Why is youtube recommending conservative "talking points" to me?

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?

forgotmylastusername,

A while back the conservative party of Canada was caught inserting MGTOW / Ben Shapiro tags on all their Youtube uploads. In other words they were poisoning peoples social graph in order to cause exactly what you’re talking about.

This is why I use a Google account that is only for Youtube entertainment. I keep it on a separate chromium profile. I turn on all the privacy toggles in the Google account. Only Youtube history is turned on. I curate the watch history.

You cannot tell what content might have breadcrumbs that eventually open the floodgates of far right echo chambers. They do this intentionally. So it requires active measures on your part to counter them. You’ve got to manage your account with intention. I do not use that account at all for random browsing. I usually do that in incognito on a different browser.

HubbleST,

One thing I noticed about browsing the youtube homepage on PC is if your mouse hovers over a video, it starts playing, and that puts it in your watch history. So you might be accidentally adding a trash video it recommended to your watch history while looking at the other offerings. You can disable the “mouse hover auto play” by clicking your profile pic in the top right > settings > playback and performance > inline playback.

macwinux,

I bought a new phone a few months back, and just for shits and giggles I tried looking at YouTube Shorts without any account logged in. I clicked on a food Shorts, and within 5 Shorts, I got a “manosphere” video, and within 10 Shorts I got Ben Shapiro.

Unfortunately, fear and rage drive engagement, and these Conservative grifters are more than happy to give it to them and more. That on top of corporations being Capitalists and thus right-wing by default.

masquenox,

Right-wing media is well-funded.

nom_nom,

A few years ago I downloaded a browser extension to stop showing me recommended videos, both on the homepage and on the side of videos. I can only watch what I’m subscribed to and what I search for - you’d think its a big sacrifice because you can’t discover as many videos, but in reality I’ve gained so much more of my time back and control over what I actually want to watch.

borlax,
@borlax@lemmy.borlax.com avatar

Because controversy makes money and conservatism is filled with controversial opinions and purposely obtuse takes intended to spark conversation and promote divisiveness. That’s the grift.

stappern,

youtube is a right wing propaganda machine. im convinced of it at this point.

i cannot look at shorts without getting a fucking piers morgan or andrew tate or joe rogan with the antivaxx guest . FUCK ME.

no matter how many times i click “dont reccomend this channel to me” or click dislike they always come back. it cant be a coincidence. i even tried with a clean account, 30 min in you get some shit from that sphere.

DubiousInterests,

Mine only shows me tech, science, and games related things. I’m glad I am one of the lucky ones.

dizzy,
@dizzy@lemmy.ml avatar

I’m getting the exact same shit on shorts constantly. Joe Rogan, Andrew Tate, Piers Morgan, some kid explaining why women should stay in the kitchen, another guy screaming that trans people don’t exist, some imam thinking he’s making people look stupid for not believing in god, etc

I’m not sure if I’m impressed in my ad/content blocking and general internet hygiene that google/youtube knows me so badly or worried that so many people, particularly young/impressionable people, who may not have such strongly opposed views to that hateful crap, are getting brainwashed and radicalized into having extreme conservative views.

Wahots,
@Wahots@pawb.social avatar

Clear your history! I limit a lot of what Google collects. If I see videos trending in that direction, I clear youtube and start fresh.

baru,

You can have Google clear things automatically so it’ll only keep things for a certain amount of months.

Without any history Google often shows pretty extreme videos, so in my experience the lack of any history is not good.

zos_kia,

I think it might be the opposite. If extreme content is kind of “default” when the algorithm doesn’t know what to give you, them starving it off history might push it into that default more often. I have a very used YouTube account with a metric ton of history and honestly I very rarely see that kind of content. (From Europe though so it might be different)

Wahots,
@Wahots@pawb.social avatar

What I’ll do is clear history, then watch something to seed it as a baseline. Eg, one video on low fi music, and another one on how an 18th century naval ship was built. Or perhaps they’ve just captured all my data secretly and know that extremist videos perform poorly with me?

WndyLady,

I very rarely use YouTube, but I’ve noticed that when I start listening to older top 40 or contemporary bluegrass, those videos drop in

RickyRigatoni,
@RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml avatar

Youtube really said “you’re old, you must be racist” lmao

NoMoreCocaine,

Not to be that guy, but you can say “don’t recommend this channel again” to YouTube. I haven’t seen Quartering, Asmogold, etc for years now. Unless you search for them.

stappern,

i keep clicking it and i keep getting served right wing propaganda, which i never watch not even on regular youtrube so IDK wtf is up with youtube.

Tartas1995,

I had the issue that I got Andrew Tate shit recommended. I said don’t recommend that, and block the uploader. Youtube still suggested me that video. Exactly that video.

stappern,

this. i made a point to click that for every slightly right wing stuff, i still get it.

SaltySalamander,
@SaltySalamander@lemmy.fmhy.ml avatar

Why does it recommend this shit to me

Because you, or someone using your account, has watched this type of shit in the past.

elkaki,

Not necessarily, although YouTube shorts may be it’s own thing in terms of algorithm I frequently see andrew tate, ben shapiro, jordan peterdon clips despite disliking and inmediatly scrolling past when I see their faces. Also I have encountered a lot of anti feminism content of the likes of 2014 this year, where someone is seen mocking “feminists” making what seems like stupid remark and getting owned with some sigma face meme from the american psycho guy and music.

it has been the case multiple times that the YouTube algorithm makes weird connections which often lead to right wing channels being promoted. Or sometimes an entire subsection of creatores are libked with the alt right without being direct (the old atheism sphere, gaming channels are common ones too)

obinice,
@obinice@lemmy.world avatar

It could be where you live too, maybe?

