this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
667 points (97.2% liked)

politics

19148 readers
1977 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

“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.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [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.