What's a "conspiracy theory"?

We won't be able to give the answer to this question, but we can already say that the path that YouTube is taking now cannot be the right one.

Many users of YouTube are wondering what criteria the platform uses to select and suggest "more videos". We observed that

• a documentary about horses was suddenly followed by videos in which stallions loudly covered mares,
• classical folk songs were followed by rushing Nazi rock,
• or movies in which people were crossed with aliens in secret facilities,
• or clips that claimed the Earth was a disk
• or in which plans for the "exchange" of the European population
• or the "destruction of the German nation" were revealed,
• or...

Everybody has "enjoyed" such experiences on YouTube and many have already demanded that YouTube be held responsible, too. In January of last year, YouTube agreed to do something – and something has been done. A team of developers and researchers from the UC Berkeley School of Information, the University of California and the Mozilla Foundation analysed a list of 1,080 YouTube channels from October 2018 to the present day.

They collected the 20 first recommendations of the Watch Next algorithm on a daily basis, based on the last video from the start channels, and examined the titles and keywords of these recommendations. The result of their investigations coincides with the information from YouTube, namely that the number of videos of "conspiracy theories" has been falling continuously. YouTube itself even speaks of a decline of 50% by summer 2019 and 70% by December.

The researchers found that theories about 9/11 and the flat earth have almost completely disappeared from YouTube recommendations, but a disproportionate number of videos denying climate change have now appeared.
 

Conclusion:

1. Unfortunately, the investigation says nothing to the above mentioned selection of right-wing hate.

2. What falls into the category of "conspiracy theory" is still determined by the secret YouTube algorithm.

3. It has become clear how easy it is for YouTube to manipulate the selection and thus the opinion of its viewers.

The latter should make us think.

Read more https://1e9.community/t/youtube-hat-es-geschafft-die-verbreitung-von-verschwoerungstheorien-mit-einigen-ausnahmen-einzudaemmen/3914/16

Comment

If you like a crypted answer you may copy your public key into this field. (Optional) Public Key

To prevent the use of this form by spam robots, please enter the portrayed character set in the left picture below into the right field.

CC license   European Civil Liberties Network   Bundesfreiwilligendienst   We don't store your data   World Beyond War   Use Tor router   Use HTTPS   No Java   For Transparency