to do so in other societies, the more that capacity is itself incredibly easy to abuse.

I don’t have solutions for this. I wish I did, because I have no reason to think I might be immune to untruths.

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

#102

Post by shotashotashota »

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…

You also have to think about the people who use Youtube to listen to musics. I assume music tastes don't differ that much.

But honestly, the moment they decide to make arbitrary decisions about what videos should be played next they are going to make some miscalculations. Some times they just made worst calculations than average.

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

#103

Post by jakeogh »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #100
kristopolous wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

True, but ads dont just sell products, they also sell ways of thinking by frame.

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

#104

Post by iudqnolq »

Thorentis wrote: post #61
iudqnolq wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Downvotes? Give me a counter example that shows how TYT or CNN is not left-leaning. Maybe downvotes are because you claim your parent claims CNN isn't left-leaning, whereas what they said was that CNN isn't "partisan left" in the same way that TYT is. You also don't address their main evidence for their claim, that they frequently attack each other. I have no idea if you're right, because I haven't looked into the…

CNN is very pro-democrat, as clearly shown in all their election coverage. This makes them partisan left. From what I've seen, CNN tends to support the favoured democrat candidate/front-runner, and TYT lean further left and often show support for somebody like Sanders, but show general support across the board. > You also don't address their main evidence What main evidence? Their main programming? The main programmi…

> > You also don't address their main evidence

> What main evidence? Their main programming? The main programming of both is left leaning, and when it comes to discussing elections and US politics, is incredibly partisan.

The second half of the sentence you quoted tells you exactly what main evidence. If you're going to abridge quotes to take away their key meaning and then attack them I'm not going to both doing the research necessary to argue with you.

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

#105

Post by throwaway294072 »

throwaway294072 wrote: post #88

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

All this downvotes for providing a list of sources? Interesting...

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

#106

Post by wilde »

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…

> 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.

I mean, that’s how advertising works and most of these businesses are ads funded.

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

#107

Post by ceejayoz »

jakeogh wrote: post #48
ceejayoz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They both published content showing extreme dismay at the election of Trump. So did the National Review ( https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/01/donald-trump-conserva... ), but they're hardly left. Same for George Will ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-spiraling-presid... ). Again, hardly left.

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…

> George Will and the National Review crew are neo-cons.

Irrelevant.

The parent comment claimed being dismayed by Trump's election makes one automatically part of the "partisan left". Neither George Will nor National Review are, by any stretch of the imagination, "partisan left", despite their being anti-Trump.

They may not be the form of right-wing you like, but they're very much on the right hand side of the spectrum.

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

#108

Post by stevenicr »

shadowgovt wrote: post #40
falcolas wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our study thus suggests that YouTubes recommendation algorithm fails to promote inflammatory or radicalized content Asserting that "mainstream media and cable news content" is neither inflammatory nor radicalized. I'm not sure how accurate this statement is today.

I believe it is generally accepted definitionally that "mainstream" isn't radicalized (i.e. mainstream is defined as "not the radical fringe"). Can you think of an example of why that definitional assertion should be discarded?

what spicylemon pointed out, and I find many 'mainstream' news shows to be radical and not fringe.

Sometimes it's little slants added by hosts around facts.. sometimes it's hosts adding in little details to what interviewees have said - once you start to see it, it becomes sadly obvious that it's radical bias, and yet looking at the polls or seeing other people's fbook feeds, and such - it's not fringe.

Sometimes it's fact being left out, sometimes it's only reported what can be shown as bad.. or good - and avoiding showing other details. I must say 'mainstream' news both right and left has been radical in their support or resistance of certain narratives.

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

#109

Post by on_and_off »

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.

interesting, there must be some variation in the algorithm.

I have just loaded Youtube and in the 8 recommendations above the fold :

- 4 of them are from my subscriptions

- 1 is the last published in a series of videos I have been watching, published 2 hours ago

- 1 is from a channel I have never watched AFAIK, but contains a sketch from a comic duo I watched often on Youtube

- leaving 2 lectures that don't come directly from what I watched recently.

If anything, I would prefer if Youtube was pushing way more original topics.

One thing I have remarked is that their algorithm is very "grippy". Once it identifies a topic you might be interested in, it makes sure to find other videos on the same topic.

As an example I stumbled on a beautiful video about what life is like for an man with autism. The next day Youtube recommended me a video where women with autism talk about their lives (actually I remember having already watched that video several years ago, so a meh recommendation). Today Youtube wants me to watch a video about autistic children in China.

Also, with the magic of A/B groups, we might be running on 2 very different algorithms for all we know.

> even a naive recommendation engine would perform better.

I think you are underestimating the complexity of the problem :)

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

#110

Post by _yid9 »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #26
_yid9 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a “libertarian”, I have to hold my tongue and smile in most conversations. The Overton Window has become so shockingly small, that most “normals” educated in the last 20 or so years no longer even realize that they have been mentally neutered.

I mean, of all the different libertarian philosophies, most of them are radical, in so much as they all seek to distance the individual from systems of government and social institutions. Since those things are what most people use day to day, and in the US only one of the two political parties leans that way, it does put you in a minority camp whose views can be felt as a sort of existential threat. (And honestly, p…

Everyone is a libertarian — when it comes to their own liberties.

Other ideologies vary, insofar as they devalue and restrict differing sunsets of other peoples’ liberty.

So it is always strange to me that valuing other’s liberty as highly as my own is now being considered as “radical”.

And, I’m always ready and willing to lay down my life to defend my liberty — and yours.

I find is also strange that the political ideologies deemed non “radical” are willing to demand that I defend their liberty with my life — but would throw me and my loved ones under the bus without blinking.

But, I’m the “radical” one...

Post reply on HN