Ribeiro et al. (2020) — Auditing Radicalization Pathways on YouTube
Ribeiro, M.H., Ottoni, R., West, R., Almeida, V.A.F. & Meira Jr., W. (2020). Auditing Radicalization Pathways on YouTube. Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT). https://arxiv.org/pdf/1908.08313
What this source contributes
A large-scale audit of radicalization pathways on YouTube covering 330,925 videos across 349 channels, classified into mainstream, Alt-lite, Intellectual Dark Web, and Alt-right. The core finding is that users consistently migrate from milder to more extreme content through YouTube’s recommendation chains. Alt-lite content is easily reachable from mainstream channels, and Alt-right content is reachable through subsequent steps.
The audit method matters as much as the result. By tracing reachability between channel categories rather than surveying users, it establishes the pathway as a property of the recommendation structure rather than of any individual’s viewing choices.
Analytical function in Recommender Systems
Direct evidence for the radicalization pathway the entry describes. Supplies the step-by-step reachability finding that distinguishes gradual drift from a single jump to extreme content.
Related entries
- Recommender Systems — the recommendation chain as the route between content categories