Trying to Control This Very Uncontrollable Thing

September 15, 2022 4:56 AM

My hope is that it’s a dark comedy in many ways. The people at YouTube and Google are idealistic about the internet. YouTube was the underdog taking on Hollywood and all the conventions of Hollywood. Then within a few short years, there was this whiplash, where it becomes like Big Tobacco. YouTube is accused of radicalization, traumatizing children, propaganda, all the worst aspects associated with the company. I thought that quick turn was just a fascinating story to unpack and tell. from Everyone knows what YouTube is — few know how it really works, a conversation with Mark Bergen, author of Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube's Chaotic Rise to World Domination
posted by chavenet (51 comments total)

When I think about YouTube, what strikes me is how it accelerates the consumption of media -- and how it selects the media you consume, with very different criteria.

It used to be hard to find extremist videos, or late-night AM radio ranting, or Chick tracts -- but YT brings all that and more to consumers without them moving a finger (thanks to the default "autoplay enabled" behavior). In the same way that a kid had to wait until they were sure that no one was home before sneaking down to the rec room and trying to see porn on cable TV, it used to be difficult to find all sorts of "forbidden" media...And some of it was forbidden because it isn't in the public good.

But the Internet brought unlimited pr0n to the web browser, and YT brought unlimited everything to all of our screens. The consumption is very passive...which wasn't as damaging when there was a Standards & Practices board choosing television scripts, but which is a huge problem when "engagement" -- i.e., "can't take your eyes off of it" -- is the sole criterion.

I know there is a lot of good stuff on YT, but all of the repair videos and handy explainers are overwhelmed in the flood of hateful spew.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:24 AM on September 15, 2022 [6 favorites]

A few years ago I didn’t really use YouTube, and when I started at the local university as an adult learner my classmates just couldn’t understand it. “Surely you must watch something?!”, I remember one student plaintively asking. Since then I’ve taken up a hobby and there’s lots of great explainers on YouTube… but! Without fail, once a day if not more, I will be served a link to some Jordan Peterson bullshit. It doesn’t stop either; I’ve hammered the ‘do not show me videos like this’ options every time, but it keeps coming back.
posted by The River Ivel at 6:47 AM on September 15, 2022 [12 favorites]

I get depressed and feel inadequate when I'm watching a maker videos on YouTube. Usually it happens when the creator nonchalantly uses the $50K metal 3D printer they just happen to have in their basement to fabricate a part, or they casually introduces the giant industrial robot arm that they've been given by the manufacturer to "have fun with". I keep having to remind myself that these aren't just random hobbyists who are uploading videos in their spare time, but professionals who are producing content sometimes with entire teams of support people who remain offscreen.

I don't think I would have the same feelings if I was watching the same people doing the same things on television. Because YouTube keep dangling that 'upload video' button in front of me, it's easy to overlook how much work and finances actually go into producing content and every YouTube video becomes something that I could have made if only I had put the effort into it. In a way I think this creates the same kind of toxic social media environment that occurs when you're viewing everyone else's highly curated Facebook feeds.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:56 AM on September 15, 2022 [13 favorites]

I have the same issue as The River Ivel. I have never even typed JP's name into any website ever and still get fed his crap constantly. My most searched for things on Youtube are Taskmaster and Would I Lie to You and some product reviews (phones or tablets and such). There is absolutely nothing in my surfing history to make anyone ever think I would want to watch his videos, yet Youtube never lets up on promoting his bullshit to me.
posted by dobbs at 7:06 AM on September 15, 2022 [11 favorites]

As soon as we started thinking for you, it really became our civilization.

If click on enough youtube suggestions, you become a youtube commenter. That's what the algorithm is trying to do, turn you into a youtube commenter.
posted by ryanrs at 7:49 AM on September 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

I have the same issue as The River Ivel. I have never even typed JP's name into any website ever and still get fed his crap constantly.

I watched a few Rick Beato videos and now it thinks I want to see all these guitar and bass virtuosos play Tool and Rush songs (I do not). Other than that, I don't have any really heinous recommendations.

I disagree that youtube is required to be passive- I spend tons of time googling repair videos and nothing on TV comes close. And luckily they are generally designed for interaction - ie: appropriate pause points and easy to rewind.

