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YouTube Recommendations for 'Alt-Right' Videos have Dropped Dramatically, Study Shows:
Google has made "major changes" to its recommendations system on YouTube that have reduced the amount of "alt-right" videos recommended to users, according to a study led by Nicolas Suzor, an associate professor at Queensland University of Technology.
During the first two weeks of February, alt-right videos appeared in YouTube's "Up Next" recommendations sidebar 7.8 percent of the time (roughly one in 13). From Feb. 15 onward, that number dropped to 0.4 percent (roughly one in 250).
Suzor's study took random samples of 3.6 million videos, and used 81 channels listed on a recent study by Rebecca Lewis [.pdf] as a starting point. That list includes voices like Richard Spencer, an American white supremacist, but also includes more mainstream voices like Joe Rogan, who does not self-identify as alt-right but often plays host to more extremist voices on his podcast (including alt-right figures such as Alex Jones).
The drop appears significant, but it's difficult to figure precisely how that drop occurred. We don't know if YouTube is targeting 'alt-right' videos specifically or if the drop off is part of broader changes to YouTube's recommendation system.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 15 2019, @07:23PM (10 children)
They're not suppressing speech - the videos are still available if you care to look for them. They're just no longer actively *promoting* them via their recommendation engine.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Phoenix666 on Friday March 15 2019, @07:32PM (9 children)
It is suppression. Douglas Adams had a brilliant bit about the notice for the demolition of Arthur Dent's house being in a sub-basement of the council building behind a door that said, "Beware of Cheetah." This is a less comical version of that. Instead of neutrally recommending content based on what a user has searched for and watched, the platform is trying to steer what he can see.
That's like being, say, a CNN viewer who turns on his TV to watch the evening broadcast only to find that it has been moved to channel 987 without telling anyone, simply because your local cable provider doesn't think it's good for you. If something like that actually happened to you, you'd probably tar and feather the local cable provider.
It's a very slippery slope. It's a dangerous thing to do. If we stop talking to each other, if we start trying to silence everyone we don't like, then violence won't be far behind.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday March 15 2019, @07:45PM (2 children)
Sorry, I must disagree. The entire concept of a recommendation engine is to steer what people watch. The "neutral" form tries to steer them towards things they're more likely to sit through the ads for. A more socially responsible version will also try to steer them away from provably false content claiming to be true. And let's be honest - while a lot of "alt-right" content is legitimate difference of opinion, there's also an awful lot of of it that involves active deception, through either intent or ignorance.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 16 2019, @04:15AM (1 child)
You mean like what the MSM did to the Covington kids, and are now getting sued for hundreds of millions of dollars for? You mean like promulgating Jussie Smollett's racist hoax and whipping up more racial division?
Pot calling kettle black.
I don't need Big Brother, anyone's Big Brother, pre-sifting all information for me to decide what's good for me and what isn't, what's "true" and what isn't. First, I'm not a child and can judge for myself. Second, there is no absolute objective definition of what is "true" and what isn't. What one person gets triggered by is another person's sensible statement.
Seriously, does nobody read Bradbury or Vonnegut anymore? Are we about to see firefighters ransacking houses and burning books because some self-righteous prig considers them wrongthink?
It is deeply depressing that so many are ready to discard the Western tradition of free inquiry and critical thought to chase a fleeting illusion of acceptability.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Saturday March 16 2019, @07:22PM
What you seem to be missing, and I'm beginning to believe it's willful, is that the recommendation engine is *already* sifting through all that information for you. If you use it at all, you're voluntarily submitting yourself to that.
And unfortunately, if your only sifting criteria is "maximum viewer engagement", then you're going to tend to go off the rails very quickly, because most people are extremely bad at rational thought, and easily engaged and deceived by their pre-existing biases.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by https on Friday March 15 2019, @08:02PM (2 children)
Genocide has always followed a predictable pattern, and it always start with speech of a particular kind. The form of that speech is readily identifiable. So it's not trying to silence what "we don't like", it's trying to silence people advocating allowing genocide to become a policy topic.
Genocide is not a policy to discuss. It's a crime to be punished, stopped, prevented. Not stopping these discussions, allowing them to become commonplace and open, is step one on the road to mass graves, which is a damn sight worse than the violence you're imagining "won't be far behind". Or not, I dunno, maybe you have a really vivid imagination.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @09:02PM
You seem to have written this assuming nobody will ever be mistaken about whether something is genocide or not, the folks who believe in 'white genocide' are a real counterexample in today's society of why people need to be willing to consider that what they currently view as genocide (i.e. mass immigration) is actually acceptable policy.
The alt-right claim that a genocide is occurring and are trying to stop it. They're wrong, but this IS what many of them believe in good faith. The worst of them skip the 'debate people to convince them this genocide is wrong' stage and go straight to direct action to prevent what they incorrectly think is genocide.
They're wrong, it isn't genocide and it isn't planned, but to convince them of that you need them to be willing to discuss whether what they consider genocide is acceptable policy. By precluding that discussion you preclude attempts to convince them that what they call 'white genocide' isn't genocide.
You can't demand they be open to debating what they consider genocidal policy if you aren't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @08:08PM
So, can you scientifically demonstrate that a genocide is just over the horizon if we allow this speech on platforms like Youtube, Google, etc.?
And I always find it funny that people don't realize that these speech restrictions will inevitably impact more than just The Bad People that everyone hates. The adpocalypse on Youtube, for example, didn't stop at nazis; it impacted many left-wing independent political commentators such as Kyle Kulinski, David Pakman, and countless others. Basically, people who aren't mega corporations and who challenge the status quo are going to be screwed over, while you sit there and pretend that only evil nazis are being smitten.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @09:58PM (2 children)
Not promoting is not the same as suppression. Are grocery stores suppressing the products that they don't put at the end of the aisle but keep on the shelves? If so, then what the fuck would you call actively taking product off the shelf?
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday March 16 2019, @02:35PM (1 child)
You go to the cookie aisle and all the cookies are there except cashew crunch cookies, which are on a shelf in amongst the laundry detergent.
And then you go to the nuts section, and there are no cashews there, because they are on a shelf in amongst the bug sprays.
And every day the staff moves them both to two new random locations somewhere else in the store, so that if you want them you have to search or ask a staff member.
Are they suppressing cashews?
What about if they record every time someone specifically searches for or asks for cashews?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @06:17PM
> You go to the cookie aisle and all the cookies are there except cashew crunch cookies, (etc)
Looks like you need a lesson in marketing? The food manufacturers often buy shelf space from the supermarket. In your example above, the Cashew Crunch company didn't pony up enough for your local Snakeway (or other chain market) to get placement in the cookie aisle.