6 ms·

I don't think this is a fair summary of what the Product Chief is saying. When people talk about the YouTube rabbit hole, they're talking about watching video A

I don't think this is a fair summary of what the Product Chief is saying. When people talk about the YouTube rabbit hole, they're talking about watching video A, which links to B, to C, etc. until they reach content considered extreme. This is simplistic, but say all videos are on a 1-10 integer scale in terms of politics. YouTube always recommends 80% videos that are on the same value as the currently viewed video and 10% are one value higher and 10% are on one value lower. It doesn't push anyone in either direction. Randomly clicking on recommended videos will randomly move you up or down (and usually not move at all). But, no matter where you begin, you can always reach either end in 4 clicks - cue people talking about the YouTube rabbit hole. But hey, maybe it's not enough to merely prefer content that isn't extreme, what if we wanted to actively push people to the center? We could recommend 80% videos that are one value higher or lower towards the center spectrum (or the same is the viewed video is at 5 or 6), and 10% videos that are at the same value, and 10% towards one value away from the center. Randomly clicking on videos _will_ bring most viewers to the center in this system. But we can still reach the extremes in just 4 clicks. This is why complaining that users can go down a rabbit hole feels disingenuous to me. They always will be _able_ to do so - unless YouTube never recommends videos that aren't more centrist than the video being viewed. I suppose YouTube could just ban all videos that are at 1 and 10 in our spectrum, but that's basically just calling for censorship. And not to mention, 2 and 9 will just become the new definition of extreme. Edit: many of the comment lead me to think that I haven't made what is and isn't in scope of my comment clear. Allow me to point out two things in particular. 1. YouTube already does prohibit hate speech. How well it enforces its rules is a valid point of discussion, but not what I'm talking about here. I'm pointing out that the ability to get to the extremes of what _is_ allowed on the platform through recommendations should not in and of itself be a point of concern. 2. I'm also aware that sometimes the recommendation are very messed up in context of the current video - e.g. shock videos getting recommended to kids. But this is more about trolls deliberately gaming the recommendation algorithm, which I see as a distinct issue from the alleged rabbit hole pattern of recommendations.

