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Comment by varjag | Hacker News Reader

I do sports pistol shooting as a hobby. Recommendations have improved recently, but before you never were never further than two clicks away from ISSF championship chronicles to videos by disturbed people with firearms.

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And have they turned you into a disturbed person with firearms?

Was that your original point?

There was undeniable steep gradient towards extremism, how it worked on me in particular is irrelevant. It is a numbers game.

What do you mean by "undeniable steep gradient towards extremism" - it was undeniable that more people were becoming extremists via YouTube? I thought that is what we are discussing? Whether YouTube algorithm tries to show you extremism is another question. I am not defending the YouTube algorithm - presumably more extreme things lead to more engagement.

The only way it would be harmless is if you postulate that propaganda doesn't work.

Surely it does not automatically work, or we would all live in totalitarian states already.

I lived in a totalitarian state before.

So now you are in favor of censoring things? I don't think the likes of YouTube are very typical for totalitarian states.

The propaganda by totalitarian states is an entirely different beasts, it reaches into all walks of life.

It's you who brought up totalitarian states, I cede to you defeating your own point.

I said "we would all live in totalitarian states", and I also doubt your totalitarian state was created by YouTube propaganda.

I'm more worried about the censorship leading to totalitarian states than extremist YouTube channels.

Most totalitarian states predate YT and other forms of social media, so this is irrelevant. Now that they are here, they use it to fullest extent.

It's not irrelevant, as the discussion is about alleged effects of free speech on YouTube in the present time.

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