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> 3. Do recommendations drive viewers to increasingly extreme content? > As I’ve explained, we actively demote low-quality information in recommendations. But

> 3. Do recommendations drive viewers to increasingly extreme content? > As I’ve explained, we actively demote low-quality information in recommendations. But we also take the additional step of showing viewers authoritative videos about topics that may interest them. Say I watch a video about the COVID-19 vaccine. In my Up Next panel, I’ll see videos from reputable sources like Vox and Bloomberg Quicktake and won’t see videos that contain misleading information about vaccines (to the extent that our system can detect them). When my parents watch 30 consecutive videos that mention that you can't trust the mainstream media, what good is suggesting to them a Bloomberg video? My parents aren't on FB or any other social media. But over the last 10 years they have gone off the deep end after watching more and more insane videos on Youtube. It started with hours of Ron Paul videos. Then Alex Jones videos. Who knows what cretins it offered up after that. They've stopped talking to me recently. It's because I've gotten the "Kill Shot" after they've explicitly told me not to. I'm apparently going to die from the covid vaccine within the next 6 months to 3 years... On my last phone call, they've told me that 300 old money families (who are all also insane environmentalists) have hatched and are executing a plan to depopulate the planet to 500 million... as told on the "Georgia Guide Stones". The US Government also has mind-control devices that are convincing people to get the shot. They told me the mind control devices were first used during the Iraq War, because it convinced so much of the Iraqi Army to surrender en masse. Also, all of our technology comes from the wreckage of crashed UFOs, most famously the Roswell UFO. My Dad thinks I'm naive for not believing this. Both my parents have college degrees. My Dad has a masters in an engineering field. They were once relatively un-political and rode out the Great Recession without any harm. Maybe they just didn't handle retirement well. But I have a decade of nearly daily emails from them... "Watch this! [youtube link]". When they are gone, I'll have documentation of their decent into madness, with hyperlinks all going to 1 domain. I'm sure YouTube is doing all they can.

dr_dshiv 5y ago
You have my sympathy. I have a similar if less extreme experience. For me, it happened when my mother moved to Florida.
jeffwask 5y ago
Once you start watching Alex Jones videos, the algorithm starts to bubble up some nasty stuff.
exolymph 5y ago
I'm sorry that you're in this painful situation. Personally I don't think the root problem is YouTube — rather, it's your parents' confirmation bias. They want to believe these things. I've watched Alex Jones videos myself. I did not leave wanting more and no recommendation algo could change that. (Lest I leave the wrong impression, the same is true of AOC going live on IG.)
- LarryDarrell 5y ago
  This may be true. Ultimately my personal story is not worth much. I do know that there is a growing community of people who share this story, though. One does not personally need to be affected to notice an uptick in anti-knowledge behavior recently. The greater point is that if X percent of the population has biases that if fed would lead them to deranged behavior, is it responsible to take advantage of that? The reasonable discussion of course goes to how big of a number is X. If 100,000 families get destroyed per decade, no big deal in relation to those sweet advertising impressions, I guess. But if FB, YT, Reddit, etc collectively take the mostly hands off approach, does X become big enough to achieve history-book-level harm? Like making [effective representative democracy, pandemic response, ecologic collapse mitigation] impossible.
- BeetleB 5y ago
  > Personally I don't think the root problem is YouTube — rather, it's your parents' confirmation bias. They want to believe these things. The thing is, most people, including likely you and me, have some defect. Some aspect of constructing a "good" society[1] is setting up systems to counter the effect of these defects. If you have a system that fosters a person's defects, it is fair to be critical of it. Or put a simpler way: It's as fair to criticize the Youtube algorithm as it is to criticize a newspaper that only prints positive news about white people and negative news about non-whites. Sure - any given reader can choose which newspaper he/she will read, and the root cause is the reader's bias, but I think most would agree it's a problematic newspaper that is making a bad problem worse. [1] Whatever that means.
  - foolinaround 5y ago
    but in your analogy, there is both positive and negative news about white and non-white people. the reader just goes to the sections for positive news about white people and negative news about non-whites. He tears up the rest. -- Is it not like one goes to breakfast at his local diner, and every day, eats a plateful of bacon. Should the server knowing his patterns take away his bacon?

dr_dshiv 5y ago

You have my sympathy. I have a similar if less extreme experience. For me, it happened when my mother moved to Florida.

jeffwask 5y ago

Once you start watching Alex Jones videos, the algorithm starts to bubble up some nasty stuff.

exolymph 5y ago

I'm sorry that you're in this painful situation. Personally I don't think the root problem is YouTube — rather, it's your parents' confirmation bias. They want to believe these things. I've watched Alex Jones videos myself. I did not leave wanting more and no recommendation algo could change that. (Lest I leave the wrong impression, the same is true of AOC going live on IG.)

LarryDarrell 5y ago
This may be true. Ultimately my personal story is not worth much. I do know that there is a growing community of people who share this story, though. One does not personally need to be affected to notice an uptick in anti-knowledge behavior recently. The greater point is that if X percent of the population has biases that if fed would lead them to deranged behavior, is it responsible to take advantage of that? The reasonable discussion of course goes to how big of a number is X. If 100,000 families get destroyed per decade, no big deal in relation to those sweet advertising impressions, I guess. But if FB, YT, Reddit, etc collectively take the mostly hands off approach, does X become big enough to achieve history-book-level harm? Like making [effective representative democracy, pandemic response, ecologic collapse mitigation] impossible.
BeetleB 5y ago
> Personally I don't think the root problem is YouTube — rather, it's your parents' confirmation bias. They want to believe these things. The thing is, most people, including likely you and me, have some defect. Some aspect of constructing a "good" society[1] is setting up systems to counter the effect of these defects. If you have a system that fosters a person's defects, it is fair to be critical of it. Or put a simpler way: It's as fair to criticize the Youtube algorithm as it is to criticize a newspaper that only prints positive news about white people and negative news about non-whites. Sure - any given reader can choose which newspaper he/she will read, and the root cause is the reader's bias, but I think most would agree it's a problematic newspaper that is making a bad problem worse. [1] Whatever that means.
- foolinaround 5y ago
  but in your analogy, there is both positive and negative news about white and non-white people. the reader just goes to the sections for positive news about white people and negative news about non-whites. He tears up the rest. -- Is it not like one goes to breakfast at his local diner, and every day, eats a plateful of bacon. Should the server knowing his patterns take away his bacon?