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YouTube recommendations feel like a direct impediment to democracy. When your recommendations consist of the same crap all the time, it may seem as though that

YouTube recommendations feel like a direct impediment to democracy. When your recommendations consist of the same crap all the time, it may seem as though that stuff carries more weight than it really does. I wonder to what degree YouTube is responsible for the current political climate. The same with Twitter really. When you only follow and see posts from people you choose, how are you supposed to give important issues a fair shake and debate viewpoints that different from yours.

matz1 7y ago
Democracy work just fine. It might not what you want but what if the current youtube recommendation system is what I want ? In democracy people like me should still get equal power to decide. There are no right or wrong outcome in democracy.
- ben_w 7y ago
  No system of decision-making can survive a high level of misinformation. In the case of democracy that means you might be happy and placated, but you won’t have any control no matter how often you vote.
  - matz1 7y ago
    >that means you might be happy and placated Maybe some people do fine with that, even though to some other people perspective they call it illusion. I don't really care if my happiness is perceived as "illusion" by some other people as long as I my self consider it happy. as long as these people still allowed to vote, its fine to me. They may vote for "stupid" decision but democracy should still allow for that.
    - ben_w 7y ago
      That’s not what I mean. When you have enough disinformation, democracy has no more effect than a video game — vote for the party that you think will lower taxes, they get in, taxes go up because that’s what they actually promised and you didn’t know.
      - matz1 7y ago
        In democracy, each party is free to influence/convince their voters. If you vote for lying politician then thats your failure and the failure of other politician to better convince their constituent.
        ben_w 7y ago
        “Your failure”? Do you believe you can spot disinformation with any reliability? When that misinformation constitutes the majority of all that you think you know about the issues you base your votes on?
        matz1 7y ago
        Yes, it maybe be very very hard to sport disinformation but that's still my failure and the failure of other politician that fail to convince me. Not the failure of democracy.
        ben_w 7y ago
        It is a limitation of democracy. It is a limitation of every possible system of decision making. That, by definition, is it not working fine.
        matz1 7y ago
        But it is not the limitation of democracy. Whatever people end up vote for is not the concern of democracy. By definition democracy is merely a system where people exercise power by voting, it doesn't concern about the outcome. As long as people have the right to vote, it is a democracy. Its not the concern of democracy if the people vote for the "wrong" politician.
        ben_w 7y ago
        People don’t exercise power in this scenario.
jamesmus 7y ago
I think that's a really good point. When I see 'customize your feed' on sites that report the news, what I actually read is 'don't show me stuff that might challenge my preconceptions'. That's exactly what I don't want.
- pjc50 7y ago
  Absolutely not. Consuming unfiltered news is like staring at the sun. Not only is there too much of it, and too much of it is unreliable or malicious, but too much of it is both irrelevant and horrifying. I'm not in America, so I don't need a live feed of mass shootings. I have already mentally blacklisted most of the UK print media for various reasons, so I don't want their stuff appearing in my feed either. I've even blocked people on Twitter who I've never interacted with simply because people I follow keep retweeting their US politics stuff and I don't want to read it. I do follow a few financial and international relations analysis people who I trust for reliable news. A manually, not automatically, curated feed. Otherwise I'm mostly reverse-engineering the news from the jokes made about it. And I get zero of it from Youtube or Facebook.
narrator 7y ago
Which calls into question the whole idea that democracy even works and that people can actually think for themselves and aren't just controlled by whatever propaganda happens to show up in front of their faces. I don't even argue politics with people any more because it's almost 100% what news sources they trust and find credible. It's all just rumor and innuendo these days. Those news sources trust and find credible "anonymous sources" that say for example that Trump colluded with Russia or the Clintons are doing various unspeakable things and then you're arguing with these supposedly credible anonymous sources that each person reads and trusts. Since the sources are anonymous and nobody actually goes on the record, it's just a bunch of back and forth with no basis in facts except which news sources people trust and find authoritative.
- mattlutze 7y ago
  It seems to illustrate our attenuation to story and the effect of dominant stories on our worldviews. I'd suggest it's less a challenge to democracy and more an affirmation of the criticality of a fact-based, unbiased 4th estate, and the scary effects of anyone with a comb-over and green screen being able to make their own "news" show.
  - narrator 7y ago
    So do the politicians in power only give out media licenses to news sources that feed from those "Anonymous Sources" that support their agenda? The problem is not who is allowed to report, it's that the mainstream news has started citing anonymous sources with ridiculous frequency and the credibility of those sources is never called into question because nobody knows who they are. When those anonymous sources turn out to be wrong, nobody cares and nobody's reputation is damaged for reporting totally made up stuff that's likely someone with an axe to grind's propaganda.
    - merpnderp 7y ago
      This is the actual problem. The news has no consequences for being wrong, no matter how outrageously or often.
zuuow 7y ago
Mass media feels like a direct impediment to democracy. When what they publish consist of the same crap all the time, it may seem as though that stuff carries more weight than it really does. I wonder to what degree the mass media are responsible for the current political climate.

