TLDR if you don’t wanna watch the whole thing: Benaminute (the Youtuber here) creates a fresh YouTube account and watches all recommended shorts without skipping. They repeat this 5 times, where they change their location to a random city in the US.

Below is the number of shorts after which alt-right content was recommended. Left wing/liberal content was never recommended first.

  1. Houston: 88 shorts
  2. Chicago: 98 shorts
  3. Atlanta: 109 shorts
  4. NYC: 247 shorts
  5. San Fransisco: never (Benaminute stopped after 250 shorts)

There however, was a certain pattern to this. First, non-political shorts were recommended. After that, AI Jesus shorts started to be recommended (with either AI Jesus talking to you, or an AI narrator narrating verses from the Bible). After this, non-political shorts by alt-right personalities (Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, etc.) started to be recommended. Finally, explicitly alt-right shorts started to be recommended.

What I personally found both disturbing and kinda hilarious was in the case of Chicago. The non-political content in the beginning was a lot of Gen Alpha brainrot. Benaminute said that this seemed to be the norm for Chicago, as they had observed this in another similar experiment (which dealt with long-form content instead of shorts). After some shorts, there came a short where AI Gru (the main character from Despicable Me) was telling you to vote for Trump. He was going on about how voting for “Kamilia” would lose you “10000 rizz”, and how voting for Trump would get you “1 million rizz”.

In the end, Benaminute along with Miniminuteman propose a hypothesis trying to explain this phenomenon. They propose that alt-right content might be inciting more emotion, thus ranking high up in the algorithm. They say the algorithm isn’t necessarily left wing or right wing, but that alt-right wingers have understood the methodology of how to capture and grow their audience better.

  • Zoot@reddthat.com
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    3 days ago

    Just anecdotal but I only ever watch duck videos or funny animal videos with occasional other funnies or crazy science things, and that’s still all I ever get. Other days I get plenty of cool music like tesla coils making music or other piano music.

    Am I youtubing wrong?

    • UraniumBlazer@lemm.eeOP
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      2 days ago

      Nah good for you. Maybe it’s because of your geographical location/you just being lucky? I have experienced what the video above says quite a lot though.

      I’m not American, so I didn’t exactly see a lot of Trump (although there was some amount of it). I largely saw a lot of Hindu nationalist content (cuz of my geographical location). The more I disliked the videos, the more they got recommended to me. It was absolutely pathetic.

  • gmtom@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    So you’re saying we need to start pumping out low quality left wing brainrot?

    • eronth@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Insanely, that seems to be the play. Not logic or reason, but brainrot and low blows. Which is a bit at odds with the actual desire.

      • xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 days ago

        fight fire with fire i guess….
        maybe people get on board quicker if they feel the emotions first, and then learn the logic….
        one good example is Noam Chompsky: every thing is says is gold, but he says it so slow and dispassionately even people who agree with him find it hard to watch.

    • sudo@programming.dev
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      6 days ago

      It only must be extremely simplified and evoke emotional reactions. That’s just basic propaganda rules. The brainrot quality of the content is a consequence of the sheer quantity of the content. You can’t make that volume of content and without making fully automated ai slop.

      What the experiment overlooks is that there are PR companies being paid to flood YouTube with rightwing content and are actively trying to game its algorithm. There simply isn’t a left-wing with the capital to manufacture that much content. No soros-bucks for ai minions in keffiyehs talking about medicare.

  • Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    There’s a firefox extension to hide short and another to default to your subscription. Along with ublock, those are the only things that makes youtube usable.

    • Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      5 days ago

      That doesn’t fix the out-of-the-box experience of the platform for millions, if not billions of people. Yes it’s a good step to take individually, but insufficient to deal with the broader issue raised of latent alt-right propagandizing

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I found youtube shorts very annoying, because I have an attention span and can focus on something for more than 30 seconds. But if you right-click the three dots on a few Shorts sections and click Not Interested, youtube gets the hint and stops offering them to you. Win-win!

    • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      It doesn’t seem to work for me, I also keep reporting ads and blocking ads, and they keep serving them up to me. So I have decided to disable YouTube on my phone.

      • Zron@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        I can no longer report ads on my phone.

        I kept reporting ads that were obvious scams(buy my book to get rich, this thing will make your PP hard and your girl squirt like a fountain, etc)

        Now I don’t get the three dots on ads.

        So I guess YouTube likes the scam ads?

        Do YouTubers like having AI narrated dick pill ads in front of their videos?

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Interesting, I just scrolled through 10 or 15 pages of my youtube feed and there wasn’t a Short to be found. Maybe it takes some time to happen, I forget. Or you might have to click Not Interested more if you’ve already watched a lot of Shorts - I had only watched like 3. and they were accidental.

    • Chessmasterrex@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      I do that but every 30 days the short videos come back and then I have to click on the dots again. It’s not difficult but it’s kind of a dirty trick by YouTube. I look forward to something like peertube reaching critical mass. If YouTube continues to abuse their users, gets too spammy, gets too expensive with the paid tier, I think people will jump ship. Peertube isn’t ready for prime time yet.

    • tjt5754@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      The problem is when channels you subscribe to pump out shorts. I use the Subscriptions page a lot and it has more and more become flooded with junk shorts that I don’t care about and don’t want to watch on my TV.

