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YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

nytimes.com

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Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#31

Post by goes »

saagarjha wrote: post #7

It's repeatedly emphasized in the article that the recommendations algorithm gives viewers "what they want to see" and what has high engagement. Unfortunately it looks like these criteria seem to push towards fringe and extreme content because that's what evokes people are interested in watching and causes them to react. YouTube, on its part, probably does not intend for it to be this way, but seeing as its goals are…

The fix is not complicated.

They have to play with the control variables producing the feedback loops.

People and content creators are influenced by the view/like/dislike count. Instant feedback through these counts produces all kinds of unintended consequences.

Instant feedback is overrated and unnecessary. It's like constantly getting a live upvote/downvote from your spouse or boss or prof on everything you do. What kind of behaviour does anyone think this produces? In such real time conditioning environment ppl turn into rats in a B F Skinner experiment.

The Russians or any bad actor don't have to create content anymore. Just find a lunatic and encourage/prop them up with views and upvotes. YouTube will then take care of distribution triggered by the view and like counts.

Hide or delay the counts to both the creator and viewer and the world changes over night.

The experiment can be run on HN. Hide the upvotes on certain controversial threads and see what kind of conversations happen.

Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#32

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #18
joe_the_user wrote: post #8

Just anecdotally, Youtube's recommendation system seems effectively self-referential. On virtually any subject I look at, recommended videos seem to cycle between just a few themes or even just a few specific videos. I think there's a logical reason for this. I imagine for a given topic you wind-up with: [broad video] related to [other broad but unrelated video] plus [extremist video]. And [extremist video] related t…

Another aspect is youtube's algos tend to heavily favor "engagement" ie watching a full 30 minute video, not hard to see how this funnels people into fanatics due to their nutty followers devoted engagement.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#34

Post by meowface »

ahana27 wrote: post #27

Instead of trying to solve the "problem" of YouTube showing pro-AfD content to users who are searching for information on a stabbing, how about removing asylum seekers from Germany so people don't get stabbed in the first place? Saying "we shouldn't let asylum seekers enter the country because they might be dangerous and we don't have enough information on them to assess the situation correctly" shouldn't be an "extr…

Because greatly increasing the suffering of millions of people who flee a warzone just because some of their ranks are criminals, extremists, or terrorists posing as refugees is very unfair to the vast majority of these people. People shouldn't be allowed in without vetting, but refugees need to go or be placed somewhere.

Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#36

Post by meowface »

DanBC wrote: post #29
DavidWoof wrote: post #6

The focus of this article is on right-wing extreme content, but I think the tendency is true on both sides. The fact is that partisans are more likely to seek out news content, and partisans are happier with content that matches their prior viewpoint. And so the extreme content rises in popularity and is presented as the recommended option to the less partisan. It's a worthwhile question as to whether this is a flaw…

The extreme left aren't involved in mass murder at anything like the extent that the extreme right are. When looking at HVE groups the far left appears rarely, those lists are full of either militant Islamist or Far Right groups. The focus on the far right happens because it's the far right that are murdering people.

What is HVE? What far-right groups are you referring to specifically?

Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#37

Post by walrus01 »

b0rsuk wrote: post #23

This was addressed more broadly in "We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads" by Zeynep Tufekci on TED. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15891014 She remarked that Youtube's recommendation system invariably pushes people towards more extreme views on anything , not just politics. Interested in vegetarianism? Here's something about veganism. She has a hypothesis it works this way because the goal…

I very strongly recommend watching the video of Zeynep's presentation on this subject.

Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#38

Post by meowface »

jpfed wrote: post #9
DavidWoof wrote: post #6

The focus of this article is on right-wing extreme content, but I think the tendency is true on both sides. The fact is that partisans are more likely to seek out news content, and partisans are happier with content that matches their prior viewpoint. And so the extreme content rises in popularity and is presented as the recommended option to the less partisan. It's a worthwhile question as to whether this is a flaw…

I suspect that enough differences may exist between liberal and conservative subpopulations that there may be differences in the media they prefer to produce and consume. For example, talk radio is much more popular for the right wing than the left. Left wing commentators and performers have occasionally tried to break into talk radio and they generally don't accrue an audience. Given that, I wouldn't be surprised if…

Podcasts are starting to become a more varied mix of left and right (though popularity-wise, still probably skewed to the right).

Re: YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

#40

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