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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.
Running is a pretty narrow topic, of course marathons is going to come up in relation. Algorithms are good at only finding similar things which I actually hate. Have you ever shopped for something only to have google spam you with ads for weeks on end for the actual thing you bought for weeks after you've already bought it. Human editors can be better at least they can have different topics, it seemed until recently where an entire news station or website decides to take a narrow focus and cater to single audiences instead of the general masses.
This is all retarded. I binge watch some Good Mythical Morning, surprise surprise it's all GMM in my feed. Same if it's retrotech whatever, that dominates the feed. The subscription list is the only savior really. Youtube is garage and only the most braindead of users will be swayed by it's reinforcing effects thanks to it's terrible algorithms.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
YouTube basically just recommends those videos that other people watched frequently (and probably some more statistics like how long they watched it, whether they commented on it, what other videos they watched, etc.). And of course, what video's you watched yourself. The YouTube algorithm simply gave this journalist what he was apparently looking for - the same as most people on the internet. Don't blame YouTube for people's lust for the extreme, crazy, stupid.
assignment != equality != identity
Just read the first sentence and it's breathless references to some "leftist conspiratorial cast"... That's a retard flag if I ever saw one.
Plus, if anyone are prone to conspiracy theories, it's the right wing nutjobs. Just read the submission. "OMG youtube is a leftist conspiracy! HILLARY!!!"
For any given video, it will recommend a range of other similar videos which by definition must be a bit more radical or a bit less radical. If you keep clicking the more radical ones, of course you will slowly gravitate up the radical tree. How could it be otherwise?
It goes a tiny bit further :
- it's been already studied and proven (on oldschool TV) that more extreme content (specially more frightening) increases viewer engagement.
- and engaged viewers will bring more revenue by selling their eyeballs to advertisers.
- (this happens even more on private channels than on public TV).
- thus TV channels, specially news casts, tend to gravitate toward more
The AI neural net behind Youtube recommendation just simply "independently rediscover" what's been studied regarding old school TV.
(while being probably even less aware of it : during A/B tests the algorithm only notice that video on list A tend to increase viewer retention compared to list B and thus maximize ads exposition and revenu stream. it just happens that the videos on this list A are the most extreme due to what we already know of human psychology and past TV studies. The algorithm will eventually automatically build a chain of recommendation of increasing extremeness, because that's what works better for the result it tries to maximise)
The sad thing is that this has been also proven to increase the feeling of insecure.
So, yes, initially the youtube algorithm will show up a variety of similarily themed video recommendations, some of which "must be a bit more radical or a bit less radical". But eventually some of these recommendation will prove more popular and youtube will learn to show them more. Due to how human psyche works, those more successful videos *will be* a little bit more frequently the more radical ones. And thus youtube learns to show the radical more a bit more often (without even having the notion of what "radical" is, only that they are successful). And again, sadly due to how human psyche works, it will have a negative impact on viewers.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I started with a video, showing 7 photography tips, next video, YouTube game me 8 tips, but it didn't end there, eventually it showed me 10 tips in 90 seconds. That's totally extreme!
I'm going to post a YouTube video with 11 tips now.
Mashiki, I've decided to stop responding to posts like this because they are all the same. You tell me what I think, but it's always wrong. You claim I want a police state, no matter how often I post opposing a police state. Then you accuse me of being a creep, and go off on some random and easily disproven conspiracy theories... And no matter what I post as a response, you ignore it anyway.
I thought we might be able to have an interesting discussion, but I was wrong. You just rage against some imaginary person who isn't me, and then accuse me of lying when I don't conform to your alternative reality. You even give us links to where you get these delusions from, i.e. Reddit and Brietbart. It's like citing Bible verses as proof, it doesn't convince anyone except those who already believe.
I'm also kinda fed up with the sock puppet modding or whatever bullshit seems to surround your posts.
Don't expect any more replies until your posts improve.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Search for Naked Women and you get scads of videos of Brown People living in huts, etc. All mostly, if not completely buck naked.
Search Naked White Women and you get very few hits, all restricted, and lots of blurred images.
So...naked brown people, no biggie, naked white people, OMG, protect the children!
Lol
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I think it is simpler than this. When you allow people to produce their own content and associate freely, they tend to cluster together into distinct groups. Hell, I have a farm and several breeds of chickens. The chicks are raised together from 1 day old and even once they begin maturing will instinctively cluster together into their own types in the coop. It's a little depressing to think on overmuch but this is something very deep in us.