https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3351095.3372879?download=...
It's been running as a defacto radicalization engine for years at this point.
No, the difference is that YouTube doesn't get a free pass; you don't hear “so and so was radicalized on Fox News (or OANN, or wherever)”, but that's not because it doesn't happen, instead it’ll get blamed, if anything, on groups and alternative media that the radicalized individual fell into after being radicalized by something shaped like traditional media.
If this study was anything like accurate, then AT THE TIME it was pushing people very gently towards more moderate YouTubers, in a subtle way. My nazi-adjacent former friend was really upset about this.
Thing is, both he and I remembered and acknowledged the time when it was feeding people extremist views really noticeably. His problem was essentially that it had stopped. I guess my problem is: who stopped it, why, and when are they going to switch back to doing that again?