I'm afraid I'm not as optimistic as you. What Russia correctly worked out is that, if you can create the requisite content, you WILL get people to watch it, just statistically. And because you're (indirectly) feeding it with a coherent, directed intention, including specific elements like 'the Russian Bots people are talking about don't exist and anybody saying so is a loony', you can get your bubble of alternate information to grow and serve useful purposes (useful to you: NOT necessarily useful to the people you're using to fill your bubble)

You absolutely can make people watch it, even side with it passionately to where they'll burn through their friends requiring loyalty to the information bubble. It's a matter of statistics, and directing the contents of the information bubble with reasonable effectiveness. It's a bit like nuclear fusion: sort of 'wait, these lumps of metal do THAT?!?'

Yes, in fact they do. And, yes, you can direct HUMANITY to whatever ends you like, including 'The USA should be torn to bits by civil war please, so it is no longer a rival superpower'. Plenty of people out there would find that useful, wouldn't even have to be exceptionally short-sighted. Mind you, it's still damn reckless even if it is not absolutely short-sighted.

"You can direct to HUMANITY to whatever ends" - then why don't we have world peace and end of hunger yet?

Because it's not as profitable?

I'm not sure you decided to use weasel words on purpose. There's a colossal difference between "being forced to watch" propaganda and being exposed to it.

I'm not forced to open phishing emails but sometimes I do by accident or carelessness. I'm also not forced to open links someone close or not happen to send my way. I'm not forced to read weird facts-denying delusional rants on social media but sometimes I stumble upon it while scrolling around a main page.

Given the unlimited torrent of propaganda and manipulated content that we are exposed constantly and is designed precisely to control you to serve the manipulator's goals, what should we do?

Hell, just open a tab with any of the facts-denying extremist media channels that currently plague the US. Do you believe they are preaching to fishes, or that there are people exposed and manipulated by it?

Not weasel words - are you saying if you were exposed to anti-vaxxer videos, you would become an anti-vaxxer? It should be obvious to you how ridiculous that assumption is.

This is just hand-wavy fearmongering about "mass psychology"

Yet that is exactly how propaganda and mis-information works.

How exactly do you think antivaxers became antivaxers? They weren’t born like that, they were exposed to propaganda and eventually fell for it.

I know several wonderful, educated and otherwise reasonable people, who have fallen for antivaxing, antimask, covid-is-a-lie conspiracies. This includes two teachers in the public school system. The same people who are supposed to teach critical thinking to the next generation. Think about what that means for a moment.

Propaganda works. Stopping propaganda, highlighting “fake news”, debunking conspiracies, and teaching critical thinking is essential.

"antivaxing, antimask, covid-is-a-lie conspiracies"

You are mixing things together that don't belong together. Covid is very new and scientific discussion is still ongoing. There is no consensus. Anti-vaxxers are about tried and proven vaccines they don't trust.

I think as with other things (like religion), people get mostly "infected" by their peer group. Also there are certain aspects that make memes prevail, like fear and protectiveness of one's own children in the case of vaccines. It's not simply a matter of exposure to YouTube videos.

> You are mixing things together that don't belong together.

But they do belong together, don't they? I mean, they are all under attack by facts-denying militant groups fueled by anti-intellectual propaganda.

> Covid is very new and scientific discussion is still ongoing. There is no consensus.

That's no excuse to intentionally deny facts and information already established on the disease. And no, just because a militant group actively denies and rejects facts that doesn't make them disputed nor does it means there is no consensus.

> It's not simply a matter of exposure to YouTube videos.

This is not about youtube or twitter or sneaker net. This is about people actively disseminating and consuming propaganda and disinformation. The shit is the same even if you switch spoons.

"But they do belong together, don't they? I mean, they are all under attack by facts-denying militant groups fueled by anti-intellectual propaganda."

No, that is just a strategy of defamation that you fell for. Basically the "Hitler was a vegetarian" argument against vegetarianism. In short, "a person of type x believes y" does not imply "everybody who believes y is a person of type x".

