4 ms·

I have an unlisted video with about 15 views that when viewed in an incognito tab constantly recommends stuff like "Ben Shapiro owns liberal professor", alongsi

I have an unlisted video with about 15 views that when viewed in an incognito tab constantly recommends stuff like "Ben Shapiro owns liberal professor", alongside gun videos. I just did an experiment where I clicked one of these and clicked "next" a bunch going through their recommended videos. It immediately dove into alt-right stuff, and eventually led to videos of antifa protestors getting beaten up. This is normal on YouTube.

opportune 8y ago
I wonder how much of this is due to sponsorship. Aren't Ben Shapiro, PragerU, etc. billionaire-funded outreach programs? Can you pay Youtube to give your videos higher positioning in recommendation lists without their higher positions being explicitly labeled as "sponsored"?
- derp_dee_derp 8y ago
  No, they are not billionaire funded. It is more likely to be a result of PragerU their lawsuit against youtube and YouTube adjusting their algorithm to give them a bit of a boost
  - opportune 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PragerU#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PragerU#Funding I'm not sure if Ben Shapiro is being directly funded but it looks like PragerU is mostly funded either directly by billionairs or by think tanks (which are often also funded by billionaires but I don't have time to dig into all of the different ones mentioned here)
nailer 8y ago
Alt right as in you found videos advocating for a white ethno state on youtube? Because that's the opposite of Ben Shapiro. Antifa are pretty explicitly ('by any means necessary', carrying baseball bats, beating people up) a violent group, people can and do enjoy seeing others retaliate.
- kevingadd 8y ago
  Shapiro's publicly stated views literally align with what you just described. This isn't a rebuke of anyone's personal politics, it's a fact. He's a public figure who runs a news site.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    I may be confused here, but the person you’re responding to is saying that Ben Shapiro does not advocate for a white ethno state. Are you saying that he does?
    - kevingadd 8y ago
      Correct. There are citations floating around on the internet, for example here: https://twitter.com/refdra/status/1111656520083746818 https://twitter.com/refdra/status/1111656520083746818 Again, this is not a rebuke of anyone's politics: It's simply a verifiable description of Shapiro's views.
      - manfredo 8y ago
        > It's simply a verifiable description of Shapiro's views. A description that's verifiable insofar as the quality of sources that the author cited. And the author provided sources in the form of urls on an image, and most people don't click on those. I'll link them up here, and let the readers decide whether this unverified twitter account's description holds up: 1. https://www.dailywire.com/news/21144/complete-transcript-ben-takes-berkeley-daily-wire https://www.dailywire.com/news/21144/complete-transcript-ben... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVQke0HkLiU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVQke0HkLiU 3. Author doesn't actually provide the source, we just have to take the author's word that the video is as described. 4. https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/156246995978293248 https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/156246995978293248 5. https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/01/health-care-markets-government-commodity-human-right/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/01/health-care-markets-g... 6. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/is-ben-shapiro-a-conservative-liberals-can-count-on.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/is-ben-shapiro-a... 7. https://www.newsweek.com/ben-shapiro-democrats-are-love-taxing-rich-opinion-1289849 https://www.newsweek.com/ben-shapiro-democrats-are-love-taxi... 8. https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/25712847277 https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/25712847277 9. http://www.freeman.org/m_online/sep03/transfer.html http://www.freeman.org/m_online/sep03/transfer.html 10. https://www.dailywire.com/news/31980/media-are-lying-about-trump-separating-illegal-ben-shapiro https://www.dailywire.com/news/31980/media-are-lying-about-t... Even just taking the time to look down and compare the statements made on the image and the quotes that were used to justify these statements revealed the kind of artistic license that was taken in the interpretation of the sources at hand.
lancesells 8y ago
The same thing happens to me as well. I don't know who Ben Shapiro is besides knowing he's "not liberal" and have never watched his videos but they are recommended in the sidebar of almost any video I watch. I looked up the hip-hop artist Mac Miller when he died of a drug overdose and the all of the recommended videos were of his pop star ex-girlfriend being the one responsible for his death. Clearly the engine has learned to go towards the extreme. My opinion is to push for education in all aspects of these algorithms and keep your kids off Youtube! It is so far from network or cable TV it's a little scary. That said, it's an amazing resource but it's geared toward growth and profitability at any cost (most likely lives).
- 3131s 8y ago
  Seriously, why the fuck is this? I get recommended Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, MGTOW, etc. all the fucking time despite explicitly telling Youtube that I'm "not interested" in these videos.
inerte 8y ago
This is normal, true, but be aware even your starting point gives clues. Your IP address, your browser choice, the fact it’s (probably) the first time YouTube sees you... it all feeds into the algorithm. Might be the case that Chrome users in your area are going Incognito to watch Ben Shapiro videos. Given your reaction, that might be exactly the case. Or it might be Ben is a B-level celebrity that might attract a click to display an expensive ad.
- kettlecorn 8y ago
  The normality of it is why it's so awful. Maybe it's true people matching some of my info watch are likely to watch Shapiro videos, but by optimizing for engagement they basically are trying to herd similar people towards whatever version of that person watches the most YouTube videos. Indirectly YouTube wants everyone to be a right-wing fanatic, because the algorithm has determined that that sort of person watches a lot of videos. YouTube shows videos that are likely to get clicks, but fanatics are more likely to click and watch videos. So things fanatics care about are promoted. YouTube seems to take this stance that it's just natural social dynamics at play, excusing themselves from addressing what they're enabling.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

opportune 8y ago

I wonder how much of this is due to sponsorship. Aren't Ben Shapiro, PragerU, etc. billionaire-funded outreach programs? Can you pay Youtube to give your videos higher positioning in recommendation lists without their higher positions being explicitly labeled as "sponsored"?