I live in the UK and never see ANY right wing stuff, even though we have our fair share of xenophobic nutjobs (some of them are even running our government’s immigration department currently).

But I’ve heard that some places in the USA may be extremely polarised regionally, and so maybe that coupled with your other demographic information such as gender, age, occupation, etc, might be giving YouTube the idea that you probably fit the standard local mould for a right winger and thus might appreciate the same suggestions?

That’s been my best guess whenever I see this kinda thing mentioned, though honestly it’s just a guess! It always seems to be USA people suffering from it too :-(

Maybe the laws against hate speech, disinformation, etc, aren’t as tight there and YouTube doesn’t have as much incentive to hide that content? That seems less likely, but who knows! When I lived in the USA I saw soooo much more blatant flagrant lies in official emails, ads, media content and such, it seemed acceptable in a way it’s not here.

SaltySalamander,
@SaltySalamander@lemmy.fmhy.ml avatar

I live in the Southeastern US, never get bombarded with right-wing stuff on Youtube. My conclusion is if you’re getting hit with that content, at some point you’ve watched that sort of content. Always click the 3 dots and click Don’t Recommend Channel. It actually works, contrary to what people are saying here.

elkaki,

I really dont think location is playing a role here, Im from chile but 100% of the content I consume on youtube is in english, the shorts have also appeared in english. I doubt this content is due to location as im not close to the US nor is there particular US cultural dominance in the area (most people consume youtube in spanish, be it creatos from latin america or Spain)

stappern,

nope

kemsat, (edited )

Conspiracy theory: All the corps are working together to push the global politics to the right, because leftists dgaf about taking money from corps (as in they’ll tax the corps & the rich).

MelonTheMan,
@MelonTheMan@lemmy.world avatar

It’s not a conspiracy theory if it’s obviously true

Cyder,

Maybe you have the same problem I have: my wife is still a republican. When that kind of stuff shows up, I know she has been watching it on the family PC. She’s not that tech savvy, so I usually go in later and block or limit some of it. It’s a pain to fight the algorithms.

AquaTofana,

As a woman, I can never understand how other women can be Republican.

My mom was a Dem growing up, but then she fell down the religious rabbit hole after I left home and it was all downhill from there.

My little sister though? I have zero idea how she ended up Republican. It’s fucking bizarre. 🤷‍♀️

Phillaholic,

“The Leopards won’t eat my face”

ChillPill,
@ChillPill@lemmy.world avatar

Its the “Leopards eating people’s faces party”; not the " Leopards eating my face party". GOSH!

PS - is that a community here yet?

SailorMoss, (edited )

I agree with and get the point of the metaphor. But the leopard metaphor always seemed a bit tortured to me. There’s got to be a cleaner way to communicate that point.

ChillPill,
@ChillPill@lemmy.world avatar

You’d think so; and yet, so many people that metaphor is directed at don’t even realize…

Event_Horizon,

My thoughts. It never starts as full blown conservatism but reaches that point by a branching topic. My brother was always financially conservative, boot straps and all that, but over the last 12-18 months as the media he consumes moves further right he has become more socially conservative, because these people were inline with his thinking before so they must be right now of course.

I caught him going on about trans people corrupting his kids a couple of weeks ago. My brother might be a dick but he wouldn’t have been saying that 5-10 years ago.

Cyder,

In our case, we both grew up in a conservative state with conservative parents. But over time, I drifted away from it (and it drifted in crazy land). However she still hangs on. She’s come around on a few things. She often falls into the false equivalence mindset that both sides are just as bad. And whenever she starts to bring up any anti-vax or Joe Rogan BS, I try to stomp on that real quick. But I know she will always vote for anyone with an R by their name when it comes down to it.

stappern,

people in minorities are republican, the shit doesnt make sense.

stappern,

condolences…

RogueTyre,

Could probably use another account with a different profile and just switch whenever you use the pc

ChillPill,
@ChillPill@lemmy.world avatar

This is why I inist that each person have their own account on a shared pc.

MiloSquirrel,

For me if I ever look up warhammer 40k it immediately starts sending me losers like quartering or other channels like him.

Like, bo youtube, I don’t want to hear about how feminism and “wokes” are ruining warhammer. I also don’t want to be sent Sargon of Carl videos. Uhg. Lmao

foggy, (edited )

It sees you like standup comedy (POTENTIALLY ANTI-WOKE) and gaming (POTENTIALLY INCEL) and in your 30s (LIKELY HAS SOME DISPOSABLE INCOME)

So it’s pipelining you to the annals of YouTube that check those boxes, have very good viewer retention and have good user engagement.

The ones with good user engagement are the ones that raise your blood pressure. They make you angry. So, politics, or dirty cops, interrogations, murder stories, stuff like that.

You can resist them all you want, but stuff that makes people angry and chatty and commenty and re-watchy is like cocaine to the algorithm. It makes them money, so they spam it everywhere it even remotely makes sense to try to get you stuck in their quicksand.

DarkMatter_contract,

Could be they are using k-nearest neighbors, and op bracket fit into those content.

ScrimbloBimblo,

This is the real answer. It’s easy to forget that for most people who are famous for their unusual political views, most of their overall content has nothing to do with that. There’s something about politics that can turn even the most open-minded of individuals into raging idealogues.

It’s hilarious to me that Joe Rogan is now known for his like 3 conservative views when I mostly remember him as the guy who hosted Fear Factor, did every drug known to man, interviewed scientists in every field out there, and did that really popular interview with Bernie Sanders a couple years ago.

The point is that every hobby and niche interest has someone who gets way too hung up on one particular issue and devotes way too much time to talking about it, dragging the whole community down with them.

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