[georgeglue1]

I don't think I've gotten an actual misinformation / hate speech / etc. recommendation from Youtube, Facebook, or Tiktok.

On Facebook, I see potentially divisive posts from friends with very different political views. The difference with TikTok is that those friends don't post content.

I think if you explicitly seek out problematic content you can end in a rabbit hole on any large algorithmic app.

[ricardobeat]

You must be really good at only reading content you already agree with.

The moment you watch a few seconds of a polarizing video, out of curiosity, they will start recommending more of the same. This is how people fall into more radicalized bubbles.

[whimsicalism]

As a counteranecdote to many on this thread, I have also never seen hate content on any platform except TikTok.

Only on Tiktok have I seen teen girls dancing along to clearly white supremacist content about racial superiority.

[nemothekid]

Your experience is anecdotal. What "you think" isn't what others have found through actual testing, there are actual papers written about this. Also, I don't think TikTok is different because they are more ethical or anything; I think the framework they operate in (China) has forced them to take a heavier hand on emotionally extreme content.

[threeseed]

I get far-right, anti-vaxxer, conspiracy, misinformation recommendations from Youtube at least a few times a week. And it's been like this for years despite me asking them not to show this type of content again.

Anyone who thinks these issues are somehow unique or exclusive to Facebook is simply being dishonest. They are a byproduct of the anonymous, unfettered free speech we get from the internet not something intrinsic to recommendation algorithms.

[ricardobeat]

We had free speech before social networks and this wasn’t an issue. The problem is when you encourage all the 5000 lunatics who think the earth is pizza-shaped to congregate and consume each other’s content.

[YarickR2]

Now content consumption is a crime. Next we're going to curate reading lists, right ?

[threeseed]

Reddit and Twitter proves that it's not the case.

They have allowed anti-vaxxer, conspiracy, misinformation etc communities to thrive and flourish and it's happened without recommendation algorithms. It happened because when people can see other's peoples comments they are able to follow them to discover more people like that.

[Karrot_Kream]

Twitter absolutely uses an algorithmic feed to show you content you'll engage with more.

On Reddit this is somewhat true, but it's a well-known part of Reddit culture (though this has been changing as they've been kicking out more subs) that each sub has its own set of cultural mores, opinionated mods, and memes. There's lots of drama/hate on subs from other subs but you'll see the same phenomenon on the Fediverse or, for that matter, in a neighborhood gossip group.

It's not like these views go away without algorithmic newsfeeds, it just that algorithmic feeds accelerate their spread.