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Comment by motohagiography | Hacker News Reader

In my day it would have been heavy metal and dungeons and dragons. If that seems glib about a terrorist outrage that cost dozens of lives and families, we should apply the same standard of gravity to the quality of the critical excuses authorities make for it afterward. There is a youtube rabbit hole, but it has nothing on the previous tumblr hall of mirrors, or the twitter chorus. Tech is a great scapegoat because it's not going to defend itself. I suppose part of moving on is finding a way to co-opt negative experiences and apply them to strengthen your agenda, but from politicians, it still seems like cynical cant.

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Heavy metal and Dungeons and Dragons did not actively push far-right extremist content at people. There is absolutely no comparison to be made there.

There's no comparison because it's now near-universally recognized that the moral panic on those topics was silly. But many people in the 80s were pretty convinced that heavy metal and fantasy role playing could drive you insane or make you start worshipping demons. It was the subject of Tom Hanks's first movie! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazes_and_Monsters)

Yes, but that was not true.

Youtube really does have far-right extremist content on it. It really does drive you towards it. This is something happening in reality.

It was true in part! Judas Priest has a quite emphatic, criminal-friendly message on the topic of Breaking the Law. The question - in both cases - is whether the very real unsavory messages actually cause people to do terrible things they would have otherwise avoided.

Dungeons and Dragons advocates for:

* Innate race-specific characteristics [1] steeped in centuries of colonialism

* An antiquated notion of intelligence (INT) that neglects other types of intelligence (emotional, linguistic, spatial, etc.)

* A strong focus on collecting currency (gold, silver, platinum) and hoarding items that exacerbate wealth inequality

* The illusion of a meritocracy where higher level characters have "earned" their rank and enjoy the benefits of easier gameplay

* A problematic reference to Adolf Hitler's charisma [2] that was claimed to be misquoted but was still stricken from further editions of the manual

The list goes on, but it should be easy to see how D&D can be a gateway to further radicalization and dehumanization.

[1] https://www.polygon.com/2020/6/23/21300653/dungeons-dragons-...

[2] http://www.theescapist.com/basic_gaming_faq.htm#hitler

D&D has its problems, yes. But it is nothing like Youtube in how strongly it drives radicalisation.

Neither does YouTube, I think that was the comparison. I'm sure you could find all sorts of right-wing, left-wing, Islamic, or other extremist content if you try hard enough. To say YouTube pushes it on people is just not true. If anything, their content moderation policies and algorithms are too strict.

But it does. It really does, it is well documented that it does.

I know a few journalists really want to push this narrative, but I think the more it's been carefully studied, the more it's been debunked. E.g:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.11211.pdf

"After conducting a detailed analysis of recommendations received by each channel type, we refute the popular radicalization claims. To the contrary, these data suggest that YouTubes recommendation algorithm actively discourages viewers from visiting radicalizing or extremist content. Instead, the algorithm is shown to favor mainstream media and cable news content over independent YouTube channels with slant towards left-leaning or politically neutral channels."

Actively? It sounds like you're erroneously attributing some sinister 'purpose' to the algorithm.

The YT recommendation algorithm doesn't have any preference for what it sends you to, only that you keep coming back.

The music industry might do something similar (simpler, poppier tunes), but it's far, far slower than YouTube, so you can accumulate less 'radicalisation' on aggregate.

But I think that's the point. Because Youtube has such a fast feedback loop, they have a special responsibility to avoid over-optimizing on getting you to watch the next video.

Actively, as in, it is pushing you towards this content. You do not have to seek it out specifically, the algorithm will steer you towards it.

Ah, okay. Sure, that's what any recommendation system will do. But it's not like how Netflix 'actively' (might not be the best word to use, then) steers you towards Netflix originals because Netflix prefers you watching those.

That's what I thought you meant, but it looks like I was mistaken.

At some point the decision to not act on a problem becomes an active choice in favour of the problem, though.

I don't remember the "Tumblr hall of mirrors" or the "Twitter chorus" leading to mass shootings.

There is no report yet to tell that. I think YouTube is just a scape goat for the society problems that led to that terrible event; any day someone can come forward with a theory that the bad things on the planet are caused by X, Y or Z where X, Y or Z can be anything from Youtube/Twitter/FB to video games or drinking beer, then the reaction will be to try to ban that. I saw the ban that was the result of this event, it was illogic to anyone with knowledge of the matter, but it was well accepted by uninformed public.

Came here to say that. Thank goodness for YouTube! There are no records to spin backwards anymore to get the latest marching orders from Satan.

As a society, we learned a lot of creepy lessons from Orwell's 1984. But we didn't learn the positive lesson - a society needs a controlled way for rebelling for the sake of rebelling.

Heavy metal, punks, hippies.. What's up today? Now it gets harder and harder to rebel as more and more things are becoming "normal". So people go more extreme.

Soon biggest rebellion will be to do nothing "rebellious". Go to school, don't party too much, stick to classic conservative ideas, maybe go to church (or equivalent), dress in a shirt and jeans, go for family/kids/house with a white fence.

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