this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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politics

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“We just joined Truth Social, mostly because we thought it would be very funny,” it explained. “Follow us there for truths and retruths or whatever they call them.”

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yup, I watched part of a Tim Cast (never heard of him before the yt recommendation, nor consumed any similar content previously) video, a lot of it was unhinged and I clicked out quickly with the ramping hatred intensity and rage baiting.

It took like a year for yt to stop recommending me similar far alt-right bullshit because I watched maybe five or ten minutes of a Tim Cast video

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You don't have to click on a far-right video. You can also get them when you click on a progressive video, or a medical video, or a gaming video.

When Amazon first introduced their "People who liked X also liked Y" feature, it was hilariously easy to manipulate. You could just spam links back and forth and within a few minutes, "People who liked The King James Bible also like A Hand in the Bush: The Lost Art of Vaginal Fisting".

It didn't take too long for them to put a stop to it but decades later, are we actually sure content suggestion algorithms are any better at withstanding manipulation?

The far-right aren't exactly good people so I doubt they're saying "Sure, I openly celebrate mass shooters that target minorities but I draw the line at using sleazy techniques manipulate content suggestions".

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My yt algorithm has turned into endless lefty stuff with the occasional funny video, and my ads are nothing but Jordan peterson and TPUSA.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Usually the ones I see are clearly fishing for vulnerable people; a practise they put a huge amount of time, money and effort into.

They're active in conspiracy groups because it's a good place to find unmedicated schizophrenics.

They're active in gaming groups because it's a good place to find lonely, disaffected young men.

They're active in anti-vax groups because they're a good place to find uneducated, paranoid people.

They're active in fundamentalist circles because it's a good place to find bigots.

I've found that going anywhere near any of those topics will cause the algorithm to start baiting its hook.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I made the mistake of watching a nice little old guy showing how to collect and refine clay. In his video, I got an ad from Epoch times about their new anti-trans smear piece, and two videos from some dude saying that a Democrat planned global food shortage was going to subdue the resistant population so here is why you need solar panels and colloidal silver. The website in the ad went to a single page that tried to sell me "free" trump gold bars that would skyrocket in value. No other links on the page worked. Needless to say, I reported all the ads, but YouTube is still running this harmful and scam-bait content.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

I have a similar problem from watching firearm content on YouTube. YouTube just assumes I love right wing media because I'm interested in guns.