You need to learn how to properly prune your feed. I got some of that stuff briefly, but I kept blocking it and choosing not interested and eventually it stops. My feed shows me nothing I dont want now. Its just a matter of shaping it into what you want.
Both left wing and right wing people are vulnerable to bullshit and fake news, but extreme right wing media is easier according to troll farm content producers themselves. It’s easy to fall for hateful outrage, especially if you can find an “us versus them” narrative to build your hate upon. Whether it’s “capitalists versus socialists” or “gay people versus Christians”, if you can create the illusion of two (and only two) positions, you can easily attract attention.
The “I just want everyone to be happy together” crowd is a bit harder to put into two opposing camps, but as you can clearly see on Reddit, blaming “capitalists” or “employers” or “landlords” or billionaires or any other group that has shit you want to have is an easy way to build outrage for the “enlightened” mind. Neither “side” is immune to this crap, but conservative ideas just seem to catch more people. It’s quite sad, really, I would love people being converted into egalitarian progressives through algorithmic bullshit much more, even if it’s still unethical of course.
As for why Youtube would do this: if you can get dragged into an hour long Joe Rogan podcast, you make Youtube money. Attention = ads = advertiser income if you apply this at a scale large enough. Right wing outrage media just manages to trick more people into watching more stuff, and that’s why the algorithm defaults to it even on new, fresh IP addresses. Even Youtube’s own people don’t know entirely for sure why some topics or videos are featured, it’s all left to an automated AI that optimizes for certain tasks (watch time etc.) through any means it can.
If you don’t want this, you have options. If you have a Google account, either opt out of personal ads (yes you can actually do that) so you only get generic recommendations based on your IP address, or manually select your preferences in your account so you get ads and content that work for you. The stuff your partner or kids watch will influence the ads you see.
You can also try poisoning the algorithm. You have kids, so getting your account recommendations to focus on kid content shouldn’t be too hard. Two or three hours of skibidi toilet mashups in the background (mute the volume, but not through the browser, and make sure Youtube thinks it’s playing in the foreground) should mess up their recommendations. There are also websites and tools that will open up a ton of videos of certain stereotypical characters from time to time.
As a final note: I don’t know how old your kids are, but if they’re old enough it’s possible that someone in your household has fallen for the Tate bullshit. The “alpha male” bullshit is frighteningly common among teenage boys who are trying to figure out who they are/want to be/what they want to do with their life, and the struggles of wanting to fit in. It’s far from the only reason (I live alone and I get that crap in my feed sometimes) but it’s better to be on the lookout for this crap.
My YouTube recommendations are usually spot on, but I do get Joe Rogan videos sometimes. I could see people sliding into radicalizing garbage easily from there. Rogan’s so big that he gets cool guests, but they’re wasted on him as a host.
I made this simulation to show how effective attraction to a bug light can be an emergent property of a mosquito’s navigation and confinement, even though they are not attracted to light innately.
I would wager a guess that it’s your regular interests. YouTube sees that people who like machining, blacksmithing, etc. have a good chance of also being conservative. You probably are just part of the odd cases where you like those hobbies but aren’t conservative.
Your post raises an interesting point, though: even if YouTube didn’t intend for their algorithm to be a pipeline for radicalism, simply by encouraging engagement and viewership, their algorithm ends up becoming a radicalization pipeline anyways.
This is why I’m in favor. I’m not the hugest fan, but if the alternative is YouTube or facebooks like system then I’ll take the downvotes. Otherwise you get the low quality like farms where minions memes are uploaded everywhere and there’s no way to say “we hate these, stop posting them”
I like the way it was here. Points seem to be working correctly or did. I think it’s a bad idea to put point totals on a users profile for everyone to see. I don’t think totals are or should be important. But upvotes and downvotes are indicators of how much value a reader thinks a post/comment has. You can’t tell the temperature in a room without numbers. But I would rather not see a reddit-like karma system.
People on Lemmy try to rationalize that they’ll use the downvote as intended (off topic content) but our ape brains eventually just make downvote = I don’t like said thing.
I wish we could do away with upvotes and downvotes altogether.
I think having some form of "I agree with this" or similar helps to make you feel engaged with the content (for better or worse).
I think perhaps the actual person responsible for the post or comment shouldn't be able to see the results, though, otherwise it just becomes another ego building thing, and you see people strategising explicitly to build karma like on reddit. instead, the author should see a rating, like "slight approval" "mixed feelings" "strong dissent", etc.
How dare you. As a former redditor now lemming I would wilt into a shriveled, frail, incontinent, barely conscious entity without the ego-fueling fire of my all-powerful downvote.
Even if you watch leftwing videos sometimes YouTube just goes “oh you’re a young-ish male who’s into politics? Here’s som nazi vids you’ll like.” ESPECIALLY if the leftwing videos talk about righty’s.
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