strangeloops85 8y ago
The alternative is that Youtube could choose NOT to recommend videos for large categories of videos, particularly those related to kids or other categories (for example, Rohingya-related videos in Myanmar in the current time period). You need not censor the videos, however you can choose to make their discovery less easy. There's no law that says they have to recommend videos. There is however sufficient evidence at this time around the rabbit-hole effect causing real-world harm. This isn't 2005. It's about time Youtube, and social media properties adopt the medical principle: "first, do no harm". Perhaps they will do this willingly, but somehow I doubt it. To wit: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2018/10/11/memes-infowars-75-fascist-activists-red-pilled/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2018/10/11/memes-in...
- manfredo 8y ago
  I'm not sure how kids factor into this, I've always heard the YouTube rabbit hole in the context of pushing people to either ends of the political spectrum. As far as "do no harm" goes, implementing safeguard against the alleged rabbit hole has a very strong potential to do harm by making YouTube a partisan platform. Bear in mind that concern over the alleged rabbit hole is not equal between liberals, centrists, and conservatives. Many of the recommended videos I've seen people reference as evidence of the alleged rabbit hole are videos I'd considered mainstream. What it takes to placate the critics has very strong potential to violate the principle of "first, do no harm".
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - strangeloops85 8y ago
    I would suggest looking through that previous link regarding examples of where one can quickly end up in white nationalist content through recommendations. Again, recommendations are for Youtube's own growth-related ends. However, it is emphatically a choice to have them. Regarding kids, this has been very well documented: https://www.ted.com/talks/james_bridle_the_nightmare_videos_of_childrens_youtube_and_what_s_wrong_with_the_internet_today https://www.ted.com/talks/james_bridle_the_nightmare_videos_... https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2 https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-in...
    - manfredo 8y ago
      Your medium post is not directly related to what I was referring to in my first comment. Yes, bad actors game the recommendation algorithms to troll people. That's what Elsagate was about. People deliberately making channels and videos that would appear as and presumably get recommended as kid friendly content when it was actually shock content. I'm well aware that recommendation algorithms can be abused. Perhaps I should have more strongly emphasized that my examples are presented in a very simplified scenario, that is limited to the alleged political rabbit hole and not things like Elsagate. The point I am making is that pointing out the fact that it's possible to get to the extremes of YouTube by clicking through on recommended videos shouldn't be surprising. In fact, of you couldn't so that it would be evidence of deliberately trying to keep certain content from being popular. The question of how well YouTube polices it's terms of service (which already does prohibit hate speech) is related to this question about the alleged rabbit hole because such content presumably exists at the edge of my hypothetical political spectrum values. But it's not directly related to the fact that clicking through on recommended links can bring people to 1 and 10 even if they start at 5 should not be surprising.
antif 8y ago
That 1-10 seems impossible to gauge correctly without just basing it on the profiles of a video's previous viewers. And the crux seems to be that YouTube has a single primary interest in generating suggestions: to offer the viewer a video that they probably want to see next. Netflix recs are no different. So, the impolite or gruesome content becomes clickbait for an ad revenue machine.
weberc2 8y ago
This is a little off topic, but I watched a Jordan Peterson video once and now my recommendations are fairly extremely right-wing. I'm center-left and the views Peterson espouses aren't politically extreme (although I've heard some are pretty bizarre) at 'worst' he is a moderate conservative (I say "worst" only because at the current cultural moment "conservative = bad" is the prevailing meme). So I'm not sure exactly how YouTube works, but it feels to me to be trying very hard to push me in a particular direction. To be clear, I don't think YouTube has a RW political agenda, but perhaps it has an economic interest in pushing people to the fringes (maybe people at the extremes click more ads or something). Or perhaps they have a left-wing agenda and they want me to associate moderate-RW views with extremist views (seems unlikely, but then again lots of prominent media companies are pushing a similar agenda).
- rifung 8y ago
  > To be clear, I don't think YouTube has a RW political agenda, but perhaps it has an economic interest in pushing people to the fringes (maybe people at the extremes click more ads or something). I think it's simpler than what you're suggesting. They want to make money, and the indirect way they do that is to get people to watch more videos. If most people who watch Jordan Peterson tend to also watch extreme right wing content, and you watch his video, then you will get recommended right wing content, because they think that's what you will want to watch. I work for Google but not on Youtube, opinions are my own.
  - weberc2 8y ago
    I considered that, but I can't think of any plausible reason for prominent overlap in viewership of JP's moderate political content and extreme RW content. Maybe Peterson appeals to people who previously thought the only moderate option was quiet deference to progressives? Would be really interesting if this were the case--it might imply that Peterson has a strong moderating effect on RWers and/or that people are being taught a false dichotomy between extreme left and right.
    - rifung 8y ago
zepearl 8y ago
> But we can still reach the extremes in just 4 clicks. This is why complaining that users can go down a rabbit hole feels disingenuous to me. They always will be _able_ to do so - unless YouTube never recommends videos that aren't more centrist than the video being viewed. I generally agree, but maybe an important detail orbits around the "can" (of This is why complaining that users can go down a rabbit hole...): are Youtube recommendations a healthy mix that give users a choice or does the majority of recommendations push the user down the rabbit hole?
- manfredo 8y ago
  I do suspect that a lot of the alleged rabbit hole comes from people deliberately picking out recommended videos that are more extreme than the currently viewed one. But I'm interested in putting this theory to the test. I'm actually thinking of making a script or an extension that automates, say 10, 25, or 50 random clicks in the top 10 recommendations and seeing where it ends up. Maybe this system exists already.
  - zepearl 8y ago
    I would love to see such an analysis, hehe :)) I have to admit that the exact definition of the problem is not easy to define: e.g. if I have on my screen a video about "people-that-hate-bananas", would it be ok to have recommendations that show only e.g. "why-bananas-are-bad" or should I (ethically) get as well videos of the type "are-bananas-really-bad?" respectively "these-are-good-bananas!"? Using the above example I guess that if Youtube (& similar sites) show only recommendations based on case #1 (which is eaaasy for IT) then yes here I go down the rabbit hole (reinforces/confirms the concept "bananas-are-bad") even if the recommendations are not worse than the original one => therefore even recommendations on "equal" level might have to be evaluated at least partially negatively? (as in this example the recommendations don't promote alternative point-of-views / alternative thinking / search for a flow or compromise, if you understand what I mean) In any case the evaluation of the results you get might be very hard to do, if you want to do it automatically to understand the meaning (e.g. very hard to understand if "good-bananas-are-bad" is negative or positive towards bananas)... :P (maybe if you manage to you might become a Nobel candidate, hehe, or maybe I'm underestimating the current power of AI, which is definitely possible)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
gambler 8y ago
What you're saying is true, people often seek extremes in all things without any extra nudging, but the problem is that YouTuve deliberately creates several other positive feedback loops. It doesn't just show related videos, it shows popular related videos and additionally selects them based on what you watched before. It makes sense to show more Lego content on the sidebar of a Lego set review. It's less clear that I should be chased by Lego videos across the site after I clicked on a single one of them. Also, considering that various extremes tend to attract attention, it would make sense to use an "anti-viral" algorithm that de-preoritizes videos that get too many views at the moment. This would have an additional effect of giving better exposure to less popular channels, promoting different content creators. Realistically, I don't think they will do either, even if they know for sure that it will help, because it will reduce addict... I mean, engagement of their user-base. Jaron Lanier talked about these issues a lot recently. He makes some interesting points regarding incentives and feedback loops.
- manfredo 8y ago
  Perhaps this positive feedback loop is true - but I haven't seen evidence of it. In fact, what quantitative evidence I have seen seems to indicate the opposite: https://www.thepostmillennial.com/does-youtube-facilitate-right-wing-radicalization-the-data-says-otherwise/ https://www.thepostmillennial.com/does-youtube-facilitate-ri... Key findings: * Centrist content links to liberal content at over twice the rate it links to conservative content. * Proportionally more conservative content links to centrist or liberal content than either liberal or centrist content links to conservative content. * Liberal content links to itself at the highest proportional rate. Granted, who knows what portion of liberal or conservative content counts as extreme. But concerns over YouTube extremism almost always has to do with conservative extremism and the data does not suggest conservative content is being promoted by YouTube.
  - gambler 8y ago
    Not sure how this relates. When I say "extreme" I mean "extreme" in all senses, not just politically extremist. Could be just an extremely one-sided view of something ("why X sucks") or even a "top 10" or "worst fail" video.

