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Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

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Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#51
post #3

It does seem to be getting better, for a long while I had to make sure to clear my history of any conservative leaning videos or I'd end up down a rabbit hole. Too many and all of a sudden its bloody flat earth videos and other insane conspiracies. Made it very difficult to try and watch a balanced set of videos.

This doesn't match reality. I've watched lots of conservative videos and I've never seen anything about flat Earth or "insane conspiracy theories".

Honestly this comment thread seems like trying to build a narrative bridge between straightforward right-leaning content and bizarre conspiracies. The goal is to use censorship of bizarre conspiracies to justify censoring right-leaning content by conflating the two.

I'm very suspicious of YouTube's intent here. Given how vicious Google is towards conservatives inside their organization (see Damore) it's pretty obvious to suspect that they'll use their power to reduce the spread of right-wing ideas of all stripes. Put simply, after that display, nobody can trust them to be even-handed. Most of them are good people but they're totally dominated by the intransigent minority [0] of high-and-righteous recreational witch-hunters in their midst.

The first excuse will be they're insane conspiracies. Truly crazy videos will be censored. But that's just the bait, setting the narrative for the switch, where they narrative becomes about "racism" and they start censoring the right-most 10%, 20%, 30%, of the opinion spectrum. Criticism of Islam, support for Western culture, statements against anti-white bigotry, arguments for reduced immigration (even illegal immigration), arguments for equal legal treatment for men, arguments about biological differences between sexes or population groups, arguments about deep differences between religions will all be censored under this ever-expanding umbrella.

Even the notion that "conspiracy theories" are a right-wing thing is part of this - there are lots of left-wing "conspiracy theories" and always have been. Some openly racist and sexist ones are quite widespread right now.

[0] http://fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know who Ben Shapiro is so I'm just using him as an example and maybe he is noteworthy, but if the system tells everyone to watch Ben Shapiro videos of course everyone is gonna know who he is. Maybe he wouldn't be 'required knowledge' if youtube didn't force it and reinforce it on everyone. The current system doesn't tell you what people are interested in, it tells you what the system made the people pay inte…

To take the position that people only believe stuff because it is fed to them is incredibly patronizing. Sure, the fundamental dynamic of social media (that immediate and direct feedback about what captures user attention is used to determine what users see) makes things more polarized, but people are polarized to begin with. Conservatives are conservatives because they have a fundamentally different outlook about th…

You're basically saying that well done propaganda doesn't work then, which is patently false.

Watching polarizing YouTube videos isn't going to flip a bit, but constant exposure to a single perspective constantly reinforced is certainly going to influence your formation of beliefs. That's exactly what YouTube does with their recommendation system

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#53
What really bugs me is when a video literally has "Episode 18" in the name, but somehow the recommendation list on the right side fails to find the one with "Episode 19".

But if I want to go watch Episode 5 again or jump ahead to Episode 26, it's happy to help. Awesome.

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#54
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, who determines what is a conspaircy? The government might be deciding that Iraq has WMDs and any evidence to the contrary is a conspiracy. While some measures are needed to be taken, who decides what is? No one is truly impartial. The censorship (while required due to how much crap is in YouTube) might devolve to 1984 without comple transparency, which we all know google isn’t providing.

Honestly, every time I hear an argument along these lines, that any attempt at moderating content will inevitably devolve into 1984 style censorship because all terms are arbitrary and "what even is x?", it becomes less convincing. Unless the US government bans all sites except google and turns Youtube into a direct propaganda tool and declares that publishing any unauthorized content is a crime, then the worst that…

You say "a single platform" as though there is another viable platform.

Someone tried to set one up. It's called BitChute. All the payment processors blocked it.

The reality is that YouTube is not just "a single platform", it's THE platform. It's owned by a megacorporation with extreme political leanings. It's incredibly influential on votes and opinions globally. It's run with zero transparency, by a small unidentified unelected group of wealthy and powerful people.

You're just comfortable wtih this because you think they're on your side politically. Most people are comfortable with moderate levels of tyranny as long as they think it's their tribe that holds the levers of power.

But if Google was owned and run by evangelical Christians, and they were shifting their recommendations to discourage "immoral" videos of gay pride, pro-trans-rights arguments, sex worker rights, etc, you'd be incensed.

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not taken that position. To misrepresent the views of others to make your argument easier is very patronizing. My post was about notoriety not belief. Many things, trends and personalities are created by the media, whether you believe what they say or not. Flat earth conspiracies would never have been repeated by NBA players if not because of Youtube's recommendation algorithm.

Way before internet, I remember people were talking about how Marilyn Manson had surgery to be able to suck himself I also remember when I watched in disbelieve people saying the sun was going around the earth. Internet is just the reflect of human nature. Flat earth theory would have existed without it.

Maybe so, but it now enables global reach at the speed of light. You can't argue that the danger from a stick of dynamite is the same as the danger from a nuclear bomb. You might not care about the difference if you're standing next to it, but they are bit the same thing

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#56

It's worth noting that this blog post appeared less than 24 hours after BuzzFeed News posted an article explicitly highlighting the conspiracy theories in the recommended section: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/down-y... I helped contribute to that article, feel free to ask any questions!

Have you investigated their rabbit hole for children? YT for Kids simply needs to die. They are evil.

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#57
post #51
post #3

It does seem to be getting better, for a long while I had to make sure to clear my history of any conservative leaning videos or I'd end up down a rabbit hole. Too many and all of a sudden its bloody flat earth videos and other insane conspiracies. Made it very difficult to try and watch a balanced set of videos.

This doesn't match reality. I've watched lots of conservative videos and I've never seen anything about flat Earth or "insane conspiracy theories". Honestly this comment thread seems like trying to build a narrative bridge between straightforward right-leaning content and bizarre conspiracies. The goal is to use censorship of bizarre conspiracies to justify censoring right-leaning content by conflating the two. I'm v…

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Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#58

It's worth noting that this blog post appeared less than 24 hours after BuzzFeed News posted an article explicitly highlighting the conspiracy theories in the recommended section: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/down-y... I helped contribute to that article, feel free to ask any questions!

If the government labelled BuzzFeed a designated hate organization, would you still want YouTube to show your videos?

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#59

YouTube suggestions are worthless now. Used to be if you were watching "Jack cooks a 4 course meal part 2" the recommended videos would be "Jack cooks a 4 course meal part 3", Part 1, and some other videos by the same user. Now it's a host of other unrelated bullshit.

it changed from being “users who watched this video watched X next” to “You would like Y videos based on your watch history” (somewhat biasing the first 2 or 3 to be related to current video)

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#60
post #40

We currently don't allow our son to watch anything on youtube, simply because it's a cesspool of horrible videos for children. You're always almost one click away from some violent video where cartoon characters are getting their limbs chopped off, etc. And it's sickening that Google's done nothing about it. Secondly, I can't watch any video without it taking over my recommendations. Alex Jones for example. I still h…

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