This article is primarily based around this report released by Data & Society today, but includes a little bit of extra info as well as a short interview with the author. I haven't had a chance to...
This article is primarily based around this report released by Data & Society today, but includes a little bit of extra info as well as a short interview with the author.
I haven't had a chance to start reading the actual report (PDF, ~40 pages) yet, but I'm hoping to go through it later. I'm really interested in how things end up spreading through YouTube, including some of the strange behaviors of its recommendation algorithms that people have started to pay a bit more attention to lately.
The report is very ideologically driven, I suggest everyone to at least skim through the pdf. Even the language used in this report, for example, describing commentators as "reactionary" and puts...
The report is very ideologically driven, I suggest everyone to at least skim through the pdf. Even the language used in this report, for example, describing commentators as "reactionary" and puts a lot of very different people in one basket on the grounds of "association" with each other, when in reality the association mentioned are the debates they had where they've been attacking each other position. The report is biased and clearly meant to try and incentivize further speech suppression on YouTube. But don't take my word for it, just read it.
This report is very transparent about what it is. Why is it that you're treating that like it's some sort of underhanded subtext? It's a report specifically tackling the spread of far right...
This report is very transparent about what it is. Why is it that you're treating that like it's some sort of underhanded subtext? It's a report specifically tackling the spread of far right activity on YouTube, so of course it's going to be ideologically driven. It's all about a few select ideologies!
But then I don't understand your reservations, or how they inform your vague but alarmist conclusion.
Even the language used in this report, for example, describing commentators as "reactionary" and puts a lot of very different people in one basket on the grounds of "association" with each other, when in reality the association mentioned are the debates they had where they've been attacking each other position.
An assortment of scholars, media pundits, and internet celebrities are using YouTube to promote a range of political positions, from mainstream versions of libertarianism and conservatism, all the way to overt white nationalism. While many of their views differ significantly, they all share a fundamental contempt for progressive politics—specifically for contemporary social justice movements. For this reason, I consider their collective position “reactionary,” as it is defined by its opposition to visions of social progress. United in this standpoint, these YouTubers frequently collaborate with and appear with others across ideological lines. Together, they have created a fully functioning media system that I call the Alternative Influence Network (AIN).
You don't even need to read between the lines to get this, the report is very upfront about who they are calling reactionaries and that they don't all share a single unified ideology. So your statement is no great revelation, the article tells you this directly. But now I have to wonder: who is attacking each other here? Which people on Page 10 are completely opposed to each other and debate and fight all the time, if they're all far right YouTubers?
The report is biased and clearly meant to try and incentivize further speech suppression on YouTube.
The report is biased against whom, specifically? It makes it very clear whom, but I'd like to hear you state exactly which groups it's biased against and why they should be able to have an unfettered platform, and why it's not fair that there is any sort of a bias against them. Also, how is it unfairly biased? What does it not take into account fairly?
That I know a lot of people from this report and none of the ones I know would describe themselves as "reactionary", so it misrepresents their position. They aren't all "far-right" youtubers. Just...
What's wrong with that term?
That I know a lot of people from this report and none of the ones I know would describe themselves as "reactionary", so it misrepresents their position.
Which people on Page 10 are completely opposed to each other and debate and fight all the time, if they're all far right YouTubers?
They aren't all "far-right" youtubers. Just from the names I know:
Carl Benjamin is a centrist and a classical liberal, he is on the record debating against Mister Metokur, who is a troll and should never be trusted to take any position, because literally all he does is trolling. Carl also debated Richard Spencer, which he hates and denounces at any given chance, since Richard is a white nationalist, and he is the only true far-right person that I recognize here. Dennis Prager is religious conservative, he is clearly on the right, but nowhere near the alt right, and nowhere close to Spencer. Chris Ray Gun makes videos where he talks about various news or events, and seems either centrist or liberal by what he has to say on his videos, Vee is a friend of Carl, and he is a doctor from Romania that is pretty much aligned with Carl in a sene that he is a liberal centrist, that also has a huge hate for communism that he grew up under in Romania. Kraut and Tea is another YouTuber that is even more left-leaning than Carl, and he went after the alt-right having a full doxxing server where he tried to doxx the alt right people that went after him. I don't condone doxxing, but you get the point, the guy hates alt-right. Mundane Matt is guy that would almost NEVER take ANY position, and would always try to present all sides of any news article he talks about. Oh, and the last name I know is Braving Ruin, which was the alt-right person that got into doxxing with Kraut and Tea.
