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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 o

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 in the algorithm or if the algorithm is simply accurately mirroring democratic preferences. Maybe everyone's tendency is toward more politically extreme content, and youtube is simply giving the people what they want. Which is, after all, what YouTube probably sees as the correct goal.

jpfed 8y ago
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 YouTube in particular (or any one site by itself) had more right-wing extreme content than left-wing extreme content. Left-wing extreme content may exist in equal proportion overall without having much of a presence specifically on YouTube.
- meowface 8y ago
  Podcasts are starting to become a more varied mix of left and right (though popularity-wise, still probably skewed to the right).
throwaway2048 8y ago
It is important not to put the cart before the horse, its youtube that controls recommendations, thought various mostly opaque means. Do not confuse that with what people want, you hear plenty of stories about how somebody watched some $stupid_shit and then their recommendations are pure $stupid_shit for the next two weeks.
DanBC 8y ago
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.
- meowface 8y ago
  What is HVE? What far-right groups are you referring to specifically?
  - jazzyjackson 8y ago
    Homegrown Violent Extremists There's been numerous reporting on the surge in popularity of anti-government militia groups, tho it looks like most of it comes back to a report by Southern Law Poverty Center, which you may or may not take as a reliable source. [1] https://www.splcenter.org/20090731/second-wave-return-militias https://www.splcenter.org/20090731/second-wave-return-militi...
- notahacker 8y ago
  To be fair, whilst the modern, Western extreme left are generally less violent, there's no shortage of extreme left media that's designed to engender hatred of perceived groups of enemies far more than propose solutions, and certain extreme left factions which will go out of their way to defend state use of violence by notionally left wing or "anti-imperialist" governments, offer explicit support or defences for certain militant Islamist groups, or in the context of the modern UK extreme left, identifying "Zionists" to be purged from public life...
  - dnomad 8y ago
    You have to be willfully blind not to see the obvious connection between far right groups and violence. Both the US and the UK have seen dramatic increases in far right terrorist attacks and equivocating this clear, observable phenomenon with bogeymen on the left is very disingenuous. If you're actually concerned with rising extremism you'd focus on the more pressing issue which is very much not the anti-imperialists.

jpfed 8y ago

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 YouTube in particular (or any one site by itself) had more right-wing extreme content than left-wing extreme content. Left-wing extreme content may exist in equal proportion overall without having much of a presence specifically on YouTube.

meowface 8y ago
Podcasts are starting to become a more varied mix of left and right (though popularity-wise, still probably skewed to the right).

throwaway2048 8y ago

It is important not to put the cart before the horse, its youtube that controls recommendations, thought various mostly opaque means. Do not confuse that with what people want, you hear plenty of stories about how somebody watched some $stupid_shit and then their recommendations are pure $stupid_shit for the next two weeks.

DanBC 8y ago

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.

meowface 8y ago
What is HVE? What far-right groups are you referring to specifically?
- jazzyjackson 8y ago
  Homegrown Violent Extremists There's been numerous reporting on the surge in popularity of anti-government militia groups, tho it looks like most of it comes back to a report by Southern Law Poverty Center, which you may or may not take as a reliable source. [1] https://www.splcenter.org/20090731/second-wave-return-militias https://www.splcenter.org/20090731/second-wave-return-militi...
notahacker 8y ago
To be fair, whilst the modern, Western extreme left are generally less violent, there's no shortage of extreme left media that's designed to engender hatred of perceived groups of enemies far more than propose solutions, and certain extreme left factions which will go out of their way to defend state use of violence by notionally left wing or "anti-imperialist" governments, offer explicit support or defences for certain militant Islamist groups, or in the context of the modern UK extreme left, identifying "Zionists" to be purged from public life...
- dnomad 8y ago
  You have to be willfully blind not to see the obvious connection between far right groups and violence. Both the US and the UK have seen dramatic increases in far right terrorist attacks and equivocating this clear, observable phenomenon with bogeymen on the left is very disingenuous. If you're actually concerned with rising extremism you'd focus on the more pressing issue which is very much not the anti-imperialists.