It's like those "drug pushers" we were told about in school but don't seem to actually exist who use weed to constantly try to get you onto more lucrative for them heroin no matter how many times you say "no thanks." Heard that so many times at school, never heard anyone encountering anything like it in the real world.

But here we are with google, facebrick et al saying "come on, just try a little culture war" because its lucrative for them, no matter how many times you say no thank you.

It's really sick but yeah, obviously lucrative and Larry, Seregey & Mark clearly need the money.

The gaps of "what do we show now" are filled with popular content, so culture war content is what you notice but there's probably other tamer things that only the algorithms know is popular.

Yeah, it's very much a game of "well, other people fit this profile, but also tend to watch this other thing, we should recommend that, as it will probably hook this person as well. With any luck, they'll be grateful that we introduced them!"

From the algorithmic feed PoV it's a very high value cluster (average watchtime has to be very high, audience retention is probably quite excellent) so it's unsurprising that it'll try to get you hooked from time to time.

I watched a funny video of the President of my country mis-pronouncing a word in English. The recommended videos afterward were comprised ENTIRELY of the local far-right party's propaganda.