So I see a lot of familiar names in there, and only a small part of them is actually alt-right, and I doubt that everyone that I don't know from there is alt-right either. It's just a map of political youtubers, and smearing them all as an alt-right is borderline defamation.
The report is biased against whom, specifically?
At least all the people that I've listed. Because from the first words in that document:
They function as political influencers who adopt the techniques of brand influencers to build audiences and “sell” them on far-right ideology.
That is demonstrably false, as a lot of these people are speaking against the far-right and get into fights with them.
Also, how is it unfairly biased? What does it not take into account fairly?
Ok, "unfairly biased", I could've worded it better. But it doesn't take into account the huge gap between all these people, trying to smear them all for having "association" with the worst of the list. It's manipulative language, because when people read "association" they think of an endorsement or a mutual liking, but the real "association" here is sharing the stage for debates, which is factually and technically can be described by "association" but de-facto is highly misleading, and given the clear bias in this paper I think it's intentional.
I think it's important to note here, early on, that this report is not calling everyone mentioned in it a far-right individual. It is simply putting together a network based on the interactivity...
I think it's important to note here, early on, that this report is not calling everyone mentioned in it a far-right individual. It is simply putting together a network based on the interactivity between all the people referenced in it (Appendix B has the whole list).
That I know a lot of people from this report and none of the ones I know would describe themselves as "reactionary", so it misrepresents their position.
A lot of people who spout neo-Nazi slogans and principles wouldn't call themselves neo-Nazis either, but that doesn't make them any less of one. We've got one running for mayor in Toronto right now (and she's on this list too). "Reactionary" is much less of a socially suicidal term, at least. Many of these YouTubers still fall well into the definition of one.
They aren't all "far-right" youtubers. Just from the names I know:
While this is true, (Joe Rogan is an example I'm surprised you left out), this is a network of people that do spread the far-right influence. Not all of them are doing it on purpose, but they lend to the spread at varying degrees whether it is giving some of them a place to speak (Considering Rogan is included, I'm surprised h3h3 wasn't) or whom were used as a gathering point for many in the far-right (which seems to be Kraut and Tea's issue). This report is merely tracking how the network is formed and linked, it is not stating that all these people are in one category or even that they are all far-right themselves.
However, a few of the examples you did give are a little odd, especially Carl Benjamin.
Carl Benjamin? As in Sargon of Arkkad? He may not be a Nazi supporter but he's got more than his fair share of far right views that do integrate with this network and reinforce many of their beliefs. Multiple other YouTubers like hbomberguy, Shaun, and ContraPoints have called him out on some of his ridiculous anti-feminism stances. I distinctly remember one video where he invited a feminist scholar to debate with him and refused to acknowledge any of her points. I still remember how much he refused to even consider that feminism is a lens through which one can view works in criticism. What kind of centrist is so unwilling to even consider feminism? Also, the report has already considered that Sargon of Arkkad and Richard Spencer disagreed:
In the introduction, I described Benjamin’s debate with Spencer on scientific racism, which took place in January 2018. In a live streamed video from less than a year before, in April 2017, Peterson and Benjamin have a friendly conversation in which they promote gender traditionalism, deny the existence of a gender pay gap, and claim that IQ is the highest predictor of success.
Dennis Prager? All of his positions, while not Nazi-level far right, are all very far right. The accusations he so easily throws out about people on the left are downright insane conspiracy-theory level, especially when he fuels all the mania about the left controlling the mainstream media.
Chris Ray Gun? The avid GamerGater who dismissed the death threats GGers sent people as just jokes, and frequently finds any excuse he can to dismiss feminism, and who defends Milo?
MundaneMatt i.e. one of the architects of GamerGate, who planning a harassment campaign against Zoe Quinn way back?
That is demonstrably false, as a lot of these people are speaking against the far-right and get into fights with them.
It's true, not all of them are. But they've all given space to far right people, or have become people the far-right interact with often enough (positive or negative) that it helps spread. The far right has a ton of in-fighting but that doesn't mean that one of them doesn't hold some far-right values. They're a whole spectrum of people too, I'm sure, with all kinds of ridiculous ideologies.