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        Valid point but I would rather miss shorts from channels I subscribe to than see blurbs for all the endless others.

  • WrenFeathers@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Same happened to me (live in WA) but not only do I get pro-tyranny ads and Broprah (Rogan) shorts, I also get antivax propaganda.

    I always use the “show less of this” option or outright remove it from my feed. Seems better now.

      • WrenFeathers@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        True, but the comparison lies more in the fact that- according to her fanbase, she can seemingly do no wrong. They gobble up anything she says like a nest of hungry baby birds.

        I see Rogan’s army of dudebros as being no different, only less intelligent.

    • phx@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      Not really surprising that short video clips would be used to target people with lower critical-thinking skills and attention spans

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Does this mean youtube preferentially selects alt-right shorts, or alt-right people make more shorts? Or some other thing entirely? Jump to your own conclusion.

    • RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 days ago

      YouTube selects what gives YouTube the most views for the longest time. If that’s right wing shorts, they don’t care.

  • labbbb2@thelemmy.club
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    5 days ago

    I have encountered this too. Around 2 months ago I visited YouTube to watch some video, rejected all cookies and there were “woke” videos everywhere in recommendations. I used it without an account.

  • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    I have to get 2 extensions to make youtube better in order to block shorts, disable autoplay, make UI better, and bring youtube dislike button back. This is excluding ublock origin by the way, so I guess 3 or so

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I like Youtube (with adblocker) but shorts are pretty trashy. It’s mostly shorts of women as naked as they can get on Youtube without breaking the rules who have purposefully given themselves super camel toes and set the thumbnail for the short to show their camel toe to get people’s attention. And it’s just a front to get you to their OnlyFans.

    • drapermache@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Strange, I don’t get anything risque, just tech videos and some improv comedy. I still don’t like shorts though. I’m highly tempted to use revanced to take out the shorts section.

    • SGG@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      I never see anything like that, my recommendations are all tech, game, or stories from Reddit/etc being read. For that last one I just skip the ai generated voices and try to find people actually doing the reading. Make good background noise.

      I wouldn’t be against a bit of soft core porn like you describe, but I go to other sites for that

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      7 days ago

      I’ve ditched their algorithm, but I’m not going back to a text only internet. It’s so much more helpful to listen while I drive or follow along with someone’s screen.

      I’d like to see the creators get out of youtube and make more money but I can’t say I like patreon much either.

      Would be cool to tie fedeverse into non-profit monetization.

  • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    I think the explanation might be even simpler - right wing content is the lowest common denominator, and mindlessly watching every recommended short drives you downward in quality.

    • Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works
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      8 days ago

      I was gonna say this. There’s very little liberal or left leaning media being made and what there is is mostly made for a female or LGBTQ audience. Not saying that men cannot watch those but there’s not a lot of “testosterone” infused content with a liberal leaning, one of the reasons Trump won was this, so by sheer volume you’re bound to see more right leaning content. Especially if you are a cisgender male.

      Been considering creating content myself to at least stem the tide a little.

      • BassTurd@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        I think some of it is liberal media is more artsy and creative, which is more difficult to just pump out. Creation if a lot more difficult than destruction.

        • Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works
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          8 days ago

          Not necessarily. For example a lot of “manosphere” guys have taken a hold of philosophy,health and fitness topics, a liberal influencer can give a liberal view on these subjects. For example in philosophy, explain how Nietzsche was not just saying that you can do whatever the fuck you want, or how stoicism is actually a philosophy of tolerance not of superiority etc. there’s really a lot of space that can be covered.

        • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          Plus fact based videos require research, sourcing and editing.

          Emotional fiction only takes as long to create as a daydream.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          7 days ago

          Creation if a lot more difficult than destruction.

          Yup. A lesson that I fear we will be learning over and over and over in the coming years.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        8 days ago

        Really? As someone who dislikeds both mainstream extremes (I consider myself libertarian), I see a lot more left-leaning content than right-leaning content. I wouldn’t be surprised if >75% of the content I watch comes from a left-leaning creator, nor because I seek it out, but because young people into tech tend to lean left, and I’m into tech.

    • credo@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      I refuse to watch those shit shorts; I think your theory has legs. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a way to turn them off.

    • jimmy90@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      yeah i created a new youtube account in a container once and just watched all the popular/drama suggestions. that account turned into a shitstorm immediately

      these days i curate my youtube accounts making liberal use of Not interested/Do not recommend channel/Editing my history and even test watching in a container before watching it on my curated account

      this is just how “the algorithm” works. shovel more of what you watch in your face.

      the fact that they initially will give you right-wing, conspiracy fueled, populist, trash right off the bat is the concern

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        7 days ago

        Man that seems like a lot of work just to preserve a shitty logarithm that clearly isn’t working for you… Just get a third party app and watch without logging in

        • jimmy90@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          oddly enough it seems to be working, if i don’t login at all youtube just offers up the usual dross

          • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            6 days ago

            Oh no, I only watch videos from channels I subscribe to. Just not through YouTube. It’s very easy.

        • Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Was it a conspiracy in 2016? Was it a conspiracy that elon bought x to control the narrative? Was it a conspiracy that TikTok has avoided shutdown by glazing trump? Was it a conspiracy when zuck just changed the way they did moderation on Facebook and then showed up at trumps inauguration?

          Youtube cucks are the worst.