5 ms·

I've noticed an interesting thing in terms of "youtube rabbit holes" towards extreme content. I'm what American society would generally consider "liberal", and

I've noticed an interesting thing in terms of "youtube rabbit holes" towards extreme content. I'm what American society would generally consider "liberal", and I watch a lot of videos about fixing climate change, medicare for all, etc. Interestingly, I don't usually get "liberal" recommendations on my home page. However, if I watch a video from a conservative angle, even just one or two videos, I almost immediately get extreme right wing content in my recommendations. Stuff like PragerU, ReasonTV, NRATV, etc. Even watching videos that I wouldn't consider right wing, just critical of certain left wing sects, like h3h3 for example, tend to almost immediately lead me into videos like "DUMB FEMINISTS GET OWNED - COMPILATION". It's strange the rabbit holes almost always take me deep into right wing territory, but never really into left wing territory.

vibrato 8y ago
what about PragerU or the NRA is "extreme" right wing? Only as "extreme" as MSNBC is left...
- thundergolfer 8y ago
  It is ridiculous to suggest that MSNBC is "extreme left wing", absolutely ridiculous. On the Citations Needed (CN) podcast, there is an episode where an MSNBC tv Anchor goes on to defend CN's criticism of his network. During this podcast, the anchor states that being openly anti-capitalist or socialist will get you laughed out of the room there. To suggest a network with that kind of hostility to criticism of Capitalism is "extreme" left wing is farcical. MSNBC is painfully centre-left and pro-Democratic party.
  - korethr 8y ago
    I think you made his point for him. Your contention is that MSNBC is not extremely left left wing. His contention is that the NRA and PragerU are as extremely right wing to the same degree that MSNBC is extremely left wing. So if MSNBC is not extremely left wing, then I think GP's point is the the NRA and PragerU are perhaps not so extremely right wing as GGP implied
    - thundergolfer 8y ago
      Though I think I made it clear that MSNBC is not extreme left-wing, I didn't make it clear that their juxtaposing of MSNBC's centre-left political platform with the platform of PragerU is wrong, and I perhaps initially misconstrued their comment. PragerU has hardline-conservative positions on climate-change, abortion, religion, immigration, and economics that are certainly more deserving of being called extreme than MSNBC is deserving of being called left.
throwawaysea 8y ago
If you think PragerU or ReasonTV are "extreme right wing" content, respectfully I think you might be lacking perspective. I would describe PragerU as mainstream within the conservative sphere. Their presentation is almost always high-quality in terms of production, respectful in its delivery, and even-keeled. You might disagree with the content (or their values), or find factual errors, but it is easy to find flaws with a wide range of content producers on the left as well. ReasonTV is even closer to center, and is near-right libertarian, and definitely not extreme right. As for your experience with recommendations - I am not sure why you would not see recommendations similar to the videos you like. I see videos from multiple ideologies regularly and get content recommended from all of them. I haven't had my feed dominated by one side. What I think is happening is that people _notice_ videos that incense them, and incorrectly perceive it as being dominant when it truly isn't.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  > high-quality in terms of production, respectful in its delivery, and even-keeled https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM7BgrddY18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM7BgrddY18 "Why you should love fossil fuels", "It is easy for feminists to forget that men gave women the right to vote, gave up their monopoly on power, and invented birth control." -- even-keeled? > it is easy to find flaws with a wide range of content producers on the left as well. More importantly irrevelant, since the criticism isn't that imperfect right wing videos are presented instead of perfect left wing ones. > I haven't had my feed dominated by one side. So? It's perfectly possible for you to be in a different testing bucket. Don't assume what you see is what everybody sees, and that they are just interpreting it differently than you do. I might as well say "nah, you only think you see videos from multiple ideologies".
  - throwawaysea 8y ago
    > "Why you should love fossil fuels" I did see a video from them showing the wide range of products that use fossil fuel as components. Was that the one you're referencing? I felt that video is a fair point to make, since many conveniences of modern life outside of the obvious (i.e. transportation) depend on fossil fuels. Most consumers will not want to give up those conveniences, and their demand for those products shapes our overall consumption of fossil fuels. That video was high-quality and respectful. As for the other video you are mentioning, I haven't seen it, but it seems like a single example picked to paint a narrative. But I don't really want to argue about individual examples, and don't think that's a productive line of discussion. My larger point is that PragerU is not "extreme right wing" content - that's hyperbolic. If they are "extreme right wing", what word will you use for actual right-wing extremists (i.e. those calling for violence)? It feels like anything right of center-left is being compressed into one label of "extreme right wing". > So? It's perfectly possible for you to be in a different testing bucket. Don't assume what you see is what everybody sees, and that they are just interpreting it differently than you do. I might as well say "nah, you only think you see videos from multiple ideologies". OK, if everything is anecdotal, then we should put no stock in those from the left continually complaining about YouTube's recommendation algorithms. After all, no one has standing to do so per your logic.
philipkglass 8y ago
My theory is that we're seeing the "exploration" part of exploration vs. exploitation in action [1]. I use Youtube almost exclusively for music videos and tech lectures. One day I watched this music video created by somebody who has uploaded a lot of Jordan Peterson fan content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK72U02TUsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK72U02TUsI I was getting JP and right-leaning politics recommended to me for a month afterward, even though I never use Youtube to watch JP or political content of any kind. But maybe I was getting that content recommended because I had no prior indications of interest in that conceptual space. The recommender could be exploring previously untouched territory in hopes of finding something with high exploitation value. A value-blind system trying to maximize engagement is going to find that some niche content performs well on some users, and will try to explore that space for other users to see if it has high exploitation value for them too. So start out watching videos about health and it's natural -- from a data perspective -- to surface some conceptually adjacent videos that include anti-vaccination conspiracies. If you watch one or two of those -- even without saving or liking -- then the exploration may expand into conceptually adjacent videos about other Things "They" Don't Want You To Know, and so on. The Youtube recommender works pretty well for discovering new music, in my experience. The problem is that the process that gradually takes you from a Top 40 hit to a less popular musician to somebody who recorded their first song last month isn't always benign when "music" is replaced by "health" or "world news." [1] https://towardsdatascience.com/reinforcement-learning-demystified-exploration-vs-exploitation-in-multi-armed-bandit-setting-be950d2ee9f6 https://towardsdatascience.com/reinforcement-learning-demyst...
gus_massa 8y ago
You are suffering "annoyance bias". You remember more the few videos that are annoying and you obviously don't want to see again, than the good recommendations (that are hopefully more usual). For example I clicked a few months ago in a link in HN to a video of a moron that claims that can cure type I diabetes with a diet that avoid certain kind of food [1]. Now I get from time to time recommendations to see the videos of this moron and it's totally annoying, because it's clearly wrong. I also get recommendations for music I don't like, food channels I don't like, news channel that I don't like, channels that are somewhat related to what I like but I don't like, ... Perhaps some new video appears in the recommendations for a few days. Anyway, they are not annoying enough to be remembered. [1] It's not sugar, or HFCS or other food additive that is somewhat related to diabetes, or can cause type II diabetes. It just doesn't make sense.