It's manipulative language, because when people read "association" they think of an endorsement or a mutual liking, but the real "association" here is sharing the stage for debates, which is factually and technically can be described by "association" but de-facto is highly misleading, and given the clear bias in this paper I think it's intentional.
The report does not use the word "association". It's not trying to lump them all together, it's instead pointing out that there is a network.
I've heard this named dropped a lot, but I have no idea who that is I watch his stuff irregularly, so you would have to link me that, I have no idea what debate are you talking about He made a...
Joe Rogan is an example I'm surprised you left out
I've heard this named dropped a lot, but I have no idea who that is
distinctly remember one video where he invited a feminist scholar to debate with him and refused to acknowledge any of her points
I watch his stuff irregularly, so you would have to link me that, I have no idea what debate are you talking about
I still remember how much he refused to even consider that feminism is a lens through which one can view works in criticism.
He made a hole video on the topic, and that's what I remember.
On Prager I can't comment further because I only know a few of his videos, so I'll give that one to you.
I'm also not getting on topic of gamergate, it is its own can of worms that happened half a decade ago, and both Chris and Matt's content had drastically changed since then. Especially Matt's.
But they've all given space to far right people, or have become people the far-right interact with often enough (positive or negative) that it helps spread.
This is the position I refuse to agree with. I think it's good that they can talk with an alt right. First time I've ever heard of Richard Spencer it was from the media, and then media couldn't shut up about him, publishing article after article and never giving him a word from what I've seen. So I had to look up the guy to see what he is, because if I see someone being ripped apart in the media that makes me curious, and in terms of exposure it's the same as having him on. And I want to listen to people talking to him and others from the alt-right, because I want to see what arguments do they have and why are they doing what they are doing. It's a lot more interesting and genuine than reading opeds by someone.
The report does not use the word "association". It's not trying to lump them all together, it's instead pointing out that there is a network.
Ok, I've been sure I've seen it, but now I don't see it anymore, you are right.
I would argue this would have a minimal effect at the current time. Google News is a rich source of information and it's easy enough to filter out pay-wall sites. And for those uninterested in...
I think the pay-walling of major newspaper websites may be contributing to this as well
I would argue this would have a minimal effect at the current time. Google News is a rich source of information and it's easy enough to filter out pay-wall sites. And for those uninterested in doing so, it's not that many mainstream sites. Also many allow multiple free articles/month.
I think that most of the folks getting news from YT or FB were never going to be the ones going to Google News in the first place.
Unfortunately, with so many information sources it's way too easy to just consume what re-enforces one's world view. Combine that with a portion of the population who lacks critical thinking skills (aka the poorly educated), who lack the will or means to travel to experience life outside their town, who lack the motivation to improve their own lives and you get a slice of the population who is all too willing to blame their personal failures on minorities so that they can avoid any sort of uncomfortable changes while coming out feeling better about their lot in life.
I agree that the pay wall is a significant factor, but I also propose that effort is an important factor as well. One of the unseen costs of poverty is time and energy, having a low income is...
I agree that the pay wall is a significant factor, but I also propose that effort is an important factor as well. One of the unseen costs of poverty is time and energy, having a low income is expensive in time and energy. Now that many people don't trust main stream media they are abandoning television news, which just involves sitting there and watching someone talk.
Now they go online and want something they trust which almost always means something they agree with politically and they use the simplest tools that they are familiar with. For a lot of people facebook and youtube are the internet. They are the only website they know how to use and they have not interest, time, and/or energy to get into something else.
The world may need some kind of open, free, easy, to use source of news, that operates on facebook and youtube. I'm sure NPR is there maybe they need to get serious about attracting users and bring a balanced reliable voice to the conversation.
With regards to the surge in video "news" coverage, I think it's because it's easier to digest. You don't have to read an article - someone else reads a script about an article to you, and you can...
With regards to the surge in video "news" coverage, I think it's because it's easier to digest. You don't have to read an article - someone else reads a script about an article to you, and you can do other things at the same time. Video already greatly reduces the amount of nuance and detail vs a traditional article, so when you're watching TV and are also preparing dinner, it's really easy to miss even more information.
It's really annoying when I pull up an article and there's an autoplaying video that's not even a set of talking heads, but instead a slideshow with snippets and images from the article and generic background music. Ignoring the fact that you're giving the middle finger to anyone who uses a screen reader (since many videos do not have accurate captions, if any captions at all), it feels lazy, like they just have an intern slapping stuff into a Premiere template and calling it a day.
