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posted by Snow on Friday March 15 2019, @06:14PM   Printer-friendly
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.


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Friday March 15 2019, @08:06PM (3 children)

    Phone Book? What?

    I know you live in Crooklyn. I live in the city. so I know that NY Telephone/Nynex/Bell Atlantic/Verizon/whatever those scumbags are calling themselves these days stopped distributing those more than ten years ago.

    I just looked myself up on whitepages.com and I'm there. My address too. But if you want my phone number it's $5. So what was it that your were trying to say?

    As for UPS, would it surprise you to know that back in the 1980s, FedEx wouldn't deliver to two places in the continental US? The Mojave Desert and Bed-Stuy. True story.

    And no, I wouldn't need to start my own global delivery company -- I could use FedEx or DHL or USPS or any of dozens of smaller logistics companies.

    And you can use Vimeo, Dailymotion, Wistia, Vidyard and others. Or host the content yourself.

    With Google/YouTube you forget who the customer is. It ain't you. It's the advertisers. And if they don't want their ads shown next to Richard Spencer, Alex Jones, Milo or Jordan Peterson, Youtube will hop to it because they're the customer and the Golden Rule [quoteinvestigator.com] applies in spades.

    It's not even about ideology like you were trying to make it out to be. It's about the almighty dollar. Don't like it, boycott those who advertise on Youtube.

    I don't know who that is since I never see ads, but you're a bright guy. I'm sure you can figure it out.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @02:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @02:45PM (#815462)

    https://www.whitepages.com/name/Notsanguine [whitepages.com]
    Liar. You are not there at all.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @08:13PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @08:13PM (#815568)

    I didn't know that you were a hardcore free marketeer anarcho-capitalist. Or are you just against regulations in this one area?

    And you can use Vimeo, Dailymotion, Wistia, Vidyard and others. Or host the content yourself.

    You know that hosting the same content yourself isn't viable for the vast, vast majority of people. As for the others, once they got big enough, they would simply adopt the exact same restrictions, or be dropped by payment processors and web hosts, effectively limiting their size.

    • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday March 16 2019, @11:50PM

      by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Saturday March 16 2019, @11:50PM (#815611) Homepage Journal

      I didn't know that you were a hardcore free marketeer anarcho-capitalist. Or are you just against regulations in this one area?

      I'm not any of those things. I'm a hardcore free speech guy.

      And you can use Vimeo, Dailymotion, Wistia, Vidyard and others. Or host the content yourself.

      You know that hosting the same content yourself isn't viable for the vast, vast majority of people. As for the others, once they got big enough, they would simply adopt the exact same restrictions, or be dropped by payment processors and web hosts, effectively limiting their size.

      I disagree that it isn't viable, unless your goal is to make money from advertising or subscriptions or selling your content.

      If you're interested in expressing yourself rather than *making money*, there are all sorts of ways to get the word out.

      I'd also point out that the issues with asymmetric bandwidth and abusive ISP TOS harm free speech and aggressive regulation needs to be applied. Not likely with the cable industry's lapdog in charge of the FCC, eh?

      But there's a limited amount that the FCC could do anyway. Strong municipal FTTH is definitely the way to go, but local and state legislatures around the US have been bought and paid for to keep competition out.

      tl;dr: Free speech good. Making money from your speech is not a requirement of free speech.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr