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I never used to believe in the alt-right content pipeline

Fizzzzle

By Fizzzzle
in The Political Re-Education Camp

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Fizzzzle

Fizzzzle

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I've never been on tik Tok unless I get linked to something. I'm on YouTube all the time, but I have over a decade of not watching alt right shit, so I feel like I'm somewhat shielded from it. I only used Facebook for like a year before it ruined my relationship with my mom, then she died and I was like "maybe this isn't a good thing." My reddit feed is almost entirely commie propaganda, and while I know there are right wing corners of Reddit, you kind of have to seek it out.

 

HOWEVER, over the last few months I've started consuming more YouTube Shorts. It's become my primary media consumption when I'm on a smoke break at work. For those who don't know, YouTube Shorts is their version of TikTok. 

 

What do I like to watch on YouTube Shorts? Mostly cute animal videos, music videos, and bits of stand up. That's all. The ultimate "I'm on a 5 minute break and just want to watch an animal make a cute noise" kind of content.

 

It only took a couple months for the YouTube algorithm to start playing alt-right shit for me. It started with Dave Chappelle clips. Because, love him or hate him... He's pretty fucking funny. Then it started playing me Bill Burr clips, but ONLY the clips where he's being super edge-lordy about beating women. I've seen Bill Burr many times, he pretty much perfectly toes that line - the nuance gets lost when you boil his jokes down into a clip that says "maybe he women are asking for it"

 

I now get shit pumped into me YouTube Shorts feed that literally has black men telling me racism isn't real. Black people just have a victim mentality and it's their fault they can't get good jobs.

 

The extra problem is that Google doesn't seem to give a shit whether I disliked content or not. I watched the entire 1:15 clip and didn't skip, so CLEARLY I want to watch more of that content. Forget the fact that I don't realize whether something is garbage content until I'm already done watching it - that doesn't matter. The algorithm says I watched the whole thing, therefore that is what I want to see.

 

Think about it. I'm probably one of the most anti-capitalist people you know. I'm a fucking pinko through-and-through. Yet within a couple months, I'm getting fed content that emphasizes white male victimhood and the potential collapse of the unsustainable Capitalist economy.

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TUFKAK

TUFKAK

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For me my discovery was when I started getting recommended red pill bullshit because I was watching a lot of bodybuilding news/videos etc then it branched out to full blown right wing nonsense. It definitely influenced my decision to leave the sport a bit as well. 
 

Id notice when I’d not be as active in the bodybuilding community I wasn’t getting the same recommendations showing up.

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Fizzzzle

Fizzzzle

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7 minutes ago, TUFKAK said:

For me my discovery was when I started getting recommended red pill bullshit because I was watching a lot of bodybuilding news/videos etc then it branched out to full blown right wing nonsense. It definitely influenced my decision to leave the sport a bit as well. 
 

Id notice when I’d not be as active in the bodybuilding community I wasn’t getting the same recommendations showing up.

RIP Hodge Twins 

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finaljedi

finaljedi

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I think the problem is these goofy bastards engage with that content really hard so whenever you get served a little of it then you get a torrent if you don't click away immediately.  I feel like it took like months of not clicking shit on the front page to reverse the damage one fucking Crowder video did to my recommendations.

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Nokra

Nokra

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2 hours ago, Bacon said:

1f5e9a034b74516ba9ca63f5e477c82097da3d0f

 

Funny meme aside, I do kind of wonder if it being YouTube Shorts really is playing at least a small role here. My thinking is: Because all of these companies (YouTube, TikTok, Facebook/Instagram, etc.) are vying for your attention, and in that format they have even less time to hook you and get you to keep engaging (vs. a full-length video), it would make some kind of sense they might show you some "outrageous" content meant to elicit a response from you. 

 

They may also have their algorithm weighted stupidly for a "novelty-factor", so because you happen to have stumbled across one conservative video and watched it, it thinks "oh this is a new interest, let's keep them happy!" and shows you a shitload of videos. 

 

 

Or maybe they're secretly trying to turn everyone dumb, I dunno. :p 

 

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Ghost_MH

Ghost_MH

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31 minutes ago, Bacon said:

I mean, YTS are giga known to lead you down unsavory paths. I don't know how many times I've heard gamers complain that it all leads to down Andrew Tate and his Tatertots.

 

Pretty much. You catch a short with some scientist talking about something interesting and then it pans over to fucking Joe Rogan with a stupid blank stare. Thumbs down, never recommend this channel again, but it's too late. Next few clips are Tate and Crowder and now I've got to go on a thumbs down/block spree to cleanse my stream.