derp_dee_derp 8y ago
No, they are not billionaire funded. It is more likely to be a result of PragerU their lawsuit against youtube and YouTube adjusting their algorithm to give them a bit of a boost
- opportune 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PragerU#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PragerU#Funding I'm not sure if Ben Shapiro is being directly funded but it looks like PragerU is mostly funded either directly by billionairs or by think tanks (which are often also funded by billionaires but I don't have time to dig into all of the different ones mentioned here)

nailer 8y ago

Alt right as in you found videos advocating for a white ethno state on youtube? Because that's the opposite of Ben Shapiro. Antifa are pretty explicitly ('by any means necessary', carrying baseball bats, beating people up) a violent group, people can and do enjoy seeing others retaliate.

kevingadd 8y ago
Shapiro's publicly stated views literally align with what you just described. This isn't a rebuke of anyone's personal politics, it's a fact. He's a public figure who runs a news site.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  I may be confused here, but the person you’re responding to is saying that Ben Shapiro does not advocate for a white ethno state. Are you saying that he does?
  - kevingadd 8y ago
    Correct. There are citations floating around on the internet, for example here: https://twitter.com/refdra/status/1111656520083746818 https://twitter.com/refdra/status/1111656520083746818 Again, this is not a rebuke of anyone's politics: It's simply a verifiable description of Shapiro's views.
    - manfredo 8y ago
      > It's simply a verifiable description of Shapiro's views. A description that's verifiable insofar as the quality of sources that the author cited. And the author provided sources in the form of urls on an image, and most people don't click on those. I'll link them up here, and let the readers decide whether this unverified twitter account's description holds up: 1. https://www.dailywire.com/news/21144/complete-transcript-ben-takes-berkeley-daily-wire https://www.dailywire.com/news/21144/complete-transcript-ben... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVQke0HkLiU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVQke0HkLiU 3. Author doesn't actually provide the source, we just have to take the author's word that the video is as described. 4. https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/156246995978293248 https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/156246995978293248 5. https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/01/health-care-markets-government-commodity-human-right/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/01/health-care-markets-g... 6. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/is-ben-shapiro-a-conservative-liberals-can-count-on.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/is-ben-shapiro-a... 7. https://www.newsweek.com/ben-shapiro-democrats-are-love-taxing-rich-opinion-1289849 https://www.newsweek.com/ben-shapiro-democrats-are-love-taxi... 8. https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/25712847277 https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/25712847277 9. http://www.freeman.org/m_online/sep03/transfer.html http://www.freeman.org/m_online/sep03/transfer.html 10. https://www.dailywire.com/news/31980/media-are-lying-about-trump-separating-illegal-ben-shapiro https://www.dailywire.com/news/31980/media-are-lying-about-t... Even just taking the time to look down and compare the statements made on the image and the quotes that were used to justify these statements revealed the kind of artistic license that was taken in the interpretation of the sources at hand.

lancesells 8y ago

The same thing happens to me as well. I don't know who Ben Shapiro is besides knowing he's "not liberal" and have never watched his videos but they are recommended in the sidebar of almost any video I watch. I looked up the hip-hop artist Mac Miller when he died of a drug overdose and the all of the recommended videos were of his pop star ex-girlfriend being the one responsible for his death. Clearly the engine has learned to go towards the extreme. My opinion is to push for education in all aspects of these algorithms and keep your kids off Youtube! It is so far from network or cable TV it's a little scary. That said, it's an amazing resource but it's geared toward growth and profitability at any cost (most likely lives).

3131s 8y ago
Seriously, why the fuck is this? I get recommended Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, MGTOW, etc. all the fucking time despite explicitly telling Youtube that I'm "not interested" in these videos.

inerte 8y ago

This is normal, true, but be aware even your starting point gives clues. Your IP address, your browser choice, the fact it’s (probably) the first time YouTube sees you... it all feeds into the algorithm. Might be the case that Chrome users in your area are going Incognito to watch Ben Shapiro videos. Given your reaction, that might be exactly the case. Or it might be Ben is a B-level celebrity that might attract a click to display an expensive ad.

kettlecorn 8y ago
The normality of it is why it's so awful. Maybe it's true people matching some of my info watch are likely to watch Shapiro videos, but by optimizing for engagement they basically are trying to herd similar people towards whatever version of that person watches the most YouTube videos. Indirectly YouTube wants everyone to be a right-wing fanatic, because the algorithm has determined that that sort of person watches a lot of videos. YouTube shows videos that are likely to get clicks, but fanatics are more likely to click and watch videos. So things fanatics care about are promoted. YouTube seems to take this stance that it's just natural social dynamics at play, excusing themselves from addressing what they're enabling.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]