SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Source: Technology Review
A new study [PDF] suggests what we've suspected for years is right: YouTube is a pipeline for extremism and hate.
How do we know that? More than 330,000 videos on nearly 350 YouTube channels were analyzed and manually classified according to a system designed by the Anti-Defamation League. They were labeled as either media (or what we think of as factual news), "alt-lite" intellectual dark web, or alt-right.
[...] The alt-right is what's traditionally associated with white supremacy, pushing for a white ethnostate. Those who affiliate with the "intellectual dark web" justify white supremacy on the basis of eugenics and "race science." Members of the alt-lite purport to not support white supremacy, though they believe in conspiracy theories about "replacement" by minority groups.
[...] The study's authors hypothesized that the alt-lite and intellectual dark web often serve as a gateway to more extreme, far-right ideologies. So they tested that by tracing the authors of 72 million comments on about two million videos between May and July of last year. The results were worrying. More than 26% of people who commented on alt-lite videos tended to drift over to alt-right videos and subsequently comment there.
[...] The team, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, also found evidence that the overlap between alt-righters and others who dabble in intellectual dark web and alt-lite material is growing. The authors estimate that about 60,000 people who commented on alt-lite or intellectual dark web content got exposed to alt-right videos over a period of about 18 months. The work was presented at the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in Barcelona this week.
In a statement, YouTube said it's working through these issues: "Over the past few years ... We changed our search and discovery algorithms to ensure more authoritative content is surfaced and labeled prominently in search results and recommendations and begun reducing recommendations of borderline content and videos that could misinform users in harmful ways."
A spokesperson added that YouTube disputes the methodology and that it doesn't take into account more recent updates to its hate speech policy or recommendations. "We strongly disagree with the methodology, data and, most importantly, the conclusions made in this new research," the spokesperson said.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @05:44PM (4 children)
Of course you wouldn't, you are a walking contradiction that can't even comprehend the alt-right infestation on this very site!
At this point it is starting to seem more like you are just trolling while waving a Confederate flag around claiming it is just pride in your local heritage.
You have now been downgraded to derpshit.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday January 31 2020, @06:49PM (3 children)
Shouldn't you be upmodding your posts with your sockpuppets instead of failing to troll me?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @06:58PM
Ooooooh
My Milkshake brings all the boys to the yard,
And they're like "that concrete hurts"
Damn right, that's the point
To teach you, fascism for tards
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 01 2020, @12:25AM (1 child)
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=35743&page=1&cid=949043#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
Care to explain why you referred to yourself in the 3rd person? The entire thread of discussion was between you and Azuma, then she accused your false sense of neutrality of being bullshit. Did you forget to switch accounts? Do you keep up multiple browser sessions and just alt-tabbed one too many times?
You should probably be stripped of admin privileges so at least you can't go snooping on who is making what AC comments. All you registered users, The Moldy Blimp can out your AC comments any time he likes.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday February 01 2020, @10:21AM
Not really if you do it right. If you just tick the anonymous box he can, (i don't know if he does, but he can) but if you log out and use a proxy server to post he can't.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.