I accidentally watched some youtube shorts and algorithm pushed a ahort about elon and then some shorts about tate . The comment section was acting like they were gods among men and everyone was wanting to be like them or praising them or wanting to follow them .etc . Do they only know who these people are from shit like shorts or reels and not anything else ? I think most of em are teenage boys . It was kinda disturbing anyway what are your thoughts ?

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[–] xkforce 56 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I suspect that youtube is intentionally flinging these assholes' content at younger men beyond what would be expected of the algorithm being left to its own devices. Facebook does something similar in that their algorithms were intentionally designed to result in polarization in a general sense. Conflict and extremism generates more profitable noise than reasoned debate does.

Reddit does this too. They pretend that they're a "bastion of free speech" (when it suits them) when in reality they like the conflict that results from extremist views generating more profitable noise. These companies are doing what the profit tells them to do and the profit is telling them to nudge content in a direction that could very well eventually tear society apart.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

@xkforce yeah youtube have a hair trigger for recommending Andrew Tate.

The UK's Tate Modern gallery sent an art exhibition about Light to New Zealand and I was very specifically looking for info on when it closed. Next minute Andrew Tate popped up in my youtube feed and was quite hard to dislodge.

I've since turned all recs off.