Research finds pattern of recommending right-wing Christian videos on YouTube

YouTube’s algorithm frequently recommends Christian and right-wing videos to users who have not previously shown interest in those topics, according to new search released Tuesday.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank that studies extremism, conducted four investigations using personas with different interests to examine YouTube’s algorithm.

Despite varied interests – from gaming, male lifestyle gurus, “mommy vloggers” and Spanish-language news – religious-themed videos were shown to all accounts.

“The ubiquity of these videos in investigations, as well as the fact that almost all of the videos were related to Christianity, raises questions about why YouTube recommends such content to users and whether this is a feature of the platform’s recommendation system,” the observed report.

Accounts interested in mom vloggers and Spanish-language news received more religious content than others, which the report suggested could reflect that these groups “tend to be more interested in religion.”

The think tank’s investigation also divided the accounts interested in the mommy vlogger’s content based on political leaning, with a right-wing account watching Fox News videos and a left-leaning account watching MSNBC videos.

The right-wing account received twice as much content from Fox News as the left-wing account received content from MSNBC, despite watching news content for the same amount of time, the report found.

Fox News was also the most recommended channel by the right-wing account, while MSNBC was the third most recommended channel by the left-wing account.

“Since both accounts watched news content at the same time and this was the only variable in the content both accounts watched, this may indicate that YouTube recommended Fox News more often than MSNBC,” according to the report.

It also found that accounts interested in male lifestyle gurus such as Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson were recommended mostly right-wing or socially conservative news content, despite not having previously watched any news videos.

Fox News was the most frequently recommended news channel for these accounts, and much of this content featured former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

These accounts also received content about “culture war” issues, such as videos opposing COVID-19 mitigation efforts, advocating hateful rhetoric against trans people, and featuring culture war influencers such as Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh, it found. the report.

“We welcome research into our recommendation system, but it is difficult to draw conclusions based on test accounts created by researchers, which may not be consistent with the behavior of real people,” said YouTube spokeswoman Elena Hernandez, in a statement.

“YouTube’s recommendation system is trained to display high-quality content on the homepage, search results, and Watch Next panel to viewers of all ages across the platform,” she added. “We continue to invest significantly in policies, products and practices to protect people from harmful content, especially younger viewers.”

Updated at 12:57 pm ET.

This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story