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> But pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit are two sides of the same coin.

Not necessarily.

For example, recommending videos that are somehow categorized "pro-evolutionary theory" would almost certainly be less divisive than recommending Creationist videos that attempt to "debunk" evolutionary theory. The pro-evolutionary theory videos would typically be substantive scientific talks or lectures that require patience and critical thinking in order to understand. The Creationist videos, on the other hand, typically use lots of underhanded tactics. They will attempt to mislead the viewer and typically throw out so many different arguments from so many disparate fields that it's impossible for any one person to debunk them all out of hand.

If you recommend the "pro-evolution" videos you probably end up with a lot of bored viewers who don't even make it through a single video. If you recommend the "anti-evolution" videos then you'll get a biologist debunking point 1 of 100 and a troglodyte responding "what about point 2-100?"

I have no clue whether the pro/anti Brexit videos fit that bill. But it's certainly a possibility.

Pro and anti brexit are not questions of what materially is, but a question of what ought, but no, perhaps not even what ought, but what choice to make, possibly one which doesn't have one option as morally obligatory over the other.

So, no, it isn't really like one group claiming a falsehood to be material fact while another claims the negation of that falsehood to be a material fact. (Material fact as opposed to moral fact)

If only that was the case! One of the conversations I had before the referendum went like this:

Them: “We should leave because then they’ll give us a great deal.”

Me: “But they can’t give you a better deal.”

Them: “That just proves we should leave!”

This person has a Cambridge degree, yet this topic allowed them to mix up hopes and preferences with objective economic benefits and end up with cult-like thinking where the conclusion was kept despite the negation of the argument just used to reach it.

From time to time, I ponder their mistake and ask if I have made a similar one of my own.

I have found that the smarter the person, the easier it is to fall into the trap of asserting something confidently without actually thinking through the details. Our brains are really good at abstracting out detail and so there can be a whole tree of things to consider that our brain simplifies into a ready made answer. When you are really bright, you are used to being right (or at least being able to argue the point so well that other people concede the argument). With that confidence, it's easy to overlook pretty massive gaps.

I once worked with a brilliant physicist. One day he went off on a holiday and when he came back I asked him how it went. "Terrible", he said. It turned out that his plan was to drive from Winnipeg (which is right smack in the middle of Canada) to Vancouver (on the west coast) in a day. Then he was going to drive down the coast to Los Angeles the next day, do some sight seeing and find a hotel. Then we was going to drive to Las Vegas the next day, and gamble for the rest of the day. Finally he was going to drive back to Winnipeg the next day. He made it from Winnipeg to Moose Jaw before he gave up.

"When I looked at the map of North America in my map book, it was the same size as the map of Germany, so I thought they were the same size in real life", was the excuse.

I also have scale problems whenever I visit California (I’m from the UK, which is about half the land area of that particular state). I’m glad Google Maps gives me a sense of journey time, or I might make similar mistakes.

Regarding the person themselves, when it came to subjective questions — philosophical sensation of self, where I rather than they wanted to live, if cyclists (they didn’t cycle) preferred cars to overtake quickly or slowly — this person tended to have the “used to being right” hubris that you described.

Regardless, the point is that "pro" and "con" are not necessarily equally divisive when displayed by Youtube's recommendation system.

> The pro-evolutionary theory videos would typically be substantive scientific talks or lectures that require patience and critical thinking in order to understand.

There's a LOT of very low-brow, fast-food content on the "left", too. Videos that just makes fun of how stupid anti-vaxxers are, generate outrage about global warming while being very light on scientific data and hard of apocaliptic imaging, generate fear and anxiety about the rise of fascism and nazism, repeating the idea that Trump is literally Hitler and Theresa May is his Mussolini...

I'm not trying to make any point about whether those things are true or false, by the way. Just about the level of propaganda and emotional manipulation on both sides.

You're at least somewhat correct, at least judging by the headlines on realclearpolitics, for example, or by browsing politically opposed subreddits simultaneously. But I'm really astounded that you've said that anti-vaxxers are specifically right-wing. I thought it was a bit more like the flat-earth phenomenon where it's unclear who is being satirical, who supports it simply because of some disposition to conspiracy, and who actually believes that they've found evidence more compelling than the near entirety of the foundation of our scientific system - the same scientific system that has managed to create the device of incomprehensible complexity on which you're reading this comment.

Are you saying that Youtube's recommendation system is favoring the poorest quality and/or most outrage-inducing videos on these topics for you?

This is false equivalence.

Anti-Brexit is the status quo. It's by definition not controversial since they can't do anything other than advocate for how things currently are.

Pro-Brexit is by definition controversial since they were advocating for a complete upheaval in the relationship with the EU constructed over decades. And it was always going to be tinged with xenophobia and nationalism since that was the entire premise for the Brexit vote to begin with. And it doesn't get any more divisive than xenophobia.