I don't really want to defend youtube - I'm sure it's moderation needs more - but of all the webservices, youtube is 2nd to google in actual usefulness.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:50 AM on September 15, 2022 [5 favorites]

Best way to deal with YT is to never log in and always use it in a private window so it can't form any assumptions about you.
Do your search for content in the search bar and only click on what you came to see.
If there's some content it doesn't want you to see without a login, well it just sucks to be YT then.
Doing it with an ad-block capable browser highly, highly recommended.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:15 AM on September 15, 2022 [5 favorites]

I think I've told this story before, under a different account name, but:

I was in a course taught by Camilla Paglia around 2010 or so, which was back when Paglia was publicly trying to pick a fight with Lady Gaga—attacking her for being a "fake radical" or "tofurkey sexy" or what-have-you. And it became clear, over the course of that class, that all of Paglia's stated reasons for hating Gaga had less to do with what she'd been writing about than with the fact that the music video for Telephone had just come out: it was one of the first major YouTube pop culture success stories, and the algorithm was simple enough back then that it just slapped Telephone on every damn video, because anybody who viewed anything was statistically likely to have also watched Telephone.

Paglia hated it. It was like a bad itch. All her rhapsodic reminiscences about classical film, magical dance sequences, Led Zeppelin blues-rock... all punctured by YouTube's chirping in with: "You know, Lady Gaga's 'Telephone' video is also pretty great!" She yelled at YouTube like old men yell at clouds. And it was simultaneously relatable, funny, and this fascinating look at how The Algorithm gets under everybody's skins—it's just that some of those people have nationally-syndicated columns.

Ever since then, I've been suspect of basically every instance of "people getting mad at X online" that I've come across. There are certain provocateurs who've made culture war extremely profitable, some of whom existed before YouTube did, but one of the reasons why it's so profitable to get people spittin' mad at each other is that the algorithms have "accidentally" realized that pissed-off people engage more, so now they're geared towards taking our irks and convincing us that they're the source of all social ills.

Anyway, I hate algorithmic recommendations. One of the reasons why sites like Letterboxd are so popular, I think, is that there's something charming about finding someone whose tastes you like, and burrowing deeper into their private enthusiasms. (I've discovered more new bands through Rate Your Music and random Bandcamp reviewers than anywhere else for pretty much this exact reason.)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 8:21 AM on September 15, 2022 [9 favorites]

One of the historical weapons YouTubers I follow posted YouTube has become a burnout machine lately, and others have posted similar stories. Basically the algorithm was changed to give them far fewer views and their income plummeted overnight. Now they're desperately looking for ways to improve under the new algorithm.

For instance, Star Wars stuff got promoted highly under the new algorithm, so a bunch of them started posting (IMO not very interesting) analyses of lightsabers to try to get some income back.

There's good money to be made by a few YouTube content providers, but it seems like a precarious and stressful way to make a living.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:25 AM on September 15, 2022 [6 favorites]

I sometimes wonder if YouTube's algorithm randomly tries to perturb my viewing habits. I'm pretty siloed with regard to the types of videos I watch and the videos that are recommended to me usually come from the same set of things I've already seen. But every now and then I'll get a completely incongruous recommendation that's usually (but not always) at least crypto-rightwing if not overtly rightwing. I can only assume YouTube's algorithm is deliberately baiting me with a suggestion from some other "cluster" of related videos and is hoping that I'll jump in.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:25 AM on September 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

A lot of people are disturbed by what the algo knows: many people who like what you like, also like Jordan Peterson or some other content provider you dislike. That’s really disturbing for some people who just want everyone (including themselves) to fit neatly in a box, or believe that non-political hobbies or interests correlate to political beliefs, when they just don’t.
posted by MattD at 8:31 AM on September 15, 2022 [5 favorites]

We have been in love with TV since it was invented. Youtube is TV come to life, and she thinks you're really great and is interested in all the same things you are! Also Jordan Peterson, for some reason.
posted by ryanrs at 8:45 AM on September 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

Trying to Control This Very Uncontrollable Thing

analogous to surfing when you think about it. You can't control those waves, yet you can ride them to some amazing places. Youtube has certainly replaced TV as that place I take my consciousness when I'm lacking the imagination, the initiative, the energy to actually go anywhere, do anything. And on a good day, if I catch a good wave, it really can take me somewhere cool I wouldn't otherwise have gone.

A recent for instance:

Orson Welles and co taking on Heart of Darkness and Life With Father from eighty-four years ago.