matz1 7y ago

Democracy work just fine. It might not what you want but what if the current youtube recommendation system is what I want ? In democracy people like me should still get equal power to decide. There are no right or wrong outcome in democracy.

ben_w 7y ago
No system of decision-making can survive a high level of misinformation. In the case of democracy that means you might be happy and placated, but you won’t have any control no matter how often you vote.
- matz1 7y ago
  >that means you might be happy and placated Maybe some people do fine with that, even though to some other people perspective they call it illusion. I don't really care if my happiness is perceived as "illusion" by some other people as long as I my self consider it happy. as long as these people still allowed to vote, its fine to me. They may vote for "stupid" decision but democracy should still allow for that.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    That’s not what I mean. When you have enough disinformation, democracy has no more effect than a video game — vote for the party that you think will lower taxes, they get in, taxes go up because that’s what they actually promised and you didn’t know.
    - matz1 7y ago
      In democracy, each party is free to influence/convince their voters. If you vote for lying politician then thats your failure and the failure of other politician to better convince their constituent.
      - ben_w 7y ago
        “Your failure”? Do you believe you can spot disinformation with any reliability? When that misinformation constitutes the majority of all that you think you know about the issues you base your votes on?
        matz1 7y ago
        Yes, it maybe be very very hard to sport disinformation but that's still my failure and the failure of other politician that fail to convince me. Not the failure of democracy.
        ben_w 7y ago
        It is a limitation of democracy. It is a limitation of every possible system of decision making. That, by definition, is it not working fine.
        matz1 7y ago
        But it is not the limitation of democracy. Whatever people end up vote for is not the concern of democracy. By definition democracy is merely a system where people exercise power by voting, it doesn't concern about the outcome. As long as people have the right to vote, it is a democracy. Its not the concern of democracy if the people vote for the "wrong" politician.
        ben_w 7y ago
        People don’t exercise power in this scenario.

jamesmus 7y ago

I think that's a really good point. When I see 'customize your feed' on sites that report the news, what I actually read is 'don't show me stuff that might challenge my preconceptions'. That's exactly what I don't want.

pjc50 7y ago
Absolutely not. Consuming unfiltered news is like staring at the sun. Not only is there too much of it, and too much of it is unreliable or malicious, but too much of it is both irrelevant and horrifying. I'm not in America, so I don't need a live feed of mass shootings. I have already mentally blacklisted most of the UK print media for various reasons, so I don't want their stuff appearing in my feed either. I've even blocked people on Twitter who I've never interacted with simply because people I follow keep retweeting their US politics stuff and I don't want to read it. I do follow a few financial and international relations analysis people who I trust for reliable news. A manually, not automatically, curated feed. Otherwise I'm mostly reverse-engineering the news from the jokes made about it. And I get zero of it from Youtube or Facebook.

narrator 7y ago

Which calls into question the whole idea that democracy even works and that people can actually think for themselves and aren't just controlled by whatever propaganda happens to show up in front of their faces. I don't even argue politics with people any more because it's almost 100% what news sources they trust and find credible. It's all just rumor and innuendo these days. Those news sources trust and find credible "anonymous sources" that say for example that Trump colluded with Russia or the Clintons are doing various unspeakable things and then you're arguing with these supposedly credible anonymous sources that each person reads and trusts. Since the sources are anonymous and nobody actually goes on the record, it's just a bunch of back and forth with no basis in facts except which news sources people trust and find authoritative.

mattlutze 7y ago
It seems to illustrate our attenuation to story and the effect of dominant stories on our worldviews. I'd suggest it's less a challenge to democracy and more an affirmation of the criticality of a fact-based, unbiased 4th estate, and the scary effects of anyone with a comb-over and green screen being able to make their own "news" show.
- narrator 7y ago
  So do the politicians in power only give out media licenses to news sources that feed from those "Anonymous Sources" that support their agenda? The problem is not who is allowed to report, it's that the mainstream news has started citing anonymous sources with ridiculous frequency and the credibility of those sources is never called into question because nobody knows who they are. When those anonymous sources turn out to be wrong, nobody cares and nobody's reputation is damaged for reporting totally made up stuff that's likely someone with an axe to grind's propaganda.
  - merpnderp 7y ago
    This is the actual problem. The news has no consequences for being wrong, no matter how outrageously or often.

zuuow 7y ago

Mass media feels like a direct impediment to democracy. When what they publish consist of the same crap all the time, it may seem as though that stuff carries more weight than it really does. I wonder to what degree the mass media are responsible for the current political climate.