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Why is youtube recommending conservative "talking points" to me? (lemmy.fmhy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by V01t45@lemmy.fmhy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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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?

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[–] obinice@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] elkaki@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

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)

[–] SaltySalamander@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

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.