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by SideburnsOfDoom 1299 days ago
> Also: If your social media feeds are showing you crappy content, you are to blame.

Yes and no. Youtube radicalisation / algorithmic extremism is a thing, because the engagement-maximising algorithm has a strong bias for rabbit-holes, kooks, con-artists and incendiary nonsense. The "funnel towards QAnon" that the sibling comment mentioned.

Unless you lean hard against it - which first requires awareness of the problem and the skills or knowledge to spot it - it will be in your feed. "you are to blame" is to an extent blaming the victims.

1 comments

The sentiment I've heard a lot is "I'm not clicking on that, it'll take weeks to undo the damage to my recommendations".
How many average users are even aware of this?

It took until 2021 for people to figure out that quote-tweeting politician hot takes to dunk on them, actually helped politicians' reach because Twitter counted it as engagement.

> How many average users are even aware of this?

An increasing number, but still very low. And awareness in itself won't solve the issue entirely. This is why the "you are to blame" sentiment is to an extent blaming the victims.