" And no, just because a militant group actively denies and rejects facts that doesn't make them disputed nor does it means there is no consensus."

If you would watch more YouTube, you would be aware that it is not only "militant groups" who argue about aspects of Covid.

"This is about people actively disseminating and consuming propaganda and disinformation."

There are such people on all sides.

I do sports pistol shooting as a hobby. Recommendations have improved recently, but before you never were never further than two clicks away from ISSF championship chronicles to videos by disturbed people with firearms.

And have they turned you into a disturbed person with firearms?

Was that your original point?

There was undeniable steep gradient towards extremism, how it worked on me in particular is irrelevant. It is a numbers game.

What do you mean by "undeniable steep gradient towards extremism" - it was undeniable that more people were becoming extremists via YouTube? I thought that is what we are discussing? Whether YouTube algorithm tries to show you extremism is another question. I am not defending the YouTube algorithm - presumably more extreme things lead to more engagement.

The only way it would be harmless is if you postulate that propaganda doesn't work.

Surely it does not automatically work, or we would all live in totalitarian states already.

I lived in a totalitarian state before.

So now you are in favor of censoring things? I don't think the likes of YouTube are very typical for totalitarian states.

The propaganda by totalitarian states is an entirely different beasts, it reaches into all walks of life.

It's you who brought up totalitarian states, I cede to you defeating your own point.

I said "we would all live in totalitarian states", and I also doubt your totalitarian state was created by YouTube propaganda.

I'm more worried about the censorship leading to totalitarian states than extremist YouTube channels.

Most totalitarian states predate YT and other forms of social media, so this is irrelevant. Now that they are here, they use it to fullest extent.

It's not irrelevant, as the discussion is about alleged effects of free speech on YouTube in the present time.

Look at external data. We now have diseases reappearing that were eradicated decades ago. Inside anti-vaxx communities.

Nobody is “forced” to watch a YT video. But if these show up in searches, along with pseudo-scientific articles, pseudo-documentaries on all platforms and actively work on becoming viral, then there is a problem.

Maybe creating a lot of content does not imply that people will watch it, but the reality is that a lot of people do.

Anti-vaxxing was not started by YouTube. Provide the evidence that YouTube has inflated the problem.

And by evidence I don't mean "hit pieces in traditional media that don't like the competition from social media".

True. And I don't have evidence that it has inflated the problem beyond anecdata. That said I don't think it's reaching to believe it has.

Anti-vaxx movement was started by a bogus publication from a then reputable source. It was blown up by ease of information spread and exacerbated by the undermined confidence in traditional media. That much is known.

I think the vaccine story has specific aspects for why it spread, not simply YouTube exposure. It provides good anecdotes, because many people get vaccinated and many people get randomly sick. So almost everybody knows an anecdote from somebody who got severely sick after vaccination.

It takes basic knowledge of statistics to verify that those things are just random correlations, not causation (show that incidence of certain afflictions (like autism) is the same among vaccinated and non-vaccinated people). That is what the memes feed from. I don't think censoring would help much here, especially as most people know such stories personally. I don't know people directly, but I know people who know people who got sick after vaccination. I suspect many others do, too.

Granted, anecdotes spread especially well on Social Media. It works the other way round, too. Have you heard a story of somebody who almost died, or died, from Covid, despite being young and healthy? Such incidents are very rare, but since they get shared a lot, one such personal report may be shared by thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people. every one of them now feels like they "know" somebody who died from Covid despite of being young and healthy.

Should such stories also be banned, to ease the psychological burden (fear) on billions of people?

> Should such stories also be banned, to ease the psychological burden (fear) on billions of people?

No, they are clearly different. One encourages dangerous behaviour for yourself and more importantly others around you, the other does not. This is also there is not much talk about banning flat earth or moon landing conspiracies out of social media.

Your assumption that the fear does no harm is wrong.

Maybe not from them, een if you get your fair share of recommendations (at least I do), but certainly about them. And that is attention for anti-vaxxers as well. The moment traditional media stops being after clicks and treating reporting like entertainment will be a very big step in the right direction, so.