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The Making of a YouTube Radical
- __i___ii____ 7y agohttps://youtu.be/HWc5_4uKOg8 https://youtu.be/HWc5_4uKOg8 Molyneux's response to the article.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- spookyuser 7y agoI love the scrolling transition at the beginning of this article. It really feels like an excellent piece of internet art.
- golergka 7y agoIt's also a very misleading and dishonest journalism, as many of YouTubers displayed in the final stages have nothing to do with the alt-right.
- dannyr 7y agoI read the article and it mentioned that in the past year YouTube started recommending videos from left-leaning creators. "IN 2018, nearly four years after Mr. Cain had begun watching right-wing YouTube videos, a new kind of video began appearing in his recommendations. These videos were made by left-wing creators, but they mimicked the aesthetics of right-wing YouTube, down to the combative titles and the mocking use of words like “triggered” and “snowflake.”
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- low_poly_shiba 7y agofamous left wing youtubers are people like Hbomberguy (known for helping trans charities) famous right wing youtubers are people like Prisonplanet (white genocide propaganda, Brexit) there's no comparison between the two outside of rise in popularity
- ralusek 7y agoPaul Joseph Watson (prisonplanet) is the most conspiratorial of the anti-left, he works for InfoWars. There are plenty of anti-left (a more apt term, as many are liberal/libertarian) that add quite a bit to the conversation. Karen Straughan, 1791L, Sam Harris, Janice Fiamengo, Brett/Eric Weinstein, sometimes Jordan Peterson, Independent Man, Computing Forever, ShortFatOtaku, Asian Capitalists, among others.
- low_poly_shiba 7y agosure and there's other tamer lefttube people like Jenny Nicholson, Lindsay Ellis, etc. I was comparing hard to hard. "Hard left" youtube seem to be great people, whereas "hard right" youtube is utter trash. One has to stretch "both sides are bad" to great extremes to pretend that the problem is intractable.
- coldtea 7y ago>I was comparing hard to hard. "Hard left" youtube seem to be great people, whereas "hard right" youtube is utter trash. Or you know, that's a version of "everyone I agree with is good, everyone I disagree with is Hitler".
- low_poly_shiba 7y agowho's your go-to left equivalent of Jordan Peterson or PrisonPaul or Crowder? site doesn't let me reply but I can't believe you're seriously saying Chomsky and Zizek are the left equivalents of Crowder and Prisonpaul, lol Let's narrow it down to those two. Who's the left Crowder/Prisonpaul if not Hbomb? And if it's Hbomb, how can you deny he's better than those two?
- coldtea 7y agoEqually "bad" you mean (and assuming those are bad)? Cause I don't consider e.g. Jordan Peterson bad, or even really that right. Conservative yes (which is another thing). In terms of classic left/right politics (and not the modern fashion of id politics) I'd say he's more or less a social democrat. That said, for people on the left I follow, I'd mention Slavoj Zizek, Chomsky, Michea, and others (including authors on Counterpunch, NLR, Mother Jones, etc). I like my leftists old school, regarding class, colonization, imperialism, and such, and don't care about the US obsession with identity politics (in fact I dislike it). I don't think the US has had many real leftists since like the 60s, and surely none in the mainstream. >site doesn't let me reply but I can't believe you're seriously saying Chomsky and Zizek are the left equivalents of Crowder and Prisonpaul, lol You should be able to reply, I think it just takes a minute for the link to appear or so. Can always click on the parent comment's date though to go to a reply page iirc. That said, I didn't say "Chomsky and Zizek are the left equivalents of Crowder and Prisonpaul". I said those are some on the left I personally follow. I'm not sure what "equivalent" means here. Equivalent in what? If it's about having polarizing opinions or away-of-centre opinions on things, well, all those mentioned have those. >Let's narrow it down to those two. Who's the left Crowder/Prisonpaul if not Hbomb? And if it's Hbomb, how can you deny he's better than those two? I wasn't sure who Hbomb is, so I paid a visit. Seems like someone making dumb jokes from what (in the US) passes for a leftist view. I haven't seen much Crowder (only heard about him through the recent fuss) but this Hbomb is not in my eyes any better than Prisonpaul. If anything, he's more grating. (Also, better in what? Better person? Better opinions? More agreeable? More hipster-likable views?)
