SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the nielson-smielson-ratings-mean-nothing-except-to-a-reality-tv-show-president dept.
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 Phoenix666 on Friday March 15 2019, @07:24PM
I have also noticed that starting last week videos from those kinds of voices have started glitching, freezing, and crashing. It's not 100%, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out how to write a probability function to cause those problems with enough randomness to create plausible deniability.
If there are people out there with direct knowledge of companies shadow banning, they must tell them to cut it out. It doesn't take much for things to escalate and spiral out of control.
Washington DC delenda est.