I guess this is the effect of having so many news sources at our fingertips. Instead of having just a few newspapers in a large city and 1 in a town, we now have hundreds of sites vying for our attention, with an increasing number of them begging for us to open our wallets and pay for a monthly subscription. Videos are easily digestible and shareable, especially the ones where it's just a slideshow you can watch on mute in less than 30 seconds, so they are really popular on social media.
Anyone can pirate Premiere, so even shitty fake news sites can jump on this format. I remember seeing a video about a liberal woman who was apparently taking 30 credit hours at college but was failing due to the load, so a male student who just happened to be conservative gave her one of his GPA points, and now they are married. That's not how it works, you can't just give away your GPA, if a college did that they'd lose any accreditations they had. Yet it had thousands of shares, and looking through the comments, nobody was questioning it because it confirmed their biases.
I personally believe this is due to our attitude towards info on the internet. Many people (I am guilty of this myself) just see the information and believe it. Little source checking is done....
I personally believe this is due to our attitude towards info on the internet. Many people (I am guilty of this myself) just see the information and believe it. Little source checking is done. This is why we have r/The_Donald and Info Wars. If people fact checked, they wouldn’t be so popular.
I'm not sure if he counts as an extremist or not, but I would love it if YouTube had a "Could you please fuck off with the X videos". It somehow got into its head that I'm desperate for Jordan...
I'm not sure if he counts as an extremist or not, but I would love it if YouTube had a "Could you please fuck off with the X videos". It somehow got into its head that I'm desperate for Jordan Peterson videos, and the man's Youtube presence is like digital herpes.
I haven't watched a single one of his videos, but he's all over my recommended videos. I have to wonder if it's one of those things that youtube pushes that isn't relevant to your watch history....
I haven't watched a single one of his videos, but he's all over my recommended videos.
I have to wonder if it's one of those things that youtube pushes that isn't relevant to your watch history. Mostly I watch cooking channels; science, sci-fi, and math shit; video essays about nerd shit; and artisan shit.
Yeah, I suspect this is it. I have a fair amount of overlap with what CALICO watches (math, sci-fi, some science, a lot of general nerd stuff such as painting miniatures). I do watch the...
Yeah, I suspect this is it. I have a fair amount of overlap with what CALICO watches (math, sci-fi, some science, a lot of general nerd stuff such as painting miniatures). I do watch the occasional philosophical video or an academic video about religion, that could be it too, I don't know.
Part of my real issue with it though is that I've gone so far as to block Jordan Peterson's channel to try to put an end to it, and YouTube is STILL recommending his shit. Meanwhile, I have actually subscribed to half a dozen channels on miniature painting (as an example) and have notifications turned on, and their new material doesn't show up in my recommended videos and I get no auto-discovery of new or related channels.
I mean, if you use Chrome there's an extension that let's you block specific channels from showing up. I've been using it and have experienced a much nice recommended video bar.
Thanks. I have done that but it does not seem to work with the "herpes" channels. I consistently mark them as "not interested" and, like I said, blocked his channel, but it still comes back. I was...
Thanks. I have done that but it does not seem to work with the "herpes" channels. I consistently mark them as "not interested" and, like I said, blocked his channel, but it still comes back. I was recommended the Peterson channel again literally the day after blocking. For all I know, YouTube recommended it again because I went to his user page.
Continuing to pick on Peterson (though there are others like this) the issue isn't just that you get Jordan Peterson himself, but there are a number of people making clip shows, commentaries, etc so you will also get those. To YouTube's credit, marking one of these as "not interested" once is usually enough not to see them again, but as new ones keep being created it becomes a game of whack-a-mole because the algorithm cannot seem to pick up on the idea that you don't want this content.
On top of all this, it also just starts to break YouTube, and that's a real potential problem I see with these sorts of recommendation engines - what if the system just learns the wrong thing about you? Let's say, getting away from YouTube, that someone creates a system that will learn your food preferences and send you the food you want. If the system learns that people who like Brussels sprouts also like broccoli, but you like Brussels sprouts and don't like broccoli, how do you get the system to unlearn your preferences, particularly if it doesn't respond to the "I don't like broccoli" feedback (maybe it only interprets this as you not liking the particular brand of broccoli or whatever)? At a certain point, the functionality breaks down because it just becomes easier to search for what you want to eat on your own and ignore the recommendations.
