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: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @10:44PM
You are far too optimistic, the world isn't so convenient as to make critically important facts obvious. Indeed the world hardly seems to care how important something is to us when providing (or not) evidence for it.
Most people aren't nonracist because they've read the papers proving it, they're nonracist because they've perceived no meaningful difference/been told from a young age there isn't a meaningful one. Those who were unfortunate enough to perceive a meaningful difference due to small sample sizes and/or been told from a young age there is one are just as justified in being racist as most people are in not.
Racism doesn't imply stupidity, beware the horns effect.