strangeloops85 8y ago

The alternative is that Youtube could choose NOT to recommend videos for large categories of videos, particularly those related to kids or other categories (for example, Rohingya-related videos in Myanmar in the current time period). You need not censor the videos, however you can choose to make their discovery less easy. There's no law that says they have to recommend videos. There is however sufficient evidence at this time around the rabbit-hole effect causing real-world harm. This isn't 2005. It's about time Youtube, and social media properties adopt the medical principle: "first, do no harm". Perhaps they will do this willingly, but somehow I doubt it. To wit: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2018/10/11/memes-infowars-75-fascist-activists-red-pilled/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2018/10/11/memes-in...

manfredo 8y ago
I'm not sure how kids factor into this, I've always heard the YouTube rabbit hole in the context of pushing people to either ends of the political spectrum. As far as "do no harm" goes, implementing safeguard against the alleged rabbit hole has a very strong potential to do harm by making YouTube a partisan platform. Bear in mind that concern over the alleged rabbit hole is not equal between liberals, centrists, and conservatives. Many of the recommended videos I've seen people reference as evidence of the alleged rabbit hole are videos I'd considered mainstream. What it takes to placate the critics has very strong potential to violate the principle of "first, do no harm".
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- strangeloops85 8y ago
  I would suggest looking through that previous link regarding examples of where one can quickly end up in white nationalist content through recommendations. Again, recommendations are for Youtube's own growth-related ends. However, it is emphatically a choice to have them. Regarding kids, this has been very well documented: https://www.ted.com/talks/james_bridle_the_nightmare_videos_of_childrens_youtube_and_what_s_wrong_with_the_internet_today https://www.ted.com/talks/james_bridle_the_nightmare_videos_... https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2 https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-in...
  - manfredo 8y ago
    Your medium post is not directly related to what I was referring to in my first comment. Yes, bad actors game the recommendation algorithms to troll people. That's what Elsagate was about. People deliberately making channels and videos that would appear as and presumably get recommended as kid friendly content when it was actually shock content. I'm well aware that recommendation algorithms can be abused. Perhaps I should have more strongly emphasized that my examples are presented in a very simplified scenario, that is limited to the alleged political rabbit hole and not things like Elsagate. The point I am making is that pointing out the fact that it's possible to get to the extremes of YouTube by clicking through on recommended videos shouldn't be surprising. In fact, of you couldn't so that it would be evidence of deliberately trying to keep certain content from being popular. The question of how well YouTube polices it's terms of service (which already does prohibit hate speech) is related to this question about the alleged rabbit hole because such content presumably exists at the edge of my hypothetical political spectrum values. But it's not directly related to the fact that clicking through on recommended links can bring people to 1 and 10 even if they start at 5 should not be surprising.

antif 8y ago

That 1-10 seems impossible to gauge correctly without just basing it on the profiles of a video's previous viewers. And the crux seems to be that YouTube has a single primary interest in generating suggestions: to offer the viewer a video that they probably want to see next. Netflix recs are no different. So, the impolite or gruesome content becomes clickbait for an ad revenue machine.

weberc2 8y ago

This is a little off topic, but I watched a Jordan Peterson video once and now my recommendations are fairly extremely right-wing. I'm center-left and the views Peterson espouses aren't politically extreme (although I've heard some are pretty bizarre) at 'worst' he is a moderate conservative (I say "worst" only because at the current cultural moment "conservative = bad" is the prevailing meme). So I'm not sure exactly how YouTube works, but it feels to me to be trying very hard to push me in a particular direction. To be clear, I don't think YouTube has a RW political agenda, but perhaps it has an economic interest in pushing people to the fringes (maybe people at the extremes click more ads or something). Or perhaps they have a left-wing agenda and they want me to associate moderate-RW views with extremist views (seems unlikely, but then again lots of prominent media companies are pushing a similar agenda).

