On HuffPost’s Layoffs - "Many of these news operations simply are not financially viable. They don’t bring in enough money to sustain their expenses. Indeed, many of them – way more than you’ve been led to believe – were never financially viable. They were floated on on-going infusions of new investment money chasing big payoffs that were probably always illusory. Then they hit the brick wall of the rapid consolidation and automation-driven price declines in the ad industry. Indeed, whole territories in the firmament of digital news media were simply based on lies"
Jon Cooper on Twitter - "I decided to #BoycottCNN as soon as the network began its shift to the right. It was a tough decision, since I’ve been a devout @CNN viewer since I was in my 20s. If I wanted to watch right-wing propaganda, I’d watch Fox. So for now, it’s ONLY @MSNBC for me."
To the left, anything that is outside the far left is unacceptable. Being exposed to anything outside their echo chamber is "harm"
Facebook - "Larry Elder had his campaign visit to a Venice homeless camp cut short on Wednesday after a woman in a pink gorilla mask threw an egg at him that narrowly missed his head. According to the Los Angeles Times, Elder spent roughly 12 minutes in the neighborhood before exiting in an SUV. Elder and his campaign team were confronted by a number of homeless people and advocates who said he “has no business down here.” He tweeted on Wednesday evening that his "security detail was physically assaulted, shot with a pellet gun and hit with projectiles." Elder, a conservative talk show host, is one of 46 recall candidates on the ballot for next week’s election that will determine if Gavin Newsom will be replaced as the governor of California. While the video featuring the egg-throwing incident was watched more than 3.5 million times, the vast majority of left-rated and center-rated outlets did not cover the news. Many right-rated voices pointed to the lack of coverage from left-rated outlets, highlighting how the attack would have been "with good reason dubbed racist" if Elder was a Democrat."
Transparency Troubles: How the Associated Press Mixes News and Subjectivity - "The Associated Press (AP), widely considered to be a worldwide leader in journalism, describes itself as the “most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news