Study shows viewership of harmful content concentrated among a small group of users:
As the second most popular social media platform in the world, YouTube frequently attracts criticism. In particular, critics argue that its algorithmic recommendations facilitate radicalization and extremism by sending users down "rabbit holes" of harmful content.
According to a new study published in Science Advances, however, exposure to alternative and extremist video channels on YouTube is not driven by recommendations. Instead, most consumption of these channels on the platform can be attributed to a small group of users high in gender and racial resentment and who subscribe to these channels and follow links to their videos.
The study authors caution that these findings do not exonerate the platform. "YouTube's algorithms may not be recommending alternative and extremist content to nonsubscribers very often, but they are nonetheless hosting it for free and funneling it to subscribers in ways that are of great concern," says co-author Brendan Nyhan, the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor at Dartmouth.
[...] In 2019, YouTube announced that changes to its algorithms had reduced watch time of harmful content by 50%, with a 70% decline in watch time by nonsubscribers. These reports had not been independently verified, so the research team set out to determine who is watching this type of content and evaluate what recommendations are offered by YouTube's algorithm.
[...] Given the challenges of trying to characterize the content of every single video viewed, the researchers focused on the type of YouTube channels people watched. They compiled lists of channels that had been identified as alternative or extreme by journalists and academics and then examined how often a participant visited videos from those channels.
[...] A majority of viewers of the potentially harmful channels were subscribers to the type of channel in question: 61% subscribers for alternative channels and 55% for extremist channels. Almost all subscribed either to the channel in question or another one like it: 93% for alternative channels and 85% for extremist channels.
Viewing time data showed that a tiny percentage of people were responsible for most of the time participants spent watching potentially harmful channels. Specifically, 1.7% of participants were responsible for 80% of time spent on alternative channels while only 0.6% of participants were responsible for 80% of the time spent on extremist channels.
The researchers also found that people who scored high in hostile sexism and racial resentment were more likely to visit videos from alternative and extremist channels.
[...] "What really stands out is the correlation between content subscribers' prior levels of hostile sexism and more time spent watching videos from alternative and extremist channels," says Nyhan. "We interpret that relationship as suggesting that people are seeking this content out."
By contrast, the researchers found that recommendations to alternative and extremist channel videos were very rare and that "rabbit hole"-type events were only observed a handful of times during the study period.
Journal Reference:
Annie Y. Chen, Brendan Nyhan, Jason Reifler, et al., Subscriptions and external links help drive resentful users to alternative and extremist YouTube channels, Sci. Adv., Vol. 9, No. 35 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.add8080
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Wednesday September 13 2023, @03:19AM (2 children)
This provides me with absolutely no confidence that they are actually looking at content that the average person on the street might consider alternative or extreme.
It's interesting to hear that most "extreme" content is sought out rather than recommended, though in my experience I am recommended a bunch of stuff that I would consider to be 'edge case' (the flavour changes from time to time, but it can be either strong progressive or strong conservative depending on what the algorithm throws up).
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday September 13 2023, @08:42AM
Somehow I doubt tyt will be on there, but the Ben Shapiro show probably is, even though their two sides of the same coin.
(Score: 5, Informative) by sigterm on Wednesday September 13 2023, @08:44AM
Also, note the conflation of two entirely different terms: "alternative" and "extreme." These are completely unrelated concepts, but by casually putting them in the same sentence, the author sows the seed in the mind of the reader that one is somehow equal to, or at the very least related to, the other.
Regarding journalists and academics, I've been told by the media and academia that extreme opinions include believing that:
- human beings cannot change their sex
- the 1619 project represents a gross distortion of historical facts
- children aren't sexual beings
- people should be judged by the content of their character, rather than the colour of their skin
- shoplifters are criminals and deserve to go to jail
- the BLM organisation scammed people out of their money
- it's reasonable to expect people to show ID in order to prove that they are who they say they are
I'm not sure I agree with that definition of "extreme."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2023, @04:14AM (1 child)
Time to break subscriptions for everybody so the haters are forced to use bookmarks!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Reziac on Thursday September 14 2023, @02:39AM
They've already done that. Multiple times.
Today I got a warning label on a history channel which does nothing but lay out documented facts.
Sure gives me confidence that they know what's hate and extreme and such!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday September 13 2023, @10:32AM
"They compiled lists of channels that had been identified as alternative or extreme by journalists and academics"
Good grief. Could they possibly inject any more bias into their "study"?