It's not status quo in an active vote situation. Your not showing up to vote did not cast a vote in favor of the status quo. Divisiveness is bidirectional by its nature.

The rest of your post is political fervor on your view of the vote and not related to whether YouTube's algorithms promoted divisiveness in all forms instead of just the one you don't like.

As the turnout implies, the anti-brexit camp had it harder to mobilize, since the status que seemed quite safe and unlikely to be challenged by many, especially, being already in a pro EU-region. So a lot of people did not come out to vote in favor since they seemed their vote not neccessary. Asymmetric mobilisation and de-mobilization is a thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Union_...

The election had higher voter turnout than any national election in the UK in decades, and most of all polls showed the election was going to be very close. Blaming voter complacency does not seem logical.

It's quite reasonable to suppose that there are many reasons why one person would or would not mobilize to vote, and, correct me if I'm wrong, it's common knowledge that the "swing voter" effect is not due to undecided people becoming decided, rather that people are marginally motivated or unmotivated to vote.

So, in the spirit of democracy, where the desires of all those who /can/ vote (not just those who /do/ vote) are respected, it is probably interesting to examine why voters do and do not find the motivation to vote. Hypothetically, if we had mind-reading devices, and motivation was not a prerequisite for voting, which side of the vote would have benefited?

Asymmetrical motivation is the hypothesis that in referenda where Action/No-Action are the choices, there will be more voter motivation for Action rather than No-Action. This very reasonably applies to Brexit.

A swing vote just refers to a voter whose decision cannot be accurately predicted. Not voting is as much a part of democracy as voting. Even in extremely formal and small settings ranging from national congresses to the EU, abstaining from casting a vote one way or the other is very much a viable decision in and of itself.

I would argue that abstaining from voting in a formal setting is significantly different than not "voting" in modern elections. There's significant historical evidence of voter suppression, including suffragist movements. Voter motivation is not something that I think we should brush away lightly, because it has an impact on democracy just like voter manipulation and voter suppression.

Yep. See also: Clinton versus Trump. Trump was the perfect clickbait candidate.

Not to put too fine a point on it, if the author's intent is to say that their algorithm intentionally promotes nationalism and xenophobia, I think they missed the headline ;-)

I think it's perfectly fair to say that videos from both sides evoked similar passion. We can argue whether it's "good" passion or "bad" passion, but I can't see what difference it makes. Why would I watch a pro-Brexit video for a longer time than an anti-Brexit video, based on topic alone (i.e. assuming that both videos were equally effective in addressing their audience)?

This is not "by definition". General rule: Uses of "by definition" outside of mathematics are almost always wrong. Good article on the subject: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cFzC996D7Jjds3vS9/arguing-by...

I may be misreading, but I think he's talking about pro-Brexit videos being heavily promoted relative to all other videos, as opposed to relative to anti-Brexit videos. Which still means they were heavily promoted.

The point being made is that, in order to promote the divisiveness that yields more ad revenue (through increased "watch time"), the YouTube algorithms disproportionately promote positions that are morally wrong, factually incorrect, or both.

Brexit may not be the best example, because (perhaps, arguably) there could be legitimate arguments for the pro-Brexit stance.

Vaccination might be a better illustration.

Promulgating the view that "vaccines are a hoax, and vaccinating your child will cause autism, or let the government achieve mind control" is both incorrect (scientifically, factually) and wrong (morally). Those convinced by this view put their child and other children around their child at grave risk.

A system that promotes this view over the established, normative, scientifically validated consensus view that we should vaccinate our children, to the point that it changes opinions and behavior, is harmful to public discourse (and harmful to children).

This is true whether automated/algorithmic, or intentionally devised and operated by people with malevolent intent.

At scale, these phonomena become harmful to democracy itself. Democracies are diminished when their subjects believe false information, especially objectively harmful false information whose belief causes disease, stuctural collapse of infrastructure, etc.

Since we are now observing this happening to various extents in various areas of society, we should use our power as democratic citizens to compel operators such as YouTube to provide real data on what their algorithms are selecting, so that we can understand the effect on our society.

At least, that's what I got out of his tweet.

Ya, I love getting flat earth suggestions because I watch the PBS Spacetime channel. YT promotes tons of absolute crap. Of course there is tons of crap, since making crap is low effort. Seems to go hand in hand with click bait titles, which are decisive in and of themselves.

Britain being in the EU was the status quo, so in that sense pro-Leave was the more 'divisive' option.

It's ... not that simple ...

Fair enough. Not trying to relitigate the topic - that just seemed like one simple distinction, but I know it is more complex.

Because obviously all moral, right-thinking people know that Remain is the right thing to do. The fact that Remain didn't win just proves that some people were tricked by divisive videos in favour of Brexit.

The videos in favour of Remain weren't divisive, because being in favour of Remain is the moral, right-thinking stance.

I assume you’re being sarcastic but it’s sad to me that these days it’s hard to tell.