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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 oth
by 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 agoPerhaps 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 agoNot 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.
- manfredo 8y ago> When I say "extreme" I mean "extreme" in all senses, not just politically extremist. I don't consider your opinion invalid, but I do get the sense that the majority of concern over the YouTube "rabbit hole" is about promoting politically extreme content. My comments, since the beginning, have been specific to the allegation of pushing users to the extremes politically. I tried had to be explicit about this, and even edited my comment (prior to your comment, mind you) to more explicitly spell out the fact that I'm not talking about extreme things that aren't political (e.g. the "Elsagate" issues of shock content getting recommended to kids). If this is the issue you're taking, then bear in mind that it is not in scope of what I am pointing out, and I don't think it's on scope for the majority of people's discussions about the "YouTube rabbit hole".
- ehsankia 8y agoWouldn't this all be easy to prove or disprove using random walks? Just run a thousand or so, from different starting points, and see where they all go, picking recommendations truly at random (without bias towards more extreme stuff). If Youtube truly pulls you towards extreme videos, then you would always end up at those videos after a long run.
- amanaplanacanal 8y agoI don't think you have to pick recommendations at random. Just turn on autoplay and see where it takes you.