- minimaxir 7y agoComment from the author (which is getting ratioed): > Hey, writer here. This collage is just a sample from his viewing history. Some far-right, some not. https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1137392725081219073 https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1137392725081219073
- pacala 7y agoThe choice of the text scrolling over the collage, however, is the author's / NYT's doing. > Caleb Cain was a college dropout looking for direction. He turned to YouTube. > Soon, he was pulled into a far-right universe, watching thousands of videos filled with conspiracy theories, misogyny and racism. > I was brainwashed If some, in the admission of the writer, are not far right / [insert some other libelous term here], is it fair to label them all as such?
- mistermann 7y agoAll's fair in love and meme wars, which is what this is. At the end of the day, I think the implicit "one side is using facts and truth, the other is using lies and deceit" narrative is effective, but it also has weakness in that it is a bit lacking in the truth department. I'm not liking the direction these debates are going though.
- gjsman-1000 7y agoI'm not a fan of all of those YouTubers, but quite a few of the big ones (i.e. Crowder, Shapiro, Peterson) detest racism, and have openly and many times said that they do not support white supremacy and think Nazis are racist morons. Someone asked why neo-Nazis were attending one of their conferences, and the speaker (Peterson) said he had no idea and wanted them to leave for being idiots. Doesn't change the fact that NYT still calls them "white supremacist supporting." I think the problem here is that they support some policies which white supremacists, as a group, also like supporting. Just because two groups can agree on something doesn't mean those groups are allies. Also, "white supremacist" is a great slam against someone you don't like regardless as to if it is true.
- 0815test 7y ago> but quite a few of the big ones (i.e. Crowder, Shapiro, Peterson) detest racism ... Yes, but the YT recommendation algorithm doesn't know that, and even if it could know it wouldn't care. It's enough to watch a few IDW (Intellectual Dark Web) videos, the system will assume that you want racist, far-right, etc. content and that's what will pop up in your recommendations and "Up Next" video plays. That's an entirely programmatically-generated "pathway" into the alt-right rabbit hole; it has nothing to do with who the IDW themselves would want to associate with.
- gjsman-1000 7y agoAgreed. However, at the same time, this happens with almost _everything_ on YouTube. I bet you 5 Fake Bitcoins that if you watch a lot of Left-leaning videos from NYT, Vox, and others, that you will be in your own rabbit hole.
- djflutt3rshy 7y agoAs a left leaning person, absolutely! I viewed a few of hbomberguy's tamer videos, next thing you know I've got videos with commenters suggesting we bust out the guillotines. But hey, thats what gets the eyeballs and the ad revenue flowing!
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- CM30 7y agoPotentially legally risky as well, given a known attorney/law firm critiqued it on Twitter and said it was totally unacceptable: https://twitter.com/morrison/status/1137401059419217921?s=11 https://twitter.com/morrison/status/1137401059419217921?s=11
- zxcvvcxz 7y agoAh, a radical, so basically anyone who questions leftist orthodoxy: - questioning climate alarmism as a means to take more of your money; - questioning feminism as a force of havoc on the nuclear family; - questioning vaccine safety, a class of drugs that suspiciously never undergo double blind placebo safety testing; - questioning the expanding welfare state as possibly not a social good but a crutch; Etc. All radical ideas to even think about. Shhhhh!
- burlesona 7y ago> Google Brain’s researchers wondered if they could keep YouTube users engaged for longer by steering them into different parts of YouTube, rather than feeding their existing interests. And they began testing a new algorithm that incorporated a different type of A.I., called reinforcement learning. > The new A.I., known as Reinforce, was a kind of long-term addiction machine. It was designed to maximize users’ engagement over time by predicting which recommendations would expand their tastes and get them to watch not just one more video but many more. It saddens me that so many of our smartest engineers are working on stuff like this.