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Keyser_Soze

Keyser_Soze

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17 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

Pretty much. You catch a short with some scientist talking about something interesting and then it pans over to fucking Joe Rogan with a stupid blank stare. Thumbs down, never recommend this channel again, but it's too late. Next few clips are Tate and Crowder and now I've got to go on a thumbs down/block spree to cleanse my stream.

 

Remove from watch history too?

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Signifyin(g)Monkey

Signifyin(g)Monkey

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Less the alt-right specifically and more the ‘Paranoid Style’.  That is what the algorithm will generally gravitate towards, as that ultimately tends to generate the most clicks.

 

6 hours ago, Nokra said:

 

Funny meme aside, I do kind of wonder if it being YouTube Shorts really is playing at least a small role here. My thinking is: Because all of these companies (YouTube, TikTok, Facebook/Instagram, etc.) are vying for your attention, and in that format they have even less time to hook you and get you to keep engaging (vs. a full-length video), it would make some kind of sense they might show you some "outrageous" content meant to elicit a response from you. 

 

They may also have their algorithm weighted stupidly for a "novelty-factor", so because you happen to have stumbled across one conservative video and watched it, it thinks "oh this is a new interest, let's keep them happy!" and shows you a shitload of videos. 

 

 

Or maybe they're secretly trying to turn everyone dumb, I dunno. :p 

 

 

My hunch is that a certain escalation of extremity is naturally occurring, but it’s less about the length of the targeted time-span of the major social media platforms than about the cumulative effect of the addictive properties of the algorithm(s) on the psychology of society.  They are designed to exploit the mechanisms of addiction, and it is widely known that addicts develop a tolerance to the dopamine hit that they get from their drugs of choice that requires them to seek out bigger and stronger doses of them.

 

The behavioral effects of these systems on large populations are compounding, as well, so even if a small percentage of society becomes more and more deranged by this phenomenon, it can have big society-wide effects.

 

I kind of view it as a kind of waste heat generated by the entropy of a large system of psychological manipulation.  A lot of the ideology of Silicon Valley IMO revolves around the denial of this entropy’s existence—the tech titans think that, with the proper tweaks, they can create a informational perpetual motion machine.  But in the end it’s not possible.

 

There’s a reason tech’s biggest and most powerful data centers are located next to large bodies of water that are used to cool the server farms. ;)

 

That’s why many argue it can be fixed via tweaks to the algorithm, but as I’ve said before, I think the only way to fix it is to change the business model of Silicon Valley and Big Tech to something other than ‘we’ll give you service X for free, in exchange for all your personal data, and the right to sell it to advertisers ‘.

 

This will become exponentially more important as AI becomes more and more integral to the economy.

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mclumber1

mclumber1

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6 hours ago, Bacon said:

I mean, YTS are giga known to lead you down unsavory paths. I don't know how many times I've heard gamers complain that it all leads to down Andrew Tate and his Tatertots.

 

We took tik tok away from our daughter because it kept on showing her self harm content.  The more time you spend watching controversial videos, the algorithm will then show you more related content.

 

In my experience, YTS is not as bad as tiktok, but overall it tries to do the same thing and hook you on harmful content.

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TUFKAK

TUFKAK

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15 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

<---- has never watched a single YouTube Short.

YTS did one good thing for me. Showed me this guy and he thusly became one of my favorite YouTubers as a result.

 

 

 

The former archaeology student in me nerded out when I found him.

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5timechamp

5timechamp

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thankfully my youtube shorts are mostly B99 and spoilers for RDR2..

  I didnt last a month with a tik tok account it was very aggressive in putting up “triggering” stuff… you get pulled into a trap just to engage with some over the top ridiculous responses and the algorithm takes that as fuel for more crap.

   Facebook shorts/ads have gotten somewhat more aggressive on my feed with stupid “israel needs your help” crap recently too..  tons of sports “pundits” bullshit too

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SuperSpreader

SuperSpreader

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32 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

A lot of people hyped up the TikTok algorithm but I wasn't impressed for a long time. Now I get a bunch of those videos of those ladies who run up to the camera and then turn around and put their ass on it and I'm very satisfied with the algorithm now. 👍

 

mine is that, yard work, and DIY home repairs & remodeling

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Fizzzzle

Fizzzzle

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13 hours ago, TUFKAK said:

YTS did one good thing for me. Showed me this guy and he thusly became one of my favorite YouTubers as a result.

 

 

 

The former archaeology student in me nerded out when I found him.

Miniminuteman is great. I actually did not find him through shorts, I found him through his "I watched ancient apocalypse so you don't have to" series.

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