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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: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday January 31 2020, @07:58PM (15 children)
One big difference between white nationalists and Muslim radicals is how the US government responds to them:
- Somebody involved in the likes of Al Qaida or Daesh: killed both the person and his children with drone strikes [theintercept.com].
- Somebody involved in white nationalism: invited to work in the White House as a senior policy advisor focusing on immigration [npr.org].
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday January 31 2020, @08:09PM
The government is led by a whitey. They gotta stick together
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday January 31 2020, @09:43PM
You might not be familiar with Alessandro Orsini and his book ISIS the luckiest terrorists ever "I terroristi più fortunati del mondo" https://youtu.be/vIh4hXa1k4Y [youtu.be]
Even the killing of soleimani avenges them. Much like Italian commie terrorists all found a work inthe public sector afterwards.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 01 2020, @01:51PM (12 children)
And if we really don't care what people do, then why do we care that someone is fighting on the wrong side or "involved in white nationalism"?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday February 01 2020, @05:18PM
Khallow, are you calling for an air strike on Steven Miller?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday February 01 2020, @09:23PM (10 children)
The "somebody involved in white nationalism" is the guy who by all accounts was responsible for creating the policy of taking children who had been dragged across an imaginary line in a desert from their parents and imprisoning them in a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions. And in those prisons, these children are being raped [theguardian.com], tortured [nymag.com], starved [nytimes.com], and sometimes killed [aclu.org].
Make no mistake: Just because the guy didn't do any of his own dirty work does not mean he's not a monster.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday February 02 2020, @12:13AM
By Hallow's logic, if someone hires a hitman to kill him, the guy doing the hiring has clean hands. This man is a complete moral nullity. I don't understand why we (myself included) even give him the time of day any longer.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 02 2020, @06:46AM (8 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 02 2020, @06:17PM (2 children)
"this Miller guy" as if he has no idea who it is.
What weird shit, the disavowments seem to have started, and it is mimicking Trump's methods. "I never knew the guy, never met him."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 02 2020, @10:04PM
I glanced at the Wikipedia page.
Because everyone else must obsess over the make up of the Trump administration as much as you?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 02 2020, @10:08PM
What's weird about it? Is there some reason I shouldn't disavow this guy? You approve of his strategies for dealing with illegal immigration perhaps?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday February 03 2020, @04:19PM (4 children)
So your argument amounts to: "Yes, a bunch of people associated with white nationalism did despicable things, and yes those things they did were by their own account motivated by white nationalism, and other leaders in white nationalism have said nothing that gives the impression that they disagree with those actions any more strongly than thinking them to be a bit naughty or counterproductive to the movement, but no, white nationalism isn't a problem."
Now, you might be thinking "But that's unfair! I didn't do those things. I've never shot anybody, or beaten them for being brown, or anything like that. Why am I being blamed as a white nationalist for the actions of other white nationalists?" But your ideology is all about how the actions of, say, MS-13, reflect on all Hispanic people regardless of whether they had anything at all to do with MS-13, and that justifies treating Hispanic people as "inferior" or at least people that you want to keep out of your community. You can't have collective responsibility for other kinds of people while demanding individual responsibility only for your kind of people - especially when you choose to be a white nationalist, while a Hispanic kid didn't choose to be a Hispanic kid.
Now, if you really find Stephen Miller's actions to be worthy of a death sentence, I'd expect you at the very least to do your best to ensure that he no longer works in the White House, by, for instance, voting in a different person to be in charge of the White House. But I highly doubt you're going to do that.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 04 2020, @09:28AM (2 children)
I am proud to see this thread under the heading of my name, calling out the racist collaborator khallow, and his pretended ignorance of who is in Trump's administration and who is driving the racist anti-immigration policies. Stephen Miller [theguardian.com] is a Jewish White Supremacist, the kind of monster that only American could produce, and only khallow could pretend to be ignorant of. There is petition to fire him [change.org] and everything! The only way you could not know this, khallow, is if you are lying, arguing in bad faith, feigning ignorance for rhetorical effect, and overall being a Republican. Not just Deplorable, but also Despicable.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday February 04 2020, @05:50PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 04 2020, @06:40PM
Much shade, my warm and fluffy khallow!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 04 2020, @05:46PM
Now, what I'm actually thinking is that you're part of the problem. You're too busy two minute hating to even bother to care what my ideology is.
My take here is that it's about actions not beliefs. Someone who's fighting the US or someone who's unlawfully imprisoning people in the US, those are actions. Belief in ISIS or white nationalist ideas is not.