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Comment by elektor | Hacker News Reader

Long overdue. Maybe in a few months I can watch a Joe Rogan podcast video without tainting my YouTube recommendations for the next year with Ben Shapiro-style clickbait.

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Youtube OBLITERATES elektor's recommendations with Logic & Reason!

On the other hand, I wouldn't know who Ben Shapiro is without having watched Rogan videos. It's an important info to have, because it tells you what people are interested in, and what they believe in. You can't communicate efficiently without knowing that.

I don't know who Ben Shapiro is so I'm just using him as an example and maybe he is noteworthy, but if the system tells everyone to watch Ben Shapiro videos of course everyone is gonna know who he is. Maybe he wouldn't be 'required knowledge' if youtube didn't force it and reinforce it on everyone.

The current system doesn't tell you what people are interested in, it tells you what the system made the people pay interest to.

Well, I assume it recommends what other people that watched similar videos watched as well.

I doubt Ben Shapiro is 'required knowledge', nor that he became popular only through youtube. Those people usually have an IRL crowd. They have IRL impacts.

But I see your point.

> Well, I assume it recommends what other people that watched similar videos watched as well.

The problem is it creates a feedback loop and amplifies whatever is slightly over represented.

I also noticed that on LinkedIn profiles, on many high profiles ones the related section contains pretty girls profiles with unrelated positions, just because statistically they get more clicks I guess.

To take the position that people only believe stuff because it is fed to them is incredibly patronizing. Sure, the fundamental dynamic of social media (that immediate and direct feedback about what captures user attention is used to determine what users see) makes things more polarized, but people are polarized to begin with. Conservatives are conservatives because they have a fundamentally different outlook about the world, not because they just happened to fall down a specific click hole on the internet.

I have not taken that position. To misrepresent the views of others to make your argument easier is very patronizing.

My post was about notoriety not belief. Many things, trends and personalities are created by the media, whether you believe what they say or not. Flat earth conspiracies would never have been repeated by NBA players if not because of Youtube's recommendation algorithm.

Way before internet, I remember people were talking about how Marilyn Manson had surgery to be able to suck himself

I also remember when I watched in disbelieve people saying the sun was going around the earth.

Internet is just the reflect of human nature. Flat earth theory would have existed without it.

Maybe so, but it now enables global reach at the speed of light. You can't argue that the danger from a stick of dynamite is the same as the danger from a nuclear bomb. You might not care about the difference if you're standing next to it, but they are bit the same thing

You're basically saying that well done propaganda doesn't work then, which is patently false.

Watching polarizing YouTube videos isn't going to flip a bit, but constant exposure to a single perspective constantly reinforced is certainly going to influence your formation of beliefs. That's exactly what YouTube does with their recommendation system

No, that's not what I'm saying. I agree that propaganda and social media are problematic. But they can only be a problem if people pay attention. And nobody is forcing people to pay attention. Which gets to my point: people have pre-existing notions and inclinations before propaganda and social media can even have an effect.

>The current system doesn't tell you what people are interested in, it tells you what the system made the people pay interest to.

I agree with you 100% here. But this problem can't be fixed. All that's about to happen is Google is going to decide that people will be interested in something Google finds more palatable. I don't know how to fix/escape this problem.

same! I touched a Rogan podcast & ever since I've been getting recommendations for a certain JP

Yeah, and maybe some day I'll be able to do anything on the site whatsoever without it shoving CNN videos in my face.

However, who determines what is a conspaircy? The government might be deciding that Iraq has WMDs and any evidence to the contrary is a conspiracy. While some measures are needed to be taken, who decides what is? No one is truly impartial. The censorship (while required due to how much crap is in YouTube) might devolve to 1984 without comple transparency, which we all know google isn’t providing.

NSA mass surveillance was considered conspiracy before PRISM.

Worse, people that said it was a conspiracy are now calling other things conspiracy, without any consideration for their past errors.

There seems to be people around who still think NSA mass surveillance is a conspiracy. Heck, don't the flat earther think round earth is a conspiracy? One mans theory is another mans conspiracy.

There's some fun even around the origin of the term. In late 1963 JFK was assassinated. According to a sourced referenced on Wiki [1] the first mainstream reference to "conspiracy theory" was the New York Times who, in 1964, posted some 5 articles using the phrase. In 1967 the CIA had a psychological operation manual on discrediting conspiracy theories. [2] The reason I mention JFK there is because the conspiracy theory tactics created by the CIA were specifically relating to the Warren Commission [3].

Ultimately I've always found the term silly. People can believe idiotic things for sure, yet on the other hand I think there is an equilibrium where on one end you have people who believe no 'conspiracy theory' could ever be real, and on the other hand you have people who indulge every 'conspiracy theory' as probable. Both opposite extremes are equally naive.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory#Etymology_an...

[2] - https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-23/1967-he-cia-create...

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Commission

"don't the flat earther think"

Sure... some. But that's not the reason it's promoted. Paradoxically, many "fall for" it's real utility my merely lumping it in with whatever they want to discredit; disinformation is rather effective when it attaches obvious bs to other things.

Who determines when daytime is? is 7AM daytime? is 7AM in Alaska in the middle of winter daytime?

There is a discussion to be had about some topics at the edge...but 2PM everyone agrees is part of daytime; the flat earth 'conspiracy' should never be recommended to anybody.

And sadly, in the current climate, this also has to be said: This does not mean Google is picking sides. If you on your own reflections decide that for some strange reason the earth is flat, that is your right, and no one is infringing on it by not giving you a platform.

Why not? Who are you to decided what should and should not be recommended? Maybe I would enjoy watching some flat earth theory. Maybe watching it will help me understand it better so I can have a civilized conversation with one when I come across them. What about other conspiracies? What if I am researching conspiracy theories? Wouldn't flat earth theory is relevant to me?

'There is a discussion to be had about some topics at the edge...but 2PM everyone agrees is part of daytime; the flat earth 'conspiracy' should never be recommended to anybody.'

It should be recommended to anything to whom it would be relevant to. That's the whole idea behind recommendation system.

Truth, but however, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Honestly, every time I hear an argument along these lines, that any attempt at moderating content will inevitably devolve into 1984 style censorship because all terms are arbitrary and "what even is x?", it becomes less convincing.

Unless the US government bans all sites except google and turns Youtube into a direct propaganda tool and declares that publishing any unauthorized content is a crime, then the worst that can happen here is that Youtube's updated algorithm fails to serve the needs of its userbase, in which case it will probably be amended due to a drop in the site's popularity and engagement metrics.

Content that isn't recommended hasn't been censored, it's still discoverable as long as it exists on the platform, and free speech remains unaffected even when a single platform decides to alter its algorithm in a way that might slightly reduce the immediacy of certain kinds of content.

Not all slopes are slippery.

You say "a single platform" as though there is another viable platform.

Someone tried to set one up. It's called BitChute. All the payment processors blocked it.

The reality is that YouTube is not just "a single platform", it's THE platform. It's owned by a megacorporation with extreme political leanings. It's incredibly influential on votes and opinions globally. It's run with zero transparency, by a small unidentified unelected group of wealthy and powerful people.

You're just comfortable wtih this because you think they're on your side politically. Most people are comfortable with moderate levels of tyranny as long as they think it's their tribe that holds the levers of power.

But if Google was owned and run by evangelical Christians, and they were shifting their recommendations to discourage "immoral" videos of gay pride, pro-trans-rights arguments, sex worker rights, etc, you'd be incensed.

Why are you conflating legitimate conservative political speech, bullshit conspiracy theory and white supremacy?

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