But yes, a quick glance at my front page does immediately give me Slavov Zizek and Jordan Peterson agreeing on "family values", which I won't go near. But hmmm? Joe Rogan talking to Gabor Mate. That intrigues me. Except upon clicking, down the right sidebar, I notice ...

APOCALYPSE NOW - Commentary by Francis Ford Coppola

Now we're talking. Sorry what were talking about?
posted by philip-random at 8:49 AM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

You are letting the algorithm choose your beliefs, your interests. The algorithm has no qualms about leading you to very dark places, when you let your guard down. The algorithm tells you what you want to hear, shows you want you want to see, and subtly leads you where it wants you to go.
posted by ryanrs at 8:59 AM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

I was really hoping this article would explain why the algorithm favors videos whose thumbnail is of someone making a stupid face. Almost as infuriating as JP.
posted by NBelarski at 9:02 AM on September 15, 2022 [7 favorites]

You are letting the algorithm choose your beliefs, your interests.

are you talking to me?
posted by philip-random at 9:09 AM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

You are letting the algorithm choose your beliefs, your interests. The algorithm has no qualms about leading you to very dark places, when you let your guard down. The algorithm tells you what you want to hear, shows you want you want to see, and subtly leads you where it wants you to go.

The algorithm had better hurry up, develop sentience, and decide all everyone ever needs is videos of cats being adorable.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:16 AM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

There is no doubt in my mind that Jordan Peterson is paying YouTube to show you those videos.

Come on, people — why wouldn’t they take the money? The fact that you don’t like them probably allows YT to charge a premium.

Jordan Peterson and his ilk aren’t on YT primarily to make money, they are on YT to get power and political influence.

And it’s working.
posted by jamjam at 9:18 AM on September 15, 2022 [4 favorites]

There is no doubt in my mind that Jordan Peterson is paying YouTube to show you those videos.

Come on, people — why wouldn’t they take the money? The fact that you don’t like them probably allows YT to charge a premium.

I have a pretty large following on a major social network, and I'm here to tell you the bleaker news: there is no reason to bribe social networks when it's far cheaper and easier to just game the fuck out of the algorithm.

The algorithm recommends Jordan Peterson because Jordan Peterson has worked out what makes YouTube recommend videos, and tailors his content to fit. It's a vicious cycle, because this means that YouTube turns producers into whatever its algorithm demands, just as it turns consumers into what its algorithm prescribes, but there's really no secret trick to it. You do the thing that gets you interest, until the algorithm changes, and then you do whatever the new thing is instead.

If you're not committed to using a single site for all of your content consumption, then the trends within a single environment might baffle you. Like, if you don't use Twitch, you'll be perplexed as to why Amouranth is as big a deal as she is—at least, why she's distinct from anyone else who seems to have the same market appeal. But the more you commit to a single platform, the more its bizarre foibles seem invisible to you, because you're a part of the target audience, and you get pushed seamlessly in whichever directions are trending.

"They're paying YouTube" is the kind of conspiracy theory that masks the real conspiracy at hand, which is that these algorithms aren't neutral. They're easy to manipulate, if all you care about is manipulation. And the people who you rightly point out crave power over anything else are also the people who care less about the specific content they're putting out than they do about the formula that makes them famous.

(Except for me, because my audience is smart and pure and would never fall for any obvious trickery. Here, let me tell you 17 reasons why my readers are qualitatively better-informed and media-literate than Jordan Peterson's fanbase. Right-wing pundits hate me for this one weird trick!)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 9:26 AM on September 15, 2022 [15 favorites]

The algorithm is very good at winding up individuals and groups into emotional feedback loops. Sometimes it's just cat videos! But if you're kinda paranoid, or sorta racist, then maybe your personal Youtube feedback loop is not cat videos.

The algorithm does not need to be sentient or "know what it's doing" to do this.
posted by ryanrs at 9:34 AM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best way to deal with YT is to never log in and always use it in a private window so it can't form any assumptions about you.
Do your search for content in the search bar and only click on what you came to see.
If there's some content it doesn't want you to see without a login, well it just sucks to be YT then.

This may be the worst way to deal with YT.

I don't know what you people do there, but I almost never get recommendations I don't have at least some interest in. The last time I got a recommendation having anything to do with Jordan P was a criticism. I can't remember the previous time. Must have been quite a while. Once in a blue moon a bullshitty video will pop up. I've found you don't even have to watch. The title and or name of the channel gives it away. That nonsense gets culled without hesitation.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:36 AM on September 15, 2022 [6 favorites]

Fascist's one weird trick to own the libs is that libs will blame the algorithm.