- ben_jones 7y agoThose aren’t the world’s smartest engineers.
- calimac 7y agoA deep deceitful manipulation of the human brain in ways few people understand is having such a massive impact on the population. That's what VC's #Unicorn #10XBillionDollarValuation Aside from the B.S. political Left Bias. The algos affect everyone. I disregarded the Failing NYTimes mentally ill reporter #LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder
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- Youcandothis 7y agoI don't see whats wrong about suggesting videos to users that they like to watch.
- __i___ii____ 7y agoWell, it catches people in thought-bubbles.
- Youcandothis 7y agoBut the idea with this algorithm was to expand peoples interestes. That should work against locking people into bubbles.
- gjsman-1000 7y agoThis piece of "journalism" is very biased towards the left. I have noticed that the left has increasingly declared traditional right-wing values as "extremist" or "alt-right" to attempt to whittle down what being right-wing means. An example of this is abortion. No matter how you feel about it, saying that abortion is murder and should be banned is now, in the NYT's opinion, "alt-right" and "extremist" even though about half of America believes so and this has always been a Right-wing value. Not only this, but this type of article is why the Right calls NYT "fake news." Not necessarily "fake," but the bias is boldly visible. It doesn't help with media credibility - and then the Left wonders why the Right doesn't take newspapers seriously. For the record, I think "Fake news" is overused - but I do understand, reading this, why the Right loves bashing NYT.
- minikites 7y ago>this has always been a Right-wing value No it hasn't: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-ri... >But the abortion myth quickly collapses under historical scrutiny. In fact, it wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools. So much for the new abolitionism.
- gjsman-1000 7y agoI will admit that, I was being a little hyperbolic ("always" meaning "last 40 years or so"). Still, it was brewing, as the March for Life did occur right after Roe.
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- camdenlock 7y agoI was struck by the apparent bias of the article. Not until the very end did the author note that the “right-wing rabbit hole” is not the only dangerous rabbit hole to be found on YouTube.
- 0815test 7y agoIt's nothing new, is it? https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage... (2014) How many Tumblr radicals are out there? Both sides are doing it.
- nootropicat 7y agoThe most interesting thing about the article is the admission by google that it wages an ai-powered war on humanity. Rather than paperclips, the most likely ai apocalypse scenario consists of an ai that modifies and breeds humans (what it considers humans) to do nothing but watch ads.
- stcredzero 7y agoIt will first breed and otherwise manipulate humans into believing only what the media tells them.
- camdenlock 7y agoFor much of the article, the author portrays the “left-wing” as a bastion of sanity and moral good, a place where those who have been hijacked by the “right-wing” can be rehabilitated. Only at the very end does he pay passing lip-service to the possibility that there might be danger on both sides. Is his characterization accurate?
- devin 7y agoI am having trouble thinking of a way to answer this without being downvoted for either being "too left" or "too right" in my reply. Maybe I'll just try and take a side route: Ideology is one hell of a drug. I like Gary Bernhardt's talk[0] on the subject. He defines ideology as the stuff we don't know that we know. In any event, there are certainly shallow moralists on both sides. [0]: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/ideology https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/ideology
- gjsman-1000 7y agoQuick Question: You are worried about right-ring rabbit holes, NYT. If I watched a bunch of NYT, Vox, and other such videos, are you _sure_ I wouldn't be sucked into a Left-wing rabbit hole?
- cameronbrown 7y agoSssh - they don't want you to think about these things.
- runarberg 7y agoI think there is a fundamental difference though. At some point the far right will start to promote really hateful messages such as anti-gay, anti-jew, anti-woman, etc. At the far left end, on the other hand, the hate is stared at the capitalist system and public figures benefiting from it.
- gjsman-1000 7y agoFar left is just as dangerous as far right. Just google how many deaths can be attributed to far left ideologies (communism, marxism, etc.)