rifung 8y ago
> To be clear, I don't think YouTube has a RW political agenda, but perhaps it has an economic interest in pushing people to the fringes (maybe people at the extremes click more ads or something). I think it's simpler than what you're suggesting. They want to make money, and the indirect way they do that is to get people to watch more videos. If most people who watch Jordan Peterson tend to also watch extreme right wing content, and you watch his video, then you will get recommended right wing content, because they think that's what you will want to watch. I work for Google but not on Youtube, opinions are my own.
- weberc2 8y ago
  I considered that, but I can't think of any plausible reason for prominent overlap in viewership of JP's moderate political content and extreme RW content. Maybe Peterson appeals to people who previously thought the only moderate option was quiet deference to progressives? Would be really interesting if this were the case--it might imply that Peterson has a strong moderating effect on RWers and/or that people are being taught a false dichotomy between extreme left and right.
  - rifung 8y ago

zepearl 8y ago

> But we can still reach the extremes in just 4 clicks. This is why complaining that users can go down a rabbit hole feels disingenuous to me. They always will be _able_ to do so - unless YouTube never recommends videos that aren't more centrist than the video being viewed. I generally agree, but maybe an important detail orbits around the "can" (of This is why complaining that users can go down a rabbit hole...): are Youtube recommendations a healthy mix that give users a choice or does the majority of recommendations push the user down the rabbit hole?

manfredo 8y ago
I do suspect that a lot of the alleged rabbit hole comes from people deliberately picking out recommended videos that are more extreme than the currently viewed one. But I'm interested in putting this theory to the test. I'm actually thinking of making a script or an extension that automates, say 10, 25, or 50 random clicks in the top 10 recommendations and seeing where it ends up. Maybe this system exists already.
- zepearl 8y ago
  I would love to see such an analysis, hehe :)) I have to admit that the exact definition of the problem is not easy to define: e.g. if I have on my screen a video about "people-that-hate-bananas", would it be ok to have recommendations that show only e.g. "why-bananas-are-bad" or should I (ethically) get as well videos of the type "are-bananas-really-bad?" respectively "these-are-good-bananas!"? Using the above example I guess that if Youtube (& similar sites) show only recommendations based on case #1 (which is eaaasy for IT) then yes here I go down the rabbit hole (reinforces/confirms the concept "bananas-are-bad") even if the recommendations are not worse than the original one => therefore even recommendations on "equal" level might have to be evaluated at least partially negatively? (as in this example the recommendations don't promote alternative point-of-views / alternative thinking / search for a flow or compromise, if you understand what I mean) In any case the evaluation of the results you get might be very hard to do, if you want to do it automatically to understand the meaning (e.g. very hard to understand if "good-bananas-are-bad" is negative or positive towards bananas)... :P (maybe if you manage to you might become a Nobel candidate, hehe, or maybe I'm underestimating the current power of AI, which is definitely possible)

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

gambler 8y ago

What you're saying is true, people often seek extremes in all things without any extra nudging, but the problem is that YouTuve deliberately creates several other positive feedback loops. It doesn't just show related videos, it shows popular related videos and additionally selects them based on what you watched before. It makes sense to show more Lego content on the sidebar of a Lego set review. It's less clear that I should be chased by Lego videos across the site after I clicked on a single one of them. Also, considering that various extremes tend to attract attention, it would make sense to use an "anti-viral" algorithm that de-preoritizes videos that get too many views at the moment. This would have an additional effect of giving better exposure to less popular channels, promoting different content creators. Realistically, I don't think they will do either, even if they know for sure that it will help, because it will reduce addict... I mean, engagement of their user-base. Jaron Lanier talked about these issues a lot recently. He makes some interesting points regarding incentives and feedback loops.

manfredo 8y ago
Perhaps this positive feedback loop is true - but I haven't seen evidence of it. In fact, what quantitative evidence I have seen seems to indicate the opposite: https://www.thepostmillennial.com/does-youtube-facilitate-right-wing-radicalization-the-data-says-otherwise/ https://www.thepostmillennial.com/does-youtube-facilitate-ri... Key findings: * Centrist content links to liberal content at over twice the rate it links to conservative content. * Proportionally more conservative content links to centrist or liberal content than either liberal or centrist content links to conservative content. * Liberal content links to itself at the highest proportional rate. Granted, who knows what portion of liberal or conservative content counts as extreme. But concerns over YouTube extremism almost always has to do with conservative extremism and the data does not suggest conservative content is being promoted by YouTube.
- gambler 8y ago
  Not sure how this relates. When I say "extreme" I mean "extreme" in all senses, not just politically extremist. Could be just an extremely one-sided view of something ("why X sucks") or even a "top 10" or "worst fail" video.