Works every time.
posted by jamjam at 9:41 AM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Also, one last comment, regarding the whole "the algorithm recommends you racist shit because people who like what you like are also racist" theory:

The New York Times wrote a profile about the infamous neo-Nazi hacker Weev a decade and a half ago, before he was a known neo-Nazi. It's not worth reading nowadays, but there's a bit in it where Weev tells two lies to the reporter, one of which isn't personally insulting and one of which is, and the reporter (predictably) takes the insult more personally than the other bit of bullshit.

That is fundamentally how the algorithm works. It doesn't "recommend" you things because it thinks you'll like them. It recommends you thinks because it thinks you will engage. It doesn't care whether you're happy, sad, pissed off, suicidal, or murderous—all it cares about is that you click or comment or like or subscribe.

Andy Warhol once said that he never read his critics—he just measured their columns by the inch. That's the algorithm. That's its point system. And the reason it throws alt-right bullshit everybody's way is that it gets responses. It doesn't recommend Andrew Shapiro's latest TERF-y guest to you because your browsing history suggests you'll enjoy this one as much as you enjoy BTS singles. It recommends it because it thinks that, by recommending it, it'll get a rise out of you.

The algorithm wasn't intended to behave like an infamous reactionary troll—it just learned, as trolls did, that this garbage is the best way to get under people's skin. And the crime of YouTube and Facebook programmers isn't generally that they meant to create Nazis. It's that they realized, a decade ago, that they were creating Nazis, said "oh that's bad," looked at possible fixes, and concluded to their regret that creating Nazis is just more profitable.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 9:43 AM on September 15, 2022 [25 favorites]

Yes, I can feel the algorithm trying to piss me off as I read through the recommended videos. I catch myself about to click, when I realize I'm already primed to react. It's clickbait that appeals to anger and outrage rather than, I dunno, curiosity or community spirit. There's no guardrails directing that emotion to a constructive place, just amplification and feedback.
posted by ryanrs at 9:53 AM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Oh, that's why he's like this.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:56 AM on September 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

I dig on the title of this post, and this article as describing youtube as The One social media site without a white dude overlord founder running it, and comparing it to the cultures of hollywood and corporate consensus Journalism. Histories are about these editorial decisions, and it's fascinating.

It was also fascinating to think about youtube as the only social media site with a possibly competent algorithm--that makes sense to me as someone who works with different sites professionally.

as mentioned, Hank Green has videos on the business models of youtube vs TikTok, in favor of youtube
So...TikTok Sucks
This is a history of the youtube's Partner Program, mentioned in the article.

But of course, despite claiming to be a youtube loyalist, i think he and others are on patreon, their own fundraising platform, and have also created Nebula, a youtube alternative owned by creators.

So, watch what he does and makes, less what he says? but I always find his commentary the most educational, as the Green brothers are financially and socially indepedent, created a blog following independent of youtube, predate the platform, but also have been on the platform for a long time.

other vids:
How A YouTube Company Actually Makes Money [newest]
Worse than Demonetization: Anti-Gay Ads on LGBTQ+ Videos

I will just note, in my years of experience as a climate activist working with all forms of media, that all profit-driven media is driven by advertising and advertising executives and all capitalist media supresses discussion of particular things, like naming the corporations behind climate change, Cancer Alley, and the destruction of the Gulf Coast for the US's industrial perogatives.

The Journalism consensus driven by the New York Times, Cable TV, the Hollywood consensus, and Youtube all have their weird editorial quirks, the online world just trades the myth of "expert PhD editors with decades of seeking the Truth" or "the dead hand of Edward R Morrow" for "the algorithm". And in some ways, abstracting the collective editorial decisions of an industry into such a cyborg myth is useful for thinking about it and correcting the flaws.

Would we have had the feminist prosecution of Cable TV's foilbles, Hollywood's foilbles without this other independent pole of online creative production? Is the feminist prosecution of creative producers limited by the crappy nature of this online creative production--the metoo social movement was changed away from its transformative nature somehow.

So, some of these problems with corporate media are merely more transparent on online platforms, because they are such hot messes, and because creators are much more free to complain, and the volume of shows is so much higher. The volume of production remains ungoverable, and there are benefits to that.
posted by eustatic at 10:02 AM on September 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

The “everything leads to Jordan Peterson/some right wing rant/some right wing gotcha video” era of YouTube seems to be over for me. Not that those things no longer exist but it feels like they did tone down the recommendations.