- josteink 7y ago> At the far left end, on the other hand, the hate is stared at the capitalist system and public figures benefiting from it. Or violence against different thinking individuals. Think third wave feminists. Antifa. BLM. Berkeley Riots. Right now, the extreme left is much more dangerous than the extreme right (not to mention the similarly lumped not-so-extreme right), because people like you think they will do no “real” wrongs. That’s a huge mistake to make.
- pacala 7y agoAt the far-left end: A. Millions murdered based on class: independent farmers [0], intellectuals, defined as anyone wearing glasses [1], entrepreneurs, professionals. Generally anyone perceived as better off than their neighbor was at risk of being labeled 'enemy of the people' by said neighbour and deported overnight into the Gulag [2]. Or executed on the spot. B. Millions deported based on ethnicity. Entire populations were moved around USSR in the '30s, including Balts, Poles, Romanians, Tatars or Koreans, based simply on their ethnicity, partly as an attempt to forcefully disassociate them from their cultural legacy. C. Millions murdered due to breakdown of basic economic structures. The great famine of Ukraine in '32/'33, and Mao's great famine of the '59/'63 stand out as marvels of far left ideology implemented by force in the economic sphere. All in all, an estimated 100 million people lost their lives in the name of far left ideology [6]. It is repugnant to gloss over recent history and pretend there are no hideous monsters to be found. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism#Democratic_Kampuchea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism#Democrati... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_in_the_Soviet_Union#The_Soviet_Gulag_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_in_the_Soviet_Uni... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Soviet_Union#Ethnic_operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Sov... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao%27s_Great_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao%27s_Great_Famine [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_...
- deogeo 7y ago> When Mr. Cain first saw these videos, he dismissed them as left-wing propaganda. But he watched more, and he started to wonder if people like Ms. Wynn had a point. Her videos persuasively used research and citations to rebut the right-wing talking points he had absorbed. Good to know apparently none of the right-wing videos used research or citations - only 'talking points'. Or at least it wasn't mentioned.
- coldtea 7y agoWhile there are lots of "far right" channels out there, the majority of of the channels shown as screenshots have nothing to do with the "far right" or conspiracy theories. Looks like their main crime is being conservative.
- lwelyk 7y agoI just scrolled down the screenshot section where it showed the videos he watched in one time period, are you really trying to say Stefan Molyneux, Paul Joseph Watson, thunderf00t and a lady complaining about "cuckservatives" aren't "far right" or conspiracy theorists?
- Grue3 7y agoWhat's wrong with thunderf00t? I only remember him for anti-creationist videos and exposing Solar Roadways. It seems he's anti-conspiracy theorist if anything.
- ForHackernews 7y agoI've only seen the thunderf00t videos debunking the "hyperloop" nonsense, and they seemed pretty reasonable to me.
- coldtea 7y agoI haven't watched Stefan Molyneux or thunderf00t, so can't tell. I've watched a few Paul Joseph Watson videos. I've also watched Shapiro, Milo, and Peterson, recognized from the screenshots shown. You can agree or disagree with the positions they take (e.g. Milo plays the extravagant provocateur for laughs and money), but where are those "conspiracy theories"? Of course in these days, everything is labeled a "conspiracy theory" too. I keep the term for things involving the illuminati and aliens. Regular corporatist interests and politicians conspire all the time -- the more open version is called lobbying. Heck, politics is all about conspiring (including very covertly spy-shit, Nixon-Watergate like) against other parties and ideologies...
- mistermann 7y ago
- __i___ii____ 7y agoI closed out of the article at the suggestion that the likes of Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, and Dave Rubin are "radicalizing" anyone. The New York times is such unbelievable garbage.
- lwelyk 7y agoJoe Rogan and Dave rubin just have casual chats with stefan molyneux on their shows where they give him attention and let him just talk. They just give a platform to a literal white supremacist.
- mistermann 7y agoI would be interested in seeing you make a case for him being literally a white supremacist. A convincing case would be: 1. a specific, authoritative definition of white supremacy 2. an example of a video demonstrating these specific (not approximate) beliefs Is downvoting a request for evidence for an extraordinary claim (to be clear: this is not an assertion, so you "downvoting to express disagreement" is not valid) consistent with the HN guidelines?
