Comments
YouTube has been branded as an “organ of radicalisation” after a report emerged on the ‘State of hate 2020’ by ‘Hope, Not Hate’ foundation. The report noted, “Anti-semitism has been increasingly adopted by supposedly non-political YouTube stars, like Pewdiepie, for shock value.”
The report also found that the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party has suspended more than 20 officials and activists, including six sitting councillors, for their Islamophobic remarks on various social media platforms.
According to the report, Britain continues to nourish the world’s most high profile, far-right activists, online. However, social media sites have not taken any action against their bigoted remarks. It also observed that the deluge of hate messages on social media remains unchecked.
Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, cited in The Guardian report, said that when she and her other fellows had established an account to search for one of the far-right groups named in the report, YouTube had automatically suggested more neo-Nazi videos to the viewers.
According to Cooper, if a YouTube user wants to see some political videos out of curiosity, YouTube directs them to content often “far more extreme.” She added that this is how the video content platform’s algorithm works. She also accused YouTube of becoming a virtual extension of “radicalisation” with no sense of accountability towards its content.
Responding to Cooper’s concerns, a YouTube spokesperson assured that the compnay has already begun reducing recommendations of what it describes as “borderline” content and videos that could misinform users in perilous ways, The Guardian reported.
The spokesperson added that the number of views on such content that pop-up on the screen as recommendations has significantly dropped by over 70 per cent in the US and the UK. He further said that YouTube has made good progress and will continue to improve this year as well.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.