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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: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @08:45PM (7 children)
"Well, it's true. If people are modding me up, then some generally agree. The two issues are directly related."
You're saying there are OTHER alt-right shit heads that post around here? Aristarchus was right all along! No wonder he has such a hard time getting any article about the white power bums published.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday January 31 2020, @09:28PM (3 children)
Probably more due to the fact that people want to discuss things unrelated to politics, and even with pure sci-tech stories politics always finds a way to creep in at least a little. I'm occasionally guilty of that but definitely not one of the worst offenders as long as the discussion avoids politics. I think it's cool to post "evils of alt-right" stories but not at the volume Aristarchus submits them. To be fair, at least he is submitting stories at all.
Maybe they want to keep the site a spiritual successor to Slashdot rather than a place for commie and libertarian monkeys to fling shit back and forth all day? I mean, flinging poo is fun. But if that's all there was here, then I'd be spending all my time on /pol/ instead. The main appeal of this place to me is that it's okay to mix the two when appropriate, but I can get some straight sci-tech without having to read or write shitposts.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @09:43PM
The civil approach, how novel for you.
If your reasoning had any bearing on reality then you would leave this topic alone. Pretending you are above it all while simultaneously pushing your racist crap all over the comments is indicative of your lack of morality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @09:48PM (1 child)
Way too many stupid posts by stupid people make this website almost useless as a techie website.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @10:05PM
Speak for yourself, loser.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @09:36PM (2 children)
You fucking sad sack democrats! You're killing us! You sink so low you elevate Trump!
Fock! And poor dumb liberals, too scatterbrained and spineless and passive-aggressive to stand up on their own, always looking for coattails to ride and lampposts to lean on, playing the cripple looking for sympathy from sociopaths. What fools!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @09:40PM (1 child)
Oy, I think I just peessed it off! They get a bit tetchy when you jam your thumb right up the butt'ole.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 01 2020, @06:10AM
HA! Ya losers tired of losing yet?!