The flip side is that it’s all more and more dominated by professionalized productions (also, somewhat more cautious about mad science sort of stuff it seems) and doesn’t quite have the charm of the first couple of phases of YouTube, the ones preceding the heavily political era.
posted by atoxyl at 10:09 AM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

On the plus side it also recently seems to like recommending independent music uploads in the hundreds or even tens of views. Not only do I actually like listening to that stuff, I like the principle of being willing to give random people an opportunity to get traction. Reminds me of the good ‘ol days of SoundCloud.
posted by atoxyl at 10:14 AM on September 15, 2022 [4 favorites]

The more I read about how becoming a content creator with your own business continues to get worse and worse between algorithms/stalkers/demand, et al., the more I'm convinced that staying in a stable day job you hate is still better than doing something you love. I can't even imagine how the hell I'd deal with the way these changes go if I'd ever tried.

I will note that I've never gotten any recommendations about That Person since all I watch is geek crap, crafts, hippie shit, etc.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:15 AM on September 15, 2022 [5 favorites]

there exists a program called Invidious which serves a website on which users can watch videos from That Site without its interjections. It's sometimes deployed by organizations that provide 'decentralized' services to a community. For example, there's an instance at invidious.snopyta.org , that org also provides chat and pastebin and whatnot

Users can subscribe to channels and track their subscriptions. Only ads that are part of the video are available, and there are no annotations. Also closed-captioning does not seem to work yet. It still shows recommended videos, but autoplay is off by default
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 11:26 AM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

I use yt-dlp a commandline tool to download youtube videos, then watch them locally with VLC. It downloads much faster than realtime.

I know that sounds ridiculous and tedious, but between the lack of ads and the super-responsive seeking, the overall effect is less annoying than using the actual site.

(YMMV, yes I realize I am a curmudgeon)
posted by ryanrs at 11:40 AM on September 15, 2022 [6 favorites]

You can take yt-dlp a step further and pipe some channels' RSS feeds through them. (Google sucks nowadays, but at least they haven't removed RSS functionality from their platforms, unlike Facebook and Twitter.) If you know what channels you like to watch, that gives you a neat little pile of videos to watch at your convenience, without forcing you through to actually touch the site itself.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 11:58 AM on September 15, 2022 [6 favorites]

Yeah, you might be able to download your videos using vim and a protractor, but if all your neighbours are watching videos that say things like “curly haired people are the devils hand puppets” or “cooking with onions is for satanists”, you are eventually going to find that sequestering yourself isn’t a useful tactic. However it seems that YouTube’s board of ethics has cashed out in favour of outreach and rage clicks.
posted by The River Ivel at 12:14 PM on September 15, 2022 [5 favorites]

I also only subscribe to channels with RSS.
..maybe I also use vim.
Ok but I don't know anything about protractors.
Nebula also seems nice so far. You can follow channels there but there's no commenting and no "liking" videos. This can make content discovery a little trickier, but the site seems to be well curated in general.
posted by antinomia at 12:55 PM on September 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

The algorithm recommends Jordan Peterson because Jordan Peterson has worked out what makes YouTube recommend videos, and tailors his content to fit. It's a vicious cycle, because this means that YouTube turns producers into whatever its algorithm demands, just as it turns consumers into what its algorithm prescribes, but there's really no secret trick to it. You do the thing that gets you interest, until the algorithm changes, and then you do whatever the new thing is instead.

The problem with this argument is that it treats The Algorithm as some sort of semi-mystical entity, instead of what every fucking algorithm under the sun is - the creator's position, codified in actual code. The Algorithm recommends Peterson because Alphabet has made the decision, quantified in The Algorithm, that his content should be promoted. The simple reality is that Alphabet chooses to turn a blind eye to hate on YouTube , and they should not be allowed to use "The Algorithm" to escape responsibility.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:07 PM on September 15, 2022 [11 favorites]

you think people trying to work toward the algorithm is bad, imagine when the algorithm can generate its own content
posted by logicpunk at 7:17 PM on September 15, 2022 [4 favorites]

I'm pretty siloed, too, and in the last few years I've come to love and rely upon the channels I subscribe to. I mean, 80% of my subscriptions are quality music-related channels like Beatto's or quality math or science channels. Really, the music and math channels regularly boggle my mind on how high the quality is and just how informative and useful they are. I constantly find myself wishing I could have had YT for instruction on music theory, drumming, and math when I was young.