vibrato 8y ago

what about PragerU or the NRA is "extreme" right wing? Only as "extreme" as MSNBC is left...

thundergolfer 8y ago
It is ridiculous to suggest that MSNBC is "extreme left wing", absolutely ridiculous. On the Citations Needed (CN) podcast, there is an episode where an MSNBC tv Anchor goes on to defend CN's criticism of his network. During this podcast, the anchor states that being openly anti-capitalist or socialist will get you laughed out of the room there. To suggest a network with that kind of hostility to criticism of Capitalism is "extreme" left wing is farcical. MSNBC is painfully centre-left and pro-Democratic party.
- korethr 8y ago
  I think you made his point for him. Your contention is that MSNBC is not extremely left left wing. His contention is that the NRA and PragerU are as extremely right wing to the same degree that MSNBC is extremely left wing. So if MSNBC is not extremely left wing, then I think GP's point is the the NRA and PragerU are perhaps not so extremely right wing as GGP implied
  - thundergolfer 8y ago
    Though I think I made it clear that MSNBC is not extreme left-wing, I didn't make it clear that their juxtaposing of MSNBC's centre-left political platform with the platform of PragerU is wrong, and I perhaps initially misconstrued their comment. PragerU has hardline-conservative positions on climate-change, abortion, religion, immigration, and economics that are certainly more deserving of being called extreme than MSNBC is deserving of being called left.

throwawaysea 8y ago

If you think PragerU or ReasonTV are "extreme right wing" content, respectfully I think you might be lacking perspective. I would describe PragerU as mainstream within the conservative sphere. Their presentation is almost always high-quality in terms of production, respectful in its delivery, and even-keeled. You might disagree with the content (or their values), or find factual errors, but it is easy to find flaws with a wide range of content producers on the left as well. ReasonTV is even closer to center, and is near-right libertarian, and definitely not extreme right. As for your experience with recommendations - I am not sure why you would not see recommendations similar to the videos you like. I see videos from multiple ideologies regularly and get content recommended from all of them. I haven't had my feed dominated by one side. What I think is happening is that people _notice_ videos that incense them, and incorrectly perceive it as being dominant when it truly isn't.