This is one of the things that I really hate about these algorithms. In the Tildes overall goals page, I linked to this tweet, which I think is a hilarious summary of it: And it happens all the...
On top of all this, it also just starts to break YouTube, and that's a real potential problem I see with these sorts of recommendation engines - what if the system just learns the wrong thing about you?
This is one of the things that I really hate about these algorithms. In the Tildes overall goals page, I linked to this tweet, which I think is a hilarious summary of it:
Me: watches a single YouTube tutorial so I can fix my door hinge YouTube: WHAT'S UP, HINGE-LOVER? HERE ARE THE TOP 1000 VIDEOS FROM THE HINGER COMMUNITY THIS WEEK. CHECK OUT THIS TRENDING HINGE CONTENT FROM ENGAGING HINGEFLUENCERS
And it happens all the time, on lots of different platforms now. For example, I use Google Music, and tend to listen to its "New Release Radio" fairly often, where it tries to play new releases that it thinks I'll be interested in. A few months ago, it played some random Russian rap music because the artist had the same name as another one that I listen to, and I guess it didn't realize it wasn't the same artist. I wasn't really paying attention at the time and didn't skip the song or anything, and then Google proceeded to heavily recommend Russian rap to me for the next couple of weeks because it decided that I must like it.
This seems to be a very widespread problem. The system I work with uses similar mechanisms to decide on trades. We have had an issue for a while where it picked up a signal for a particular...
This seems to be a very widespread problem.
The system I work with uses similar mechanisms to decide on trades. We have had an issue for a while where it picked up a signal for a particular developing market currency trade and it has taken considerable effort to figure out why this is. Our universe is only around 150 markets, whereas the Youtube universe is significantly bigger, so I don't envy them the job.
One theory I have heard is that Joe Rogan is basically the connector of all these people on YouTube. The Rubin Report is apparently something similar. The reason being these guys have a ton of...
One theory I have heard is that Joe Rogan is basically the connector of all these people on YouTube. The Rubin Report is apparently something similar. The reason being these guys have a ton of guests, some of whom have their own following, so they serve as a connector or influencer in the matrix that powers the recommendation engine.
On a slightly unrelated note, I am still shocked anyone can make money off of youtube. Even though I obviously know it to be true (and a booming industry) something in the back of my head always...
On a slightly unrelated note, I am still shocked anyone can make money off of youtube. Even though I obviously know it to be true (and a booming industry) something in the back of my head always thinks it's silly.
This article is primarily based around this report released by Data & Society today, but includes a little bit of extra info as well as a short interview with the author.
I haven't had a chance to start reading the actual report (PDF, ~40 pages) yet, but I'm hoping to go through it later. I'm really interested in how things end up spreading through YouTube, including some of the strange behaviors of its recommendation algorithms that people have started to pay a bit more attention to lately.
The report is very ideologically driven, I suggest everyone to at least skim through the pdf. Even the language used in this report, for example, describing commentators as "reactionary" and puts a lot of very different people in one basket on the grounds of "association" with each other, when in reality the association mentioned are the debates they had where they've been attacking each other position. The report is biased and clearly meant to try and incentivize further speech suppression on YouTube. But don't take my word for it, just read it.
This report is very transparent about what it is. Why is it that you're treating that like it's some sort of underhanded subtext? It's a report specifically tackling the spread of far right activity on YouTube, so of course it's going to be ideologically driven. It's all about a few select ideologies!
But then I don't understand your reservations, or how they inform your vague but alarmist conclusion.
What's wrong with that term? This is a report about the far right YouTube channels. The far right is exactly the definition of reactionary. Also, this is a great example of why you shouldn't just skim the report:
You don't even need to read between the lines to get this, the report is very upfront about who they are calling reactionaries and that they don't all share a single unified ideology. So your statement is no great revelation, the article tells you this directly. But now I have to wonder: who is attacking each other here? Which people on Page 10 are completely opposed to each other and debate and fight all the time, if they're all far right YouTubers?
The report is biased against whom, specifically? It makes it very clear whom, but I'd like to hear you state exactly which groups it's biased against and why they should be able to have an unfettered platform, and why it's not fair that there is any sort of a bias against them. Also, how is it unfairly biased? What does it not take into account fairly?
