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Why is youtube recommending conservative "talking points" to me? (lemmy.fmhy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hi, I am a guy in early thirties with a wife and two kids and whenever I go on youtube it always suggests conservative things like guys dunking on women, ben shapiro reacting to some bullshit, joe rogan, all the works. I almost never allow it to go to that type of video and when I do it is either by accident or by curiosity. My interest are gaming, standup comedy, memes, react videos, metalurgy, machining, blacksmithing, with occasional songs and videos about funny bullshit and I am not from america and I consider myself pretty liberal if I had to put it into terms used in america. But european liberal, so by american standards a socialist. Why does it recommend this shit to me, is this some kind of vector for radicalization of guys in my category? Do you have similar experience?

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[–] 80085 2 points 1 year ago

If I use a private window, and don't log in I get a lot of right-wing stuff. I've noticed it probably depends on IP/location as well. If at work, youtube seems recommend me things other people at the office listen to.

If I'm logged in, I only get occasional right-wing recommendations interspersed with the left-wing stuff I typically like. About 1/20 videos are right-wing.

YouTube Shorts is different. It's almost all thirst-traps and right-wing, hustle culture stuff for me.

It could also be because a lot of the people who watch the same videos you do tend to also watch right-wing stuff.

In general, the algorithm tries to boost the stuff that maximizes "engagement," which is usually outrage-type stuff.