PavlovsCat 8y ago
> high-quality in terms of production, respectful in its delivery, and even-keeled https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM7BgrddY18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM7BgrddY18 "Why you should love fossil fuels", "It is easy for feminists to forget that men gave women the right to vote, gave up their monopoly on power, and invented birth control." -- even-keeled? > it is easy to find flaws with a wide range of content producers on the left as well. More importantly irrevelant, since the criticism isn't that imperfect right wing videos are presented instead of perfect left wing ones. > I haven't had my feed dominated by one side. So? It's perfectly possible for you to be in a different testing bucket. Don't assume what you see is what everybody sees, and that they are just interpreting it differently than you do. I might as well say "nah, you only think you see videos from multiple ideologies".
- throwawaysea 8y ago
  > "Why you should love fossil fuels" I did see a video from them showing the wide range of products that use fossil fuel as components. Was that the one you're referencing? I felt that video is a fair point to make, since many conveniences of modern life outside of the obvious (i.e. transportation) depend on fossil fuels. Most consumers will not want to give up those conveniences, and their demand for those products shapes our overall consumption of fossil fuels. That video was high-quality and respectful. As for the other video you are mentioning, I haven't seen it, but it seems like a single example picked to paint a narrative. But I don't really want to argue about individual examples, and don't think that's a productive line of discussion. My larger point is that PragerU is not "extreme right wing" content - that's hyperbolic. If they are "extreme right wing", what word will you use for actual right-wing extremists (i.e. those calling for violence)? It feels like anything right of center-left is being compressed into one label of "extreme right wing". > So? It's perfectly possible for you to be in a different testing bucket. Don't assume what you see is what everybody sees, and that they are just interpreting it differently than you do. I might as well say "nah, you only think you see videos from multiple ideologies". OK, if everything is anecdotal, then we should put no stock in those from the left continually complaining about YouTube's recommendation algorithms. After all, no one has standing to do so per your logic.

philipkglass 8y ago

My theory is that we're seeing the "exploration" part of exploration vs. exploitation in action [1]. I use Youtube almost exclusively for music videos and tech lectures. One day I watched this music video created by somebody who has uploaded a lot of Jordan Peterson fan content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK72U02TUsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK72U02TUsI I was getting JP and right-leaning politics recommended to me for a month afterward, even though I never use Youtube to watch JP or political content of any kind. But maybe I was getting that content recommended because I had no prior indications of interest in that conceptual space. The recommender could be exploring previously untouched territory in hopes of finding something with high exploitation value. A value-blind system trying to maximize engagement is going to find that some niche content performs well on some users, and will try to explore that space for other users to see if it has high exploitation value for them too. So start out watching videos about health and it's natural -- from a data perspective -- to surface some conceptually adjacent videos that include anti-vaccination conspiracies. If you watch one or two of those -- even without saving or liking -- then the exploration may expand into conceptually adjacent videos about other Things "They" Don't Want You To Know, and so on. The Youtube recommender works pretty well for discovering new music, in my experience. The problem is that the process that gradually takes you from a Top 40 hit to a less popular musician to somebody who recorded their first song last month isn't always benign when "music" is replaced by "health" or "world news." [1] https://towardsdatascience.com/reinforcement-learning-demystified-exploration-vs-exploitation-in-multi-armed-bandit-setting-be950d2ee9f6 https://towardsdatascience.com/reinforcement-learning-demyst...

gus_massa 8y ago

You are suffering "annoyance bias". You remember more the few videos that are annoying and you obviously don't want to see again, than the good recommendations (that are hopefully more usual). For example I clicked a few months ago in a link in HN to a video of a moron that claims that can cure type I diabetes with a diet that avoid certain kind of food [1]. Now I get from time to time recommendations to see the videos of this moron and it's totally annoying, because it's clearly wrong. I also get recommendations for music I don't like, food channels I don't like, news channel that I don't like, channels that are somewhat related to what I like but I don't like, ... Perhaps some new video appears in the recommendations for a few days. Anyway, they are not annoying enough to be remembered. [1] It's not sugar, or HFCS or other food additive that is somewhat related to diabetes, or can cause type II diabetes. It just doesn't make sense.