That I know a lot of people from this report and none of the ones I know would describe themselves as "reactionary", so it misrepresents their position.
They aren't all "far-right" youtubers. Just from the names I know:
Carl Benjamin is a centrist and a classical liberal, he is on the record debating against Mister Metokur, who is a troll and should never be trusted to take any position, because literally all he does is trolling. Carl also debated Richard Spencer, which he hates and denounces at any given chance, since Richard is a white nationalist, and he is the only true far-right person that I recognize here. Dennis Prager is religious conservative, he is clearly on the right, but nowhere near the alt right, and nowhere close to Spencer. Chris Ray Gun makes videos where he talks about various news or events, and seems either centrist or liberal by what he has to say on his videos, Vee is a friend of Carl, and he is a doctor from Romania that is pretty much aligned with Carl in a sene that he is a liberal centrist, that also has a huge hate for communism that he grew up under in Romania. Kraut and Tea is another YouTuber that is even more left-leaning than Carl, and he went after the alt-right having a full doxxing server where he tried to doxx the alt right people that went after him. I don't condone doxxing, but you get the point, the guy hates alt-right. Mundane Matt is guy that would almost NEVER take ANY position, and would always try to present all sides of any news article he talks about. Oh, and the last name I know is Braving Ruin, which was the alt-right person that got into doxxing with Kraut and Tea.
So I see a lot of familiar names in there, and only a small part of them is actually alt-right, and I doubt that everyone that I don't know from there is alt-right either. It's just a map of political youtubers, and smearing them all as an alt-right is borderline defamation.
At least all the people that I've listed. Because from the first words in that document:
That is demonstrably false, as a lot of these people are speaking against the far-right and get into fights with them.
Ok, "unfairly biased", I could've worded it better. But it doesn't take into account the huge gap between all these people, trying to smear them all for having "association" with the worst of the list. It's manipulative language, because when people read "association" they think of an endorsement or a mutual liking, but the real "association" here is sharing the stage for debates, which is factually and technically can be described by "association" but de-facto is highly misleading, and given the clear bias in this paper I think it's intentional.
I think it's important to note here, early on, that this report is not calling everyone mentioned in it a far-right individual. It is simply putting together a network based on the interactivity between all the people referenced in it (Appendix B has the whole list).
A lot of people who spout neo-Nazi slogans and principles wouldn't call themselves neo-Nazis either, but that doesn't make them any less of one. We've got one running for mayor in Toronto right now (and she's on this list too). "Reactionary" is much less of a socially suicidal term, at least. Many of these YouTubers still fall well into the definition of one.
While this is true, (Joe Rogan is an example I'm surprised you left out), this is a network of people that do spread the far-right influence. Not all of them are doing it on purpose, but they lend to the spread at varying degrees whether it is giving some of them a place to speak (Considering Rogan is included, I'm surprised h3h3 wasn't) or whom were used as a gathering point for many in the far-right (which seems to be Kraut and Tea's issue). This report is merely tracking how the network is formed and linked, it is not stating that all these people are in one category or even that they are all far-right themselves.
However, a few of the examples you did give are a little odd, especially Carl Benjamin.
Carl Benjamin? As in Sargon of Arkkad? He may not be a Nazi supporter but he's got more than his fair share of far right views that do integrate with this network and reinforce many of their beliefs. Multiple other YouTubers like hbomberguy, Shaun, and ContraPoints have called him out on some of his ridiculous anti-feminism stances. I distinctly remember one video where he invited a feminist scholar to debate with him and refused to acknowledge any of her points. I still remember how much he refused to even consider that feminism is a lens through which one can view works in criticism. What kind of centrist is so unwilling to even consider feminism? Also, the report has already considered that Sargon of Arkkad and Richard Spencer disagreed:
Dennis Prager? All of his positions, while not Nazi-level far right, are all very far right. The accusations he so easily throws out about people on the left are downright insane conspiracy-theory level, especially when he fuels all the mania about the left controlling the mainstream media.
Chris Ray Gun? The avid GamerGater who dismissed the death threats GGers sent people as just jokes, and frequently finds any excuse he can to dismiss feminism, and who defends Milo?
MundaneMatt i.e. one of the architects of GamerGate, who planning a harassment campaign against Zoe Quinn way back?
