The question is what isn’t radicalizing people.
NYT and the old media is fighting YT and the new media for the rights to be the best radicalization tool.
Everyone is fighting for people’s attention. NYT and the old media is losing.
Not sure why it is so difficult to for Arstechnica to do basic research like you just did citing multiple articles from the same publisher source.
> After conducting a detailed analysis of recommendations received by each channel type, we refute the popular radicalization claims. To the contrary, these data suggest that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm actively discourages viewers from visiting radicalizing or extremist content. Instead, the algorithm is shown to favor mainstream media and cable news content over independent YouTube channels with slant towards left-leaning or politically neutral channels. Our study thus suggests that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm fails to promote inflammatory or radicalized content, as previously claimed by several outlets.
Here's a more accessible writeup[1].
[0]: View of Algorithmic extremism: Examining YouTube's rabbit hole of radicalization https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.11211
[1]: https://mark-ledwich.medium.com/youtube-radicalization-an-au...
Here is a shorter blog post that references the above research: https://www.rand.org/blog/2014/03/the-internets-role-in-radi...
The New York Times has been targeting big tech for years, so of course they would write hit pieces on Youtube.
[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-po...
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/reader-center/brazil-yout...
[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/20/magazine/youtube-radicali...
[3]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/technology/youtube-conspi...
[4]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/opinion/sunday/facebook-t...
[5]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/02/technology/yo...
[6]: https://www.nytimes.com/column/rabbit-hole
[7]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/the-weekly/what-is-youtub...
[8]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/technology/youtube-online...