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Comment by jjulius | Hacker News Reader

Well... yeah. That's the whole point of the algorithm - figure out what you're into, and show more of it to you.

I was going to say. Recommendation algorithms across the internet work on the simple principal that "if they click these things or watch these things a lot, then they must like them, so we should recommend more of that to them because they'll like our recommendations". So if people are thinking the election was a fraud, they've probably clicked and watched those conspiracy nut videos, and the algorithm will spit more back at them.

It's... how recommendations work.

They are doing exactly what they were designed and should do.

That is showing the user type of content they are interested in.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

The "problem" (if it's real, which I think it is) is that youtube's recommendations don't show you more "skepticism" content, but will continually try to push you further down rabbit holes. It works great if you are learning and suddenly interested in woodworking, but if you don't trust government, it's just going to take you to all the crazy people saying (((they))) are trying to keep you down and that's why your life is bad and you should hate and wish violence upon the people trying to "destroy your way of life".

After owning the same very active youtube account since 2007, youtube finally tried to radicalize me a few months back. I watched a single video from a more radical leftist (I guess class solidarity-ist) channel, and the very next loading of the homepage was at least half extreme leftist and extreme far right channels, trying to tell me that "democrats are trying to kill millions of babies a year" and "republicans are trying to instate a theocracy tomorrow" and "why you shouldn't believe anything (((they))) tell you". Google has known my political affiliation and opinions for over a decade, and still tried to show me OAN stuff, because hey I'm radicalizable right now and that's pretty profitable.

I've watched slightly leftist youtube videos for years now, and youtube never tried to radicalize me, but the second I dipped my toe into the dark and disgusting pool of extremism, that's all youtube wanted to show me. These videos were not meant to inform, but to enrage. The fact of the matter is that extremist content is just way better at activating much more extreme emotional responses, which fun story, leads to more engagement. So the algorithm LOVES pushing people towards extremeism, because it's super effective at doing what Daddy Google tells it to do, which is to get people more "engaged"

And it's worth noting (so I have been informed by multiple reputable sources) that the triple-parentheses construction is a common antisemitic dogwhistle—that is, the "they" there is implicitly "the Jews".

It's mostly used ironically now by Jews and allies but yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_parentheses

That....is not what I've heard from Jewish people I know (quite recently), nor what that Wikipedia article says. It says that some people have used it that way "in solidarity", but not that this has become its primary usage—and, indeed, it says that Jewish groups have officially labeled it as hate speech.

I may have been mistaken about that, then. I thought it had been more or less mocked and false-flagged out of use by now but I guess not.

Except there is? Mass consumption of this particular flavor of garbage has real consequences.

Like a special flavor of propaganda with political and corporate support that created a movement to burn down cities, loot stores, murder innocent people? That kind of thing?

Seems like a question of limiting consumption rather than the type of information though, right?

Overconsumption has health consequences.

The recommendation algorithm is also designed for overconsumption.

Yeah

YT is a drug pusher. In the worse of ways

I notice that the moment I watch a video slightly "off center" it goes full slippery slope on my recommendations. No kidding

"Ah but this is what it should do". No, it shouldn't

To not give a political example, this is like chasing and knocking on people's doors at dinner time with a full McD meal because you had a frozen yogurt in the afternoon

That's a poor analogy. You're going to the website, it's not coming to you, and you're given recommendations, not having them load and play the videos for you automatically. This is more like you buy a frozen yogurt at McDonald's in the afternoon, and when you return to McDonald's, the cashier asks if you'd like a McFlurry this time, and maybe to try a Big Mac combo?

> not having them load and play the videos for you automatically

Well, but YT does exactly that with Autoplay (and the recommendations are based on the last video seen)

That's what you're told, but you don't know that. The algorithm is opaque.

Even if the algo is fair to you, it could be devastating to the more feeble-minded.. And you would never know, until some clownish grifter caricature became leader of the free world, wink. Even then, how would you trace that critical little 2% vote shift back to a particular algorithm?

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