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YouTube, the Great Radicalizer (nytimes.com)
Zeynep Tufekci, writing for the New York Times: Before long, I was being directed to videos of a leftish conspiratorial cast, including arguments about the existence of secret government agencies and allegations that the United States government was behind the attacks of Sept. 11. As with the Trump videos, YouTube was recommending content that was more and more extreme than the mainstream political fare I had started with. Intrigued, I experimented with nonpolitical topics. The same basic pattern emerged. Videos about vegetarianism led to videos about veganism. Videos about jogging led to videos about running ultramarathons. It seems as if you are never "hard core" enough for YouTube's recommendation algorithm. It promotes, recommends and disseminates videos in a manner that appears to constantly up the stakes. Given its billion or so users, YouTube may be one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century.
This is not because a cabal of YouTube engineers is plotting to drive the world off a cliff. A more likely explanation has to do with the nexus of artificial intelligence and Google's business model. (YouTube is owned by Google.) For all its lofty rhetoric, Google is an advertising broker, selling our attention to companies that will pay for it. The longer people stay on YouTube, the more money Google makes. What keeps people glued to YouTube? Its algorithm seems to have concluded that people are drawn to content that is more extreme than what they started with -- or to incendiary content in general. Is this suspicion correct? Good data is hard to come by; Google is loath to share information with independent researchers. But we now have the first inklings of confirmation, thanks in part to a former Google engineer named Guillaume Chaslot. Mr. Chaslot worked on the recommender algorithm while at YouTube. He grew alarmed at the tactics used to increase the time people spent on the site. Google fired him in 2013, citing his job performance. He maintains the real reason was that he pushed too hard for changes in how the company handles such issues.
This is not because a cabal of YouTube engineers is plotting to drive the world off a cliff. A more likely explanation has to do with the nexus of artificial intelligence and Google's business model. (YouTube is owned by Google.) For all its lofty rhetoric, Google is an advertising broker, selling our attention to companies that will pay for it. The longer people stay on YouTube, the more money Google makes. What keeps people glued to YouTube? Its algorithm seems to have concluded that people are drawn to content that is more extreme than what they started with -- or to incendiary content in general. Is this suspicion correct? Good data is hard to come by; Google is loath to share information with independent researchers. But we now have the first inklings of confirmation, thanks in part to a former Google engineer named Guillaume Chaslot. Mr. Chaslot worked on the recommender algorithm while at YouTube. He grew alarmed at the tactics used to increase the time people spent on the site. Google fired him in 2013, citing his job performance. He maintains the real reason was that he pushed too hard for changes in how the company handles such issues.
Writing for NYT means spending your days actively seeking out hyperbole and outrage to pay the bills. YouTube is showing you crazy shit because that's what you really wanted so you could write a story about how radical YouTube is.
Personally when I go on YouTube all I see is crap about alien conspiracies because that's how I roll. Lizard people are going to eat us all unless we change our diets.
All extremists, racists and all enemies of the nation have been using these low-tech tools called books.
Books can contain any kind of information and propaganda, sometimes disguised as novels, essays and manuals.
Those labelled as "Chemistry" can allow anyone with enough time to design and build a bomb.
Please, stop that insane uncontrolled spread of books.
TV and the Internet is the next stop.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Why do so many fucked-up retards bring up the "Don't be evil" line all the time? It's been decades since Google used it as a tagline, mantra or whatever. Get over it, you stupid shit.
I'd think the political leanings at YouTube/Google had an affect as well.
By default, YouTube's algorithm was going to lean left, simply as a function of the advertisers, partners, etc.
But the constant "tweaking" to offset "hate speech", and to minimize exposure of certain subjects and ideas was pretty much ALWAYS going push it's mean further and further left.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!