[ozmbie]

It’s not a lack of control, it’s a different kind of control. Driven by algorithms and engagement metrics which appear to promote extreme content.

That difference is what has people worried because the political and social endgame is not yet clear.

[sisu2019]

I think the extremeness of content is just another anti-free speech talking point. I'm sure there is vile stuff on youtube but if it actually comes down in these threads are are videos by Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan and Tim Pool. These people are simply not extreme and smearing them this is way is only about shutting down opposing ideas.

I also don't doubt that you can (sometimes) get to really extreme content within four clicks but we have to keep in mind that the recommendation lists can be 40 videos long. So just roughly estimating it: if 1% of videos was extreme content because 1% of the population are extremist you would expect, on average, to see roughly one and a half extreme video if you sampled 4 * 40 random videos.

In addition, just doing a quick test with Jordan Peterson in incognito mode I get the following very telling result.

If I click a video called "Jordan Peterson EDUCATES College Professors In An Epic Q & A", I get mostly other Jordan Peterson videos with some Ben Shapiro sprinkled in.

If I click on "Jordan Peterson Destroys Q&A | 25 February 2019" I suddenly get a wide range of people suggested with the common thread being that the title also contains "DESTROY", "SNAP", "OWNS" and so on. This makes me think the 'problem' might just be that people who keep clicking on the most outrageous titles will eventually see the most outrageous videos. From a technical perspective I would say that is working as intended.

[ddingus]

They are not extreme.

[ddingus]

It is both. There are plenty of places to have discussions online, sans a managed feed.