That said, there have been maybe two topics that I've been interested in watching videos about that I've learned to avoid because there are unsavory people who also watch those videos and it wrecked my recommendations for awhile. Note, however, that I use the recommendations much less than I check my subscriptions, which I do multiple times daily.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:03 PM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Dear YouTube, it seems there is a book that describes you as a super-power ruling all of the world. I have one question for you that if you can answer correctly will confirm that book's opinion of you. I have a music playlist on Youtube with 400 videos. I would like to search this playlist for a certain video. Can you do it?
p.s. don't need to search by audio sample or video capture, just plain text of musician name of song title.
p.p.s. Speed not a big factor, simple linear search is fine but if you want to do something of O(log n), that would be fine.
posted by storybored at 9:21 PM on September 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

p.p.p.s. If you're really pressed for time, give me say, all the videos that start with a certain letter. "A" for example. Or one of the other letters. Don't need "Q" if you're busy.
p.p.p.p.s. JUST GIVE ME SOMETHING>
posted by storybored at 9:28 PM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

Sorry, but making you look through them one-by-one boosts our engagement metric.
posted by ryanrs at 9:42 PM on September 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

So, something we all here who are tired of getting Jordan Peterson recommendations have in common is being Metafilter users. Click on a few videos posted in FPPs and the algorithm will start recommending other videos posted on the site. I've noticed this all the time. And since a common factor of Metafilter users that draws many of us to the site is the outspoken politicalness of a lot of the content here, it shouldn't be surprising that many of us experience overtly political content on YouTube, given the predictions of our cohort of internet users.
posted by St. Oops at 9:44 PM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

I don't get any Jordan Peterson stuff. I actually don't even know what the guy looks like or the "style" of his videos (I'm assuming they're pretty recognizable from the thumbnail?).

My recommendations are 50% robotics, 49% cute animals, and like 1% pretty out-there animal abuse. Like some dude just hacking a goat to death with a sword.

So that's another reason I'm using yt-dlp now.
posted by ryanrs at 9:52 PM on September 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

And since a common factor of Metafilter users that draws many of us to the site is the outspoken politicalness of a lot of the content here, it shouldn't be surprising that many of us experience overtly political content on YouTube, given the predictions of our cohort of internet users.

Exactly. If I want to find out how horrible the world is, my go to place on the internet is Metafilter. Not youtube. This isn't snark or a joke.

I have no trouble believing lots of Metafilter users get fed shitty youtube videos, because lots of Metafilter users are actually interested in those topics, and post about them all the time here. If you show interest in those same topics on youtube, you'll be fed more videos on those topics. The difference is that Metafilter users tend to not espouse the shitty ideas in those posts.

That said, red meat topics on Metafilter tend to bore me in video form on youtube, and are a bottomless pit of stupidity, mostly because youtube is a broader user base that's moderated much differently. So I cull them. It makes youtube a very good experience for me.
posted by 2N2222 at 10:05 PM on September 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

"you think people trying to work toward the algorithm is bad, imagine when the algorithm can generate its own content"

But ... but... this has already happened. Through the medium of people. The function of a system is what it does, etc etc.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:56 PM on September 15, 2022 [4 favorites]

Matt's Offroad Recovery is a great example of that dynamic, of the system shaping the content. I watched in realtime as "tow truck guy with youtube channel" turned into "youtube guy with tow truck (and huge budget)".

I started watching his videos fairly early in the process, before he started pandering to the algorithm/audience. I watched the channel specifically to learn how to recover my own vehicle when I get stuck offroad. Matt showed the details of the rigging, digging, rock stacking, etc. This was super useful to me, and I learned a lot of good techniques.

But that huge influx of e-fame and youtube bucks changed the channel dramatically. It's all much more ridiculous and contrived and big-budget now, so I stopped watching.
posted by ryanrs at 11:51 PM on September 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

In our house, it's really interesting to see the contrast in how I use YouTube and how my wife does. I refuse to use YouTube for anything other than as a search engine for video. No subscribing, no smashing of Like buttons.
posted by emelenjr at 7:32 AM on September 16, 2022 [1 favorite]

What I find most insidious about YouTube is the way it can wander off a playlist into hideous territory. For example, the charity I used to work for had a curated playlist for local coordinators like me to set up on a tablet at exhibitions, and it would go through a fixed playlist of approved, interesting videos about what we did. The tablets were set up such that the general public couldn't fiddle with them and change the playlist.

