YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politically extreme content

Re:YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politica... by bilbo0s on Saturday September 08, 2018 @10:15AM (#17940908)

This is an example of what the article is discussing. Essentially, content on open platforms, (this thread), tend to link to more extremist content, (the thread you're pointing out). Then that content links to more extremist content, and on and on and so on and so forth.

So your comment is a good "for instance" of why YouTube does what it does as an algorithm. In essence, what YouTube's algorithm does is the exact same thing that we, as humans, do in any given discussion. We just don't get to the extremist content as fast as YouTube's algorithms get us there, so we don't notice that tendency in our face to face discussions.

In a very real way, YouTube is trying to be more human. With all of the negative implications that entails.

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Re:YouTube's tendency to push everyday users toward politica... by malvosenior on Saturday September 08, 2018 @11:17AM (#17941169)

Interesting ideas. I don't know that "extremist" is the right word though. It seems that it's just further investigation into any particular topic (for instance I replied to a direct question asking for an opinion). "Extreme" is a very subjective term and when talking about sensitive topics, it would be easy to label any further research as such.

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