Do people really believe youtube engineers are encoding their values into the algorithm, intentionally or unintentionally?
Intentionally, I just can't imagine. What might this look like? How does it get through code review? Is it broad enough to apply to the entire ranking algo, or does it only act on tiny pockets that the offending engineers specifically care about?
In the unintentional case, certainly they're twisting specific knobs like engagement time, ad revenue, vids watched per session, etc... but is that encoding a specific person's taste, or a broader company's thirst for revenue? Do they even care about taste, or just metrics?
In other words, I find it suspect that youtube's policy is "More Jordan Peterson conflict vids", and more likely that it's "float high activity posts to the top", creating an echo chamber.
To be clear, I think there's some blame that rests on youtube eng (and let's be realistic, the broader product teams bossing eng around).
But it's not for encoding their tastes, it's for indiscriminately allowing the tastes of their markets to echo in a feedback loop that becomes a screech of extreme content. Not always anti-social, or even politically directional, just extreme flavors of whatever it is.