- dang 7y agoPlease keep these wretched ideological flamewars off HN. Think of it as an experiment in not having literally every internet forum burn with the same rage. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mistermann 7y agoHi Dang, I doubt you have the time or any remaining patience to care, and I can hardly blame you, but I would like to point out what I think is an important point: while this discussion may seem like just another ideological disagreement, if you look at my participation in it I hope you could see that I was approaching it from an epistemological perspective, not (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20150162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20150162) an ideological perspective. I have a theory that a large percentage of seemingly ideological disagreements (same set of facts, but difference of opinion) are in fact rooted in epistemological problems of perception. This is why my counterpart was unable to provide evidence for what he (genuinely, and with good intentions) believed were facts. My intentions were not malicious (I think this is observably plausible based on my words and tone, or at least I hope so) in the conversation - I wasn't trying to score a "win" for "my side", I was genuinely trying to see if it is possible to get someone who believes something not-absolutely-factual to examine the foundation of those beliefs. "Defending" Stefan Molyneux was probably not the wisest place to do such a thing, but it is almost always topics related to "-isms" where these sorts of cognitive behaviors manifest themselves, so it is almost always going to look "obviously stupid" to have chosen the specific subject when taking such experimental stands. Personally, I wish more people would try (if no one ever does anything, how will the problem stop getting worse) to figure out what is going on with the increasing polarization of opinions between people and try to figure out a way to fix it. But at the end of the day, even if I am completely correct in this theory, perhaps there's nothing that can be done about it (although, among all the downvotes and flags, one person maintained objectivity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20148991 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20148991), and expecting HN mods to tolerate the messiness is a bit much to ask. So, my sincere apologies, I will try to refrain/minimize such behavior going forward. But at the same time, I think it is fair to point out that in such disagreements, it takes two to tango, and perhaps the person holding the popular but technically not-objectively-correct position might be deserving of a warning as well. To me, dishonesty is a much more toxic and harmful behavior than disagreement.
- djflutt3rshy 7y agoSo long as advertising revenue rules everything around me, I don't see this problem going away. Whether it's addictive right-wing videos or addictive left-wing videos, websites like YouTube will always prioritize "engagement" and adviews over safe and neutral and boring and reliable. Good times...
- malicioususer11 7y agopersonally, i can relate. but where are the Facts? :)
- jl2718 7y agoThe author of this article and the YouTube creators he maligns, are both engaged in what Naval Ravikant describes as a “negative-sum prestige game”. The wealth benefits are nearly zero, and the fame is all negative. Stay in the positive-sum wealth game, fellow hackers; build, create, form meaningful life-long relationships.
- TomMckenny 7y agoIt's going to be hard to discuss the problem here if just mentioning it draws such a vast quantities of spam from the other Caleb Cains of the world.
- rjf72 7y agoThis article just included Milton Friedman in a collage that seems to imply he was a conspiratorial, racist, misogynist? For those who might not know who he was, here is is Wiki entry. [1] He's a nobel prize winning economist and more or less critical reading to understand the logic behind much of our current economic processes, without casting judgement on the rightness or wrongness of said systems. He died 13 years ago. I am, for once, at a loss for words. That is just so unbelievably idiotic. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman
- razius 7y agoYes, most likely they are trying to label him as far-right as well. Remember they support Marxism which is against a free economy.
- busymom0 7y agoThat along with them including Philip DeFranco (even though he's not mentioned in the article) made me lose interest in whatever they were trying to say through the article. I don't want to get on a political debate here on HN but Phil is more left leaning or at least that's the impression almost entirety of his audience gets from watching his videos. I honestly think that this article is more about trying to take down independent but huge following journalists/creators than it's about shining light on radicalization. This could be because of these independent creators are taking away too much of these huge media company/newspaper's profits.
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- philshem 7y agoLots of grey text in these comments.
- RandomInteger4 7y agoWhy in the world is Philip DeFranco in that collage?