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Comment by Ekaros | Hacker News Reader

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.

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.

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?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com