[exabrial]

I think it's funny during Christmas and Easter, thousands of sermons and positive Christian videos are posted to YouTube but do not warrant a special response from Google, despite Christians being a large user base. Google is of course free to do as they wish with their platform and promote whatever they want, it's their choice and they own it. What I dislike is they advertise it as sort of free speech platform but rankings are intrinsically geared towards special interests.

[duskwuff]

Probably because those videos don't actually drive much engagement. Most sermon videos -- for example -- tend to be relatively slow-paced, lightly edited (if at all), and do not use any visuals beyond a fixed camera on the speaker. All of these factors are poison to engagement, even for users who might otherwise be interested in the content.

[ramblerouser]

Do you know how many views Easter sermons get, or are you just assuming it's not much? I would be quite surprised if the youtube algorithm is looking at video editing style.

[duskwuff]

> I would be quite surprised if the youtube algorithm is looking at video editing style.

I didn't mean to imply it does -- at least, not directly. But those factors affect how users interact with the videos, which YouTube measures as engagement. And a typical sermon is likely to look especially bad on certain engagement metrics; in particular, their length means that users are less likely to watch them to completion, and even less likely to watch multiple videos in a single session.

[rsynnott]

If you watch lots of Christian stuff, YouTube will absolutely suggest more of it to you.

[che_shirecat]

quantity != virality. Christmas and Easter sermons are definitely not viral material. Plus, google is definitely not going to go out of their way to push Christian videos on people haha.

[chillacy]

I wasn’t aware YouTube positions itself as a “free speech platform”. In fact that just sounds like a dog whistle for online harassment.

[SmellyGeekBoy]

Ah, the "persecuted Christian" angle. Definitely a conspiracy.