[HN Gopher] The YouTube Rabbit Hole Is Nuanced
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       The YouTube Rabbit Hole Is Nuanced
        
       Author : prostoalex
       Score  : 30 points
       Date   : 2022-04-22 16:08 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
        
       | midislack wrote:
       | When I hear 'nuanced' it usually shuts off my brain.
        
       | akira2501 wrote:
       | Is there an established "kittens to terrorist" pipeline? Did I
       | miss a news story earlier this week? It seems very brash to
       | assume that activity you simply don't approve of is
       | instantaneously harmful.
       | 
       | I'm also suspicious of any study that uses YouGov, and in
       | particular, derives it's data from a volunteer panel.
       | 
       | This smacks of looking for a conclusion and then building a study
       | to find it.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | Terry_Roll wrote:
         | >Is there an established "kittens to terrorist" pipeline?
         | 
         | Yes, its what Eli Pariser described as a Filter Bubble, first
         | identified in Google Search results. I wonder if there has been
         | some code sharing going on between Google and Youtube, or if
         | team members have jumped ship?
         | 
         | https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_b...
         | 
         | https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/08/eli-pariser-ac...
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble
         | 
         | Some youtube holes can be good but considering the untapped
         | potential of Youtube for DJ mixes as background music for
         | coders, I find the youtube hole incredibly frustrating.
         | 
         | I mean I've only just found this DJ and its pretty decent mix
         | and her previous work is quite good as well, but considering
         | she is Ukrainian, I wonder if this is Youtube's pro Ukrainian
         | political policy in effect?
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYC8KkNIkZk
         | 
         | I found this decent mix
         | (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vHRUsP20dQ) only after
         | listening to a couple of 145bpm German Underground techno
         | mixes.
         | 
         | I mean what were the algorithms thinking?
         | 
         | The only link I can see is its from the Boiler Room in Berlin
         | and Berlin is where you can find some decent German underground
         | techno, plus the time of day is a factor, ie trying to slow
         | down someone's Dopamine stimulation at 4am in the morning?
         | 
         | But if you listen to some of the more established DJ's like
         | Boris Brecha, Carl Cox, David Guetta, Adam Beyer or brands like
         | Creamfields, Global Underground, Tomorrowland, Resistance,
         | Transmission, Hooj Tunes, Essential Mix, you'll get stuck in
         | youtube holes left right and centre and the quality tends to
         | get worse the longer you listen. I mean their algorithms dont
         | know how to curate DJ mixes, just like most people cant take
         | people on a journey of aural delights when DJ'ing.
         | 
         | One other thing I have noticed with Youtube is bank holidays in
         | the UK, they tend to promote borderline illegal car activities,
         | things like cruises where people lose it leaving the cruise or
         | speeding videos, more so on August bank holiday and the last
         | May bank holiday. I'm left with the impression Youtube is
         | trying to incite illegal car activities, so maybe the NY Times
         | and the Guardian do have a point!?!
        
         | OrangeMonkey wrote:
         | If your idea can win in the marketplace of ideas, then free
         | speech is the answer.
         | 
         | If your idea loses in the marketplace of ideas, you ban the
         | speech you dislike until your idea wins in the *marketplace of
         | ideas.
         | 
         | If any group is busy saying - out loud - that they need to ban
         | what you can see and hear, maybe we should start asking some
         | critical questions.
        
           | kurthr wrote:
           | If by win, you mean paid SEO of propaganda with brigading by
           | fake accounts.                 But wait, you used the word
           | free?       How is paid propaganda free?        The way
           | astroturf is grass?
           | 
           | Are corporations canceling me by not sufficiently promoting
           | my political agenda on their ad supported site, because my
           | content makes people not want to buy anything associated with
           | it?
           | 
           | Just asking questions.
        
           | chowells wrote:
           | A marketplace of ideas only works if every single idea every
           | person has is actively chosen based on analysis of
           | alternatives.
           | 
           | Given that applies to about 0% of beliefs for most people,
           | I'd say the idea has some flaws.
           | 
           | If you immediately reject that, you're not very open to
           | external ideas, are you?
           | 
           | If you don't immediately reject it, you see how a market can
           | be subverted to serve purposes that it was never intended to
           | or constructed to resist.
           | 
           | Either way, the idea of a marketplace of ideas is paradoxical
           | in the extremes. And once you acknowledge the idea needs to
           | be softened to avoid self-contradiction, you end up back at
           | the question of what constitutes abuse. That's the exact same
           | question people are wrestling with now. And because it's
           | inherently an expression of a power struggle, you need to be
           | aware of whose power you're supporting.
           | 
           | I recommend siding _against_ authoritarians and fascists, but
           | that 's just my idea.
        
             | tonguez wrote:
             | "A marketplace of ideas only works if every single idea
             | every person has is actively chosen based on analysis of
             | alternatives."
             | 
             | nah
        
             | freedomben wrote:
             | I think your premise is flawed:
             | 
             | > _A marketplace of ideas only works if every single idea
             | every person has is actively chosen based on analysis of
             | alternatives._
             | 
             | What is required is exposure to alternatives. It's not a
             | perfect nor an instantaneous process, but it absolutely
             | works. I've changed my position many times based on
             | rational argumentation. If they are never exposed to the
             | alternatives, the majority of people will just continue
             | believing in what they already believe, of which the bulk
             | comes from upbringing.
        
               | ZeroGravitas wrote:
               | The marketplace of ideas can remain irrational longer
               | than you can stay solvent.
        
           | atoav wrote:
           | Who decides the architectonic layout of that marketplace and
           | could it not have some sort of influence on the success or
           | failure of said idea?
           | 
           | Or lets ask differently: how could there ever be a neutral
           | layout to said market place, which is without influence of
           | the powers at play in any given situation?
        
