Right-Wing Channels Dominating
In March of 2018 Vanity Fair warned that right-wing “Dark-Web Trolls” were “taking over YouTube” because so many anti-social justice warrior channels were getting popular.744 The New York Times then said YouTube was “radicalizing” people to the right, and claimed that if people started watching videos of Donald Trump speeches then YouTube will begin recommending videos of “white supremacist rants” and “Holocaust denials.”745
The article declared that, “Given its billion or so users, YouTube may be one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century,” and that, “Its algorithm seems to have concluded that people are drawn to content that is more extreme than what they started with — or to incendiary content in general.”746
The New York Times had previously complained that, “For the New Far Right, YouTube Has Become the New Talk Radio,” saying, “They deplore ‘social justice warriors,’ whom they credit with ruining popular culture, conspiring against the populace and helping to undermine ‘the West.’ They are fixated on the subjects of immigration, Islam and political correctness. They seem at times more animated by President Trump’s opponents than by the man himself, with whom they share many priorities, if not a style.”747 The Left became determined to paint the Right’s rising stars as radicals, Islamophobes, and far-right extremists hoping to derail the spread of our videos.
One Leftist blog called “Right Wing Watch” founded by Jared Holt declared that, “White Supremacy Figured Out How To Become YouTube Famous,” and whined that, “YouTube has served as an alternative media ecosystem apart from the mainstream where any person can contribute to national conversation and reach thousands of people overnight. But the Right’s overt domination of the platform, in addition to political forums on Reddit and 4chan, has created an environment where white nationalists and right-wing extremists can easily inject hateful rhetoric and conspiracy theories into national political discourse.”748
When BuzzFeed or CNN reported “breaking news” about the Trump administration or when something started trending on Twitter, us YouTubers could quickly publish videos giving another perspective and point out things the mainstream media was ignoring or lying about. Our subscribers would see the videos, but perhaps more importantly, people searching for information on YouTube about those issues could find our videos, and if they were popular with favorable ratings, those videos would be discovered by people seeking out information on the subject matter. But all that has changed.
“Authoritative Channels” Boosted to the Top
For over a decade the top search results on YouTube were the most popular videos associated with the search terms you entered in, regardless of whether the videos were posted by someone who had just opened a YouTube account, a full time YouTuber, or a mainstream media outlet. The algorithm that was originally in place worked very well, because instead of showing the most-viewed videos (which could have generated a large number of views by using misleading titles and thumbnails) YouTube surfaced videos with the most “watch time” up at the top.
This means that if people clicked on a video and found that the title and thumbnail were misleading or it wasn’t a quality video, and then decided not to watch it by clicking away rather soon once it began playing, the algorithm would know that it wasn’t what people were searching for because the average amount of time people spent watching the video would be low. But if the video had a high watch time average, the site (accurately) figured that people had found what they were looking for because they kept watching it, and those were the videos that ranked the highest in the search results.
All that mattered was that the video was uploaded to YouTube by someone—anyone. If it was good, and people watched it instead of clicking away after a few seconds, it would show up in the top of the search results. But all that changed in October 2017 when YouTube reconfigured the algorithm to favor videos from mainstream media outlets.749
They added internal tags on certain channels deeming them “authoritative sources,” and overnight the top search results for most things were now videos from channels like CNN, NBC, Entertainment Tonight, etc. Most of these videos have only a tiny fraction of the views (and watch time) compared to countless other videos about the subject being searched for, but those videos are now buried under pages of content from channels that YouTube has deemed “authoritative” sources.750
They had manually intervened in the search results previously, but only for certain topics they deemed “extremist” material, like videos supporting ISIS. YouTube had been redirecting search results for these topics to curated videos and playlists they had specifically chosen in order to “confront and debunk violent extremist messages.”751 But now “the Jigsaw Method” as they call it, was rolled out on a massive scale and incorporated news, current events, and many other topics people regularly search for.
“We’re continuing to invest in new features and changes to YouTube search that provide authoritative results when people come to YouTube looking for news,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement.752 “So far this year we have introduced new features that promote verified news sources when a major news event happens. These sources are presented on the YouTube homepage, under ‘Breaking News,’ and featured in search results, with the label ‘Top News.’ Additionally, we’ve been rolling out algorithmic changes to YouTube search during breaking news events. There is still more work to do, but we’re making progress.”753 Soon it wasn’t just videos from mainstream media channels boosted to the top during “breaking news” events, but almost anything having to do with news at all.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes rang the alarm about YouTube’s algorithm because he didn’t like the search results for videos about the Federal Reserve.754 Mother Jones magazine joined in on the criticism, reporting, “If you search for ‘Federal Reserve’ on YouTube, one of the first videos to surface is titled ‘Century of Enslavement.’ Using archival footage and the kind of authoritative male voice heard in countless historical documentaries, the 90-minute video espouses the idea the Federal Reserve was formed in secret by powerful, often Jewish, banking families in the early 20th century, causing America to spiral into debt.”755
It continued, “The incendiary Federal Reserve video, flagged by MSNBC host Chris Hayes earlier this month, is just one of many examples of how political extremists have mastered YouTube’s algorithms and monetization structure to spread toxic ideas ranging from conspiracy theories to white supremacy. The video ‘Why Social Justice is CANCER,’ for instance, appears after searching for ‘social justice.’756 That video was from Lauren Chen (formerly known as Roaming Millennial.)757
Soon the search results for “Federal Reserve” featured only videos from mainstream media channels, and the documentary Chris Hayes called out (Century of Enslavement: The History of the Federal Reserve—which was the top search result) was nowhere to be seen. I looked all the way through page 25 of the search results and it still didn’t show up.758 Other videos critical of the Federal Reserve, including one titled “Exposing the Federal Reserve,” which is a high-quality 30-minute cartoon,759 and “The Federal Reserve Explained in 3 Minutes” also vanished.