2y ago

Very, Very Few People Are Falling Down the YouTube Rabbit Hole | The site’s crackdown on radicalization seems to have worked. But the world will never know what was happening before that

www.theatlantic.com

Very, Very Few People Are Falling Down the YouTube Rabbit Hole

Very, Very Few People Are Falling Down the YouTube Rabbit Hole | The site’s crackdown on radicalization seems to have worked. But the world will never know what was happening before that::The site’s crackdown on radicalization seems to have worked. But the world will never know what was happening before that.

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2y ago

Very, Very, Few People Are Falling Down the YouTube Rabbit Hole

www.theatlantic.com /technology/archive/2023/08/youtube-rabbit-holes-american-politics/675186/

122 comments

Recently watched a documentary called 'the YouTube effect' by Alex Winter (bill of bill and ted) which goes into how YouTube was essential in the current global state of radicalized individuals.
In the earlyish days of the internet (late 1990s / early 00s) I fell deep down the rabbit hole of right wing hate and conspiracy theories..
One subject of the doc explains his descent. It is almost exactly mine. Only these days it is hyper stimulated, laser targeted, data driven, psychological warfare, wrapped in polished, billionaire backed campaigns.
It comes at you from wherever you are.
Crypto bros. Health/hydro bros. incel bros. Christian bros. Muslim bros. Rogan bros. Peterson bros. Elon bros. Tech bros. Anon bros. etc.
By the time a lot of people realize what's happened, if ever, they're already in too deep.
- Crypto bros. Health/hydro bros. incel bros. Christian bros. Muslim bros. Rogan bros. Peterson bros. Elon bros. Tech bros. Anon bros. etc.
  Hmm I'm sensing a theme here...
  
  I think I fell in the other YouTube rabbit hole? My recs are all progressive podcasters, history video essays, and YouTube creator podcasts that complain about YouTube?
  
  Mines basically all nerd shit like physics, ham radio, robotics. And also call me kris.
  
  You probably have William Osman in there right?
  
  Oh yea, the infamous reality rabbithole broadcast from earth1.
  
  humblebrag energy
  
  Loneliness, lack of purpose, which then gets fulfilled by a relatively small community driven by defending and idea, ideology and/or an individual.
  
  Yup, it's the same old song of fascists and cultists.
  "Are you lonely, sad, angry, or just generally dissatisfied with your life? Have you tried blaming your problems on a minority with less power in society than yourself? Act now, and I'll throw in a second minority, free!*"
  *Just pay shipping and handling.
  
  Interestingly, those are also very common among people showing signs of conspiratorial thinking.
  
  Leftists aren’t immune. My YouTube has a lot of Vaush, Hasan, Sam Seder, etc.
  Though I do also get Patrick Bet David and PragerU thrown in too, I think because I can’t help but watch for a window into their line of thinking.
  
  It is not quite the same. It recommends things you watch. If you watch Hasan you tend to get more Hasan stuff but only on rare occasions do you get Vaush stuff.
  Back in the day you could watch one non political thunderfoot about some scam and the recommendations would be a rouges gallery of anti-sjws with no other recommendations.
  Now you can get radicalized because you want to be and it's a nice saunter down the hill. Then it was a sheer cliff you could accidentally fall into. If you didn't experience it you can't really imagine how stupid it was.
  
  There's a recent documentary movie about that called Bros I suggest you check it out.
  
  Is the theme “cults”?
  
  Close. It's cunts.
  
  Bro! I don't know if there's a theme, bro! But, bro, I'll look into it, bro.
  Bro.
  
  Broooooo, that's too much bro for any one bro to have to look into, bro.
- I like to watch videos of media critiques. Somehow all the ones that I keep getting recommended are anti woke d bags that blame every bad movie choice on the company/producer/director/etc going woke. I've pretty much had to stop watching those types of videos and try to rebalance the algorithm by watching literally anything that seems remotely left leaning. It's been 2 months and it's barely better.
  
  Yeah a lot of channels used to be actual discussion now it's all culture war bs.
  
  Patrick H. Willems. Thomas Flight. Now You See It. Cinema Therapy. Pop Culture Detective. jstoobs
  
  Pop Culture Detective is great, for the most part.
  
  There's one channel I love watching for the behind the scenes news on movie studios, but then it goes anti-woke so hard sometimes that I literally just have to stop the video mid-viewing.
  The anti-woke crowd think the woke crowd are so annoying, but they never themselves stop to think about how the anti-woke croud can be so annoying as well.
  
  I have resorted to extreme methods of recommendation algorithm avoidance such as, but not limited to:
  Multiple accounts.
  Proxies and anonymous services like startpage.com anonymous view.
  Non YouTube clients like piped or envidious.
  Using multiple browsers instead of a single google spyware app.
  
  Yeah I'm just watching less because I don't want to spend the time doing that. It's irritating either way but at least this way I can justify since I'm not putting in and time.
- We need more liberal critical thinking bros.
  
  Funny how the left doesn't have any bros.
  We've got brothers.
- What do you mean by 'it coming at you' and 'being too deep'?
  
  Not OP but I'm guessing the algorithms that recommend videos have gone down one direction, so you're in an echo chamber where it seems like that is everything there is. You'd never hear a counter-argument; only ever one side of the argument.
  
  I recommend you watch this video to answer your question https://youtu.be/P55t6eryY3g?si=TPMvx5YmF0XANLXB
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/P55t6eryY3g?si=TPMvx5YmF0XANLXB
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
  
  Whatever your interest or hobby, there is a psyop devoted to it. Wherever you are, whatever you do, whatever you're curious about, you will find targeted propaganda.
  Because of the methods used. The conspiracies wrapped in a cozy blanket of semi truth and emotional manipulation make it easy to fall prey to.
  If you're angry, it will make you angrier. Violent, even. If you're happy, it can make you hate with the loving joy of false religious zeal. If you are confused and uncertain, it will provide the esoteric truths you seek, with the absolute certainty of a "final solution"
  Etc
  And it's difficult to unwind.

122 comments