           | pixl97 wrote:
           | Paradox of intolerance alarms are going off in my head for
           | some reason.
        
           | MereInterest wrote:
           | First off, ideas are not a marketplace. Every useful idea has
           | some call to action as part of it. That call to action may be
           | a call to raise or lower taxes, a call to install bike lanes,
           | a call to write more books about race car driving. These
           | actions are frequently incompatible, and so they must be
           | communally chosen. This is in contrast to a free market,
           | where each individual can choose between available options.
           | 
           | Second, even if ideas are treated as a market, movements can
           | have disproportionate power compared to their "market share".
           | The level of group support required to implement a policy
           | depends on the specific policy. If 5% of people support
           | defecating in the local lake, and 95% of people support the
           | idea of swimming in the lake and using indoor plumbing, the
           | result is not a swimmable lake. In the same way, a violent
           | movement with very low popular support is unlikely to win any
           | elections, but can still make it entirely unsafe for that
           | movement's targets.
           | 
           | Third, personal anecdote time. A few years ago after watching
           | the "Alt-Right Playbook" [0], a YouTube series about
           | recruitment and radicalization tactics used by the alt-right,
           | YouTube recommended that I watch Nazi propaganda. I do not
           | say that in any exaggeration. The video title had the phrase
           | "The Jewish Question", and I was expecting a history on how
           | that phrase had been used in racist fearmongering. It was
           | instead exactly that same racist fearmongering. Even if I
           | were to hold that all speech is permissible without
           | repercussion, there is still a world of difference between
           | allowing Nazi propaganda to exist, and active promotion of
           | propaganda of that same propaganda.
           | 
           | TL;DR: Ideas are not a marketplace, and lack of promotion is
           | not the same as silencing.
           | 
           | [0] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYR
           | bAN...
        
         | kurthr wrote:
         | I just got served this "patriotic" wonder on YouTube kids.
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/NUklrt_4Mio
         | 
         | Check out the translation, if you're into that.
        
           | robbedpeter wrote:
           | Z-Nazi nuns and nurses. More or less, just not fixated on
           | jews. My empathy for Russians declines daily, it seems - they
           | had decades to work things out but seem to have decided that
           | klepocratic autarchy was good enough, or was someone else's
           | problem. Want to be more like North Korea? Do as Russians do.
           | 
           | Megalomaniacs shouldn't be involved in potential nuclear war.
           | The US has proposed structured human-in-the-loop treaties to
           | require that nuclear weapons not be automated, but China and
           | Russia have both refused. A few bad cosmic bit flips and
           | unintended nuclear war is possible. Putin's swan dive into
           | Ukraine should underline the need for change. Humanity is
           | toast if we're going to play stupid nuclear brinksmanship
           | games every couple decades.
        
             | kurthr wrote:
             | What's disturbing is that the poster requested it be on
             | _YouTube_Kids_, they obliged, and due to that any state-
             | sponsored "warning" notation is removed.
        
               | robbedpeter wrote:
               | Elsa-gate and other nastiness shuttle have been a big
               | wake-up call for YouTube to get their shit together on
               | the kids area of the platform.
               | 
               | Nice, wholesome, patriotic Russian propaganda like that
               | shouldn't be possible to post. Mandatory human review
               | with a checklist and log should be one of many hurdles
               | needed to post content for the kids-only content area. It
               | should be the best guarded, most highly curated segment,
               | but all sorts of inappropriate garbage gets through, and
               | sticks around for weeks or months even after being
               | reported.
        
       | Dwedit wrote:
       | One potential problem with this article is that your LOCATION can
       | also determine which videos are suggested to you. So if you're in
       | New York City, you're not going to see the same suggestions as
       | someone in Arkansas.
        
       | mt_ wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/84gnw
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | ZeroGravitas wrote:
       | This feels like a big straw man.
       | 
       | My YouTube journey didn't start with watching 90 minute videos of
       | some guy solving a soduku with no given digits and a knight move
       | constraint.
       | 
       | I got there step by step.
        
       | nojito wrote:
       | Very interesting study if anyone's curious.
       | 
       | https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.dartmouth.edu/dist/5/229...
        
       | tomatowurst wrote:
       | I increasingly distrust nytimes after Ryan Breslow outed them.
       | 
       | https://twitter.com/theryanking/status/1514664887045091328
       | 
       | How can you trust a media outlet with conflict of interests? This
       | naturally makes me question it's journalists now too.
       | 
       | One might associate NY Times with the city New York, the bastion
       | of a free speech and democractic superpower. But after the facts,
       | how can you not read NY times article without raising questions?
        
         | willnonya wrote:
         | New Yorkis a bastion of free speech and democratic? What decade
         | is this comment from?
        
         | ZeroGravitas wrote:
         | NYT is like the Democratic party of newspapers. They're vaguely
         | respectable centrists in a slightly Fascist nation.
         | 
         | The scary part is how many of the American population think
         | both of them are terrifying bastions of Communist Woke
         | Terrorism, in striking contrast to objective reality.
        
         | AlexandrB wrote:
         | It used to be normal in the news paper industry to have a hard
         | dividing line between the "news" and "advertising" departments
         | for this very reason. There was always a conflict of interest
         | possible when newspapers reported on the companies placing ads
         | with them. I'm not sure how true this is any more.
        
         | yackback wrote:
         | Another criticism of NYTs coverage about something, this time
         | San Francisco:
         | https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1494090713482633217
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | tonguez wrote:
         | "One might associate NY Times with the city New York, the
         | bastion of a free speech and democractic superpower."
         | 
         | if you say all lives matter in nyc you will be beaten to a
         | bloody pulp
        
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