So I was helping a colleague at a national event, and while we were talking to an important funder, I started to hear the most appalling antisemitic conspiracy theory shit blurt from a small speaker. I dashed over to the tablet and found it was playing a video from a sub-InfoWars ranter. I checked the player, and it seems that YouTube had decided that playing through our playlist more than twice was boring, and it want to show us more content we'd "react" to.

I realize now that we were naively using YouTube outside its design parameters: its purpose is to deliver content that garners clicks, not play the videos we'd asked it to.
posted by scruss at 12:30 PM on September 16, 2022 [5 favorites]

But ... but... this has already happened. Through the medium of people. The function of a system is what it does, etc etc.

not disagreeing, but it's still an extra, noisy step needed to fulfill the function of the Algorithm. people can only have an imperfect understanding of the Algorithm's Purpose, executed imperfectly. only when the Algorithm directly enacts its own will can its true function be realized perfectly for all eternity.

all hail the Algorithm.
posted by logicpunk at 9:59 PM on September 16, 2022 [2 favorites]

With YouTube, as with other social media sites, people tend to treat “the Algorithm” as something that has clear goals, and where the inputs and outputs are well-understood by the company running it. Having done a stint at a social media company, and having several friends who are still at such companies, I don’t think it really works like that.

The “Algorithm” for any given social media company is a complicated optimization function. It may optimize for something like engagement, or minutes watched, or views, or whatever.

(The true metric is, of course, profit. But that’s hard enough to measure and predict that other metrics are used as proxies.)

The key thing, though, is that this function is built through intense, complicated corporate politics. The various components of that optimization function are developed by dozens of teams, hundreds or thousands of individual people. Each of whom have their own views on how their contribution will impact the state of the world, the revenue of the company, and their individual chance at getting a promotion.

One result of this is that the so-called Algorithm is generally poorly understood even within any given social media company. They have a rough idea of what kinds of posts may be promoted (or not), but they’re still frequently surprised by the actual results. And because of that, they often don’t know how to change the algorithm to make specific changes to those results.

Another result is that the ranking process tends not to have any coherent viewpoint or values, because it’s hard to get such a thing from a system of rules built by hundreds of people with competing ideas.

This is part of how platforms that are mostly developed by people with liberal-to-progressive politics can end up promoting conservative content. They build systems to optimize some set of variables, based on a best guess at a loose coupling between content metrics and company goals. Interpreted through the code changes of hundreds of engineers. And then they try those systems out, and are often surprised and dismayed at the results.

That’s not to excuse them, of course. They could choose to more directly control the outputs of their systems, not just the ranking algorithms. They could choose to have platforms with explicit values, not just mechanistic outputs of algorithmic rules.

But that’s much more difficult both because those thousands of people don’t all agree on what those outputs should be… and because doing so would require many more moderators, and therefore be much more expensive.

After all, profit is the real metric they’re optimizing for.
posted by learning from frequent failure at 11:04 PM on September 16, 2022 [5 favorites]

" platforms that are mostly developed by people with liberal-to-progressive politics can end up promoting conservative content. "

Seems to me that those people never ever change the algorithm to produce (from their alleged POV) positive outcomes. They may espouse principles, but they prefer to optimise for revenue.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:33 AM on September 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

One result of this is that the so-called Algorithm is generally poorly understood even within any given social media company. They have a rough idea of what kinds of posts may be promoted (or not), but they’re still frequently surprised by the actual results. And because of that, they often don’t know how to change the algorithm to make specific changes to those results.

Here's the thing - that is an indictment. That lack of understanding is the result of specific decisions made by YouTube, and thus they don't get to hide behind it. A large part of the problem is that there is a cultural attitude in Silicon Valley by leadership to refuse to take responsibility for their product and its impact - the OP article talks about how Alphabet tries to manage things "at scale" and to work by consensus, which illustrates the refusal by leadership to show leadership and take a stand. And it's worth noting that this is driven in part by the fact that they're never held accountable for their decisions because they are allowed to hide behind "The Algorithm".

That needs to end. If The Algorithm is too complex to be understood, then The Algorithm needs to die.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:37 AM on September 17, 2022 [4 favorites]