A new study of YouTube's recommendation algorithms shows the filter bubble is in full effect.
The academics looked at how YouTube suggests videos related to 9/11 conspiracy theories, chem trails, the idea the Earth is flat, that we didn't land on the Moon, and that vaccines are harmful or don't work."We saw all these media reports and opinion pieces talking about how YouTube is driving people down the rabbit hole," said Mitra. "But I was like: 'All these reports are talking without any empirical evidence.
The search audit the researchers conducted involves the bot accounts searching for videos around a particular topic using common search terms, and seeing what is recommended by YouTube's search algorithm. A similar watch audit involved the bot accounts watching different types of videos related to each topic.
Mitra hypothesizes that YouTube is more proactively policing anti-vaccine videos given the current importance of the topic to the world's battle against coronavirus.
stokel It's also steering away from small creators of freakshow type content and cringe. It's getting hard to find anything that's not a cringe compilation full of reddit videos.
stokel Anti dumbs. Ok, not ok?