It's true, not all of them are. But they've all given space to far right people, or have become people the far-right interact with often enough (positive or negative) that it helps spread. The far right has a ton of in-fighting but that doesn't mean that one of them doesn't hold some far-right values. They're a whole spectrum of people too, I'm sure, with all kinds of ridiculous ideologies.
The report does not use the word "association". It's not trying to lump them all together, it's instead pointing out that there is a network.
I've heard this named dropped a lot, but I have no idea who that is
I watch his stuff irregularly, so you would have to link me that, I have no idea what debate are you talking about
He made a hole video on the topic, and that's what I remember.
On Prager I can't comment further because I only know a few of his videos, so I'll give that one to you.
I'm also not getting on topic of gamergate, it is its own can of worms that happened half a decade ago, and both Chris and Matt's content had drastically changed since then. Especially Matt's.
This is the position I refuse to agree with. I think it's good that they can talk with an alt right. First time I've ever heard of Richard Spencer it was from the media, and then media couldn't shut up about him, publishing article after article and never giving him a word from what I've seen. So I had to look up the guy to see what he is, because if I see someone being ripped apart in the media that makes me curious, and in terms of exposure it's the same as having him on. And I want to listen to people talking to him and others from the alt-right, because I want to see what arguments do they have and why are they doing what they are doing. It's a lot more interesting and genuine than reading opeds by someone.
Ok, I've been sure I've seen it, but now I don't see it anymore, you are right.
I would argue this would have a minimal effect at the current time. Google News is a rich source of information and it's easy enough to filter out pay-wall sites. And for those uninterested in doing so, it's not that many mainstream sites. Also many allow multiple free articles/month.
I think that most of the folks getting news from YT or FB were never going to be the ones going to Google News in the first place.
Unfortunately, with so many information sources it's way too easy to just consume what re-enforces one's world view. Combine that with a portion of the population who lacks critical thinking skills (aka the poorly educated), who lack the will or means to travel to experience life outside their town, who lack the motivation to improve their own lives and you get a slice of the population who is all too willing to blame their personal failures on minorities so that they can avoid any sort of uncomfortable changes while coming out feeling better about their lot in life.
I agree that the pay wall is a significant factor, but I also propose that effort is an important factor as well. One of the unseen costs of poverty is time and energy, having a low income is expensive in time and energy. Now that many people don't trust main stream media they are abandoning television news, which just involves sitting there and watching someone talk.
Now they go online and want something they trust which almost always means something they agree with politically and they use the simplest tools that they are familiar with. For a lot of people facebook and youtube are the internet. They are the only website they know how to use and they have not interest, time, and/or energy to get into something else.
The world may need some kind of open, free, easy, to use source of news, that operates on facebook and youtube. I'm sure NPR is there maybe they need to get serious about attracting users and bring a balanced reliable voice to the conversation.
With regards to the surge in video "news" coverage, I think it's because it's easier to digest. You don't have to read an article - someone else reads a script about an article to you, and you can do other things at the same time. Video already greatly reduces the amount of nuance and detail vs a traditional article, so when you're watching TV and are also preparing dinner, it's really easy to miss even more information.
It's really annoying when I pull up an article and there's an autoplaying video that's not even a set of talking heads, but instead a slideshow with snippets and images from the article and generic background music. Ignoring the fact that you're giving the middle finger to anyone who uses a screen reader (since many videos do not have accurate captions, if any captions at all), it feels lazy, like they just have an intern slapping stuff into a Premiere template and calling it a day.
I guess this is the effect of having so many news sources at our fingertips. Instead of having just a few newspapers in a large city and 1 in a town, we now have hundreds of sites vying for our attention, with an increasing number of them begging for us to open our wallets and pay for a monthly subscription. Videos are easily digestible and shareable, especially the ones where it's just a slideshow you can watch on mute in less than 30 seconds, so they are really popular on social media.
Anyone can pirate Premiere, so even shitty fake news sites can jump on this format. I remember seeing a video about a liberal woman who was apparently taking 30 credit hours at college but was failing due to the load, so a male student who just happened to be conservative gave her one of his GPA points, and now they are married. That's not how it works, you can't just give away your GPA, if a college did that they'd lose any accreditations they had. Yet it had thousands of shares, and looking through the comments, nobody was questioning it because it confirmed their biases.
