4 ms·

I'm not sure what you are watching, but I have never been funneled to anything even remotely like that. YT sends you videos based on your watch history. If you

by ars 6y ago

I'm not sure what you are watching, but I have never been funneled to anything even remotely like that. YT sends you videos based on your watch history. If you watch hate videos to see what kind of stuff people are saying then you should delete them from your history to avoid YT finding you more.

masklinn 6y ago
Multiple experiments have demonstrated that as you follow recommendations it drives you more and more towards extreme content. If you don’t follow recs it obviously has no “drive” to keep you on as you’re not following the journey. Basically the recommendations system always tries to drive you towards slightly more “engaging” content. Zeynep Tufekci, amongst others, published about it back in 2018.
- tantalor 6y ago
  Sure but you could say the same of woodworking videos, marble racing videos, or any niche topic. This is not a surprising outcome; it is totally expected.
  - masklinn 6y ago
    > Sure but you could say the same of woodworking videos, marble racing videos I was replying to someone stating it does not happen. > or any niche topic. It is absolutely not limited to niche topics. > This is not a surprising outcome; it is totally expected. The drive towards extremism is absolutely not “expected”.
- ars 6y ago
  I've been watching youtube for years, and it finds me videos on physics and math, and woodworking, plumbing, and home repair, also electronics. I even followed the white house for a while, but I get zero political recommendations. I just now checked the recommendations of several people who are next to me and none of them have any extremist content either. If you watch extremist content, you'll get extremist content. If you don't, you won't.
- naasking 6y ago
  What experiments are you referring to? All the data I've seen has not shown any sort of "progression" towards more extremes like you're describing, but often shows the opposite. Let's look at some real data from [1], which provides a breakdown of how impressions flow between channels. By using the panel on the left side, you can look at specific political leanings. If you pick the left/center/rightdrop down, you'll see that right-wing impressions flow into to more left-wing impressions than right-wing. In fact, if you pick pretty much any position on the left panel, it looks like impressions from more extreme content flows into more impressions for less extreme content. [1] https://pyt.azureedge.net/ https://pyt.azureedge.net/
- manfredo 6y ago
  Can you link to Tufekci's research? I can only find the NYTimes op-ed. Furthermore it's worth nothing that other studies determined the opposite, YouTube disproportionately recommends left leaning content: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.11211.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.11211.pdf
catalogia 6y ago
I think you're right. I don't watch anything political on youtube, and don't receive any political recomendations. Instead, youtube seems to be trying to "radicalize" me into becoming a CNC machinist, presumably because I watch plenty of videos about manufacturing.

by ars 6y ago

masklinn 6y ago

Multiple experiments have demonstrated that as you follow recommendations it drives you more and more towards extreme content. If you don’t follow recs it obviously has no “drive” to keep you on as you’re not following the journey. Basically the recommendations system always tries to drive you towards slightly more “engaging” content. Zeynep Tufekci, amongst others, published about it back in 2018.

tantalor 6y ago
Sure but you could say the same of woodworking videos, marble racing videos, or any niche topic. This is not a surprising outcome; it is totally expected.
- masklinn 6y ago
  > Sure but you could say the same of woodworking videos, marble racing videos I was replying to someone stating it does not happen. > or any niche topic. It is absolutely not limited to niche topics. > This is not a surprising outcome; it is totally expected. The drive towards extremism is absolutely not “expected”.
ars 6y ago
I've been watching youtube for years, and it finds me videos on physics and math, and woodworking, plumbing, and home repair, also electronics. I even followed the white house for a while, but I get zero political recommendations. I just now checked the recommendations of several people who are next to me and none of them have any extremist content either. If you watch extremist content, you'll get extremist content. If you don't, you won't.
naasking 6y ago
What experiments are you referring to? All the data I've seen has not shown any sort of "progression" towards more extremes like you're describing, but often shows the opposite. Let's look at some real data from [1], which provides a breakdown of how impressions flow between channels. By using the panel on the left side, you can look at specific political leanings. If you pick the left/center/rightdrop down, you'll see that right-wing impressions flow into to more left-wing impressions than right-wing. In fact, if you pick pretty much any position on the left panel, it looks like impressions from more extreme content flows into more impressions for less extreme content. [1] https://pyt.azureedge.net/ https://pyt.azureedge.net/
manfredo 6y ago
Can you link to Tufekci's research? I can only find the NYTimes op-ed. Furthermore it's worth nothing that other studies determined the opposite, YouTube disproportionately recommends left leaning content: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.11211.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.11211.pdf

catalogia 6y ago

I think you're right. I don't watch anything political on youtube, and don't receive any political recomendations. Instead, youtube seems to be trying to "radicalize" me into becoming a CNC machinist, presumably because I watch plenty of videos about manufacturing.