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by trident5000 2015 days ago
YouTube has just as much of a monopoly in its category if not more than Facebook (with similar influence over society) yet we dont see the level of regular attacks (I'm not here to defend either, I'm a critic, but just pointing this out). Facebook total users: about 2.7 billion (with probably 80% dominance in its category). YouTube: about 2 billion but with a ~95% video stream dominance. The difference seems to be in the politics. I don't see the Atlantic or peers coming down on YouTubes dominance and influence.

Edit: As others have pointed out in here the difference might also be financial. Facebook publishes news articles and YouTube does not. A broken up Facebook offers a fractured publishing market and better pricing for news distribution.
2 comments
ben_w 2015 days ago
FWIW, I do see some similar criticisms of YouTube and its algorithms. I don’t read the Atlantic so I can’t compare scale, but it does happen.
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trident5000 2015 days ago
Good point, I do see this but it seems to be from the anti-censorship side on the right. It seems the right is focused on the YouTube algos and the left is out for Facebook influence basically since the 2016 election. In all, these media debates over which platforms are dangerous seem highly partisan. We should really be looking at them through a neutral light. What is a monopoly and what is not a monopoly.
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Keeeeeeeks 2015 days ago
In addition to this, people on the left have talked about how certain pockets of YT (gaming, action movies, self help) quickly funnels people into a corner of YT that's rife with misogyny and pseudo-rationalist fallacies.

Also the term Monopoly has tricky denotations and connotations; if you read Thiel's work you'll be inclined to have a strict definition of Monopoly (Ex: an online retailer isn't a monopoly because people still buy most things Elsewhere), whereas some have a looser definition (where Online Retailer is defined as likely monopoly because it is online retailer for everything that it can be, while also tracking sales data and using a white label brand to undercut other brands' SKUs)

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Raphmedia 2015 days ago
There are a lot of articles about YouTube's recommendation algorithms and how it spread fake news, conspiracies and similar problematic things.

For example, this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25359003

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