I personally believe this is due to our attitude towards info on the internet. Many people (I am guilty of this myself) just see the information and believe it. Little source checking is done. This is why we have r/The_Donald and Info Wars. If people fact checked, they wouldn’t be so popular.
I'm not sure if he counts as an extremist or not, but I would love it if YouTube had a "Could you please fuck off with the X videos". It somehow got into its head that I'm desperate for Jordan Peterson videos, and the man's Youtube presence is like digital herpes.
I haven't watched a single one of his videos, but he's all over my recommended videos.
I have to wonder if it's one of those things that youtube pushes that isn't relevant to your watch history. Mostly I watch cooking channels; science, sci-fi, and math shit; video essays about nerd shit; and artisan shit.
Yeah, I suspect this is it. I have a fair amount of overlap with what CALICO watches (math, sci-fi, some science, a lot of general nerd stuff such as painting miniatures). I do watch the occasional philosophical video or an academic video about religion, that could be it too, I don't know.
Part of my real issue with it though is that I've gone so far as to block Jordan Peterson's channel to try to put an end to it, and YouTube is STILL recommending his shit. Meanwhile, I have actually subscribed to half a dozen channels on miniature painting (as an example) and have notifications turned on, and their new material doesn't show up in my recommended videos and I get no auto-discovery of new or related channels.
I mean, if you use Chrome there's an extension that let's you block specific channels from showing up.
I've been using it and have experienced a much nice recommended video bar.
Oh man, this is great. It would be nice, though, if YouTube gave us some better tools.
You can mark a video as "not interested", or an entire channel. Source
Thanks. I have done that but it does not seem to work with the "herpes" channels. I consistently mark them as "not interested" and, like I said, blocked his channel, but it still comes back. I was recommended the Peterson channel again literally the day after blocking. For all I know, YouTube recommended it again because I went to his user page.
Continuing to pick on Peterson (though there are others like this) the issue isn't just that you get Jordan Peterson himself, but there are a number of people making clip shows, commentaries, etc so you will also get those. To YouTube's credit, marking one of these as "not interested" once is usually enough not to see them again, but as new ones keep being created it becomes a game of whack-a-mole because the algorithm cannot seem to pick up on the idea that you don't want this content.
On top of all this, it also just starts to break YouTube, and that's a real potential problem I see with these sorts of recommendation engines - what if the system just learns the wrong thing about you? Let's say, getting away from YouTube, that someone creates a system that will learn your food preferences and send you the food you want. If the system learns that people who like Brussels sprouts also like broccoli, but you like Brussels sprouts and don't like broccoli, how do you get the system to unlearn your preferences, particularly if it doesn't respond to the "I don't like broccoli" feedback (maybe it only interprets this as you not liking the particular brand of broccoli or whatever)? At a certain point, the functionality breaks down because it just becomes easier to search for what you want to eat on your own and ignore the recommendations.
This is one of the things that I really hate about these algorithms. In the Tildes overall goals page, I linked to this tweet, which I think is a hilarious summary of it:
And it happens all the time, on lots of different platforms now. For example, I use Google Music, and tend to listen to its "New Release Radio" fairly often, where it tries to play new releases that it thinks I'll be interested in. A few months ago, it played some random Russian rap music because the artist had the same name as another one that I listen to, and I guess it didn't realize it wasn't the same artist. I wasn't really paying attention at the time and didn't skip the song or anything, and then Google proceeded to heavily recommend Russian rap to me for the next couple of weeks because it decided that I must like it.
This seems to be a very widespread problem.
The system I work with uses similar mechanisms to decide on trades. We have had an issue for a while where it picked up a signal for a particular developing market currency trade and it has taken considerable effort to figure out why this is. Our universe is only around 150 markets, whereas the Youtube universe is significantly bigger, so I don't envy them the job.
One theory I have heard is that Joe Rogan is basically the connector of all these people on YouTube. The Rubin Report is apparently something similar. The reason being these guys have a ton of guests, some of whom have their own following, so they serve as a connector or influencer in the matrix that powers the recommendation engine.
On a slightly unrelated note, I am still shocked anyone can make money off of youtube. Even though I obviously know it to be true (and a booming industry) something in the back of my head always thinks it's silly.
Apparently, even if you're making money it's still incredibly taxing
Well judging by the views that people like Cody's lab are getting that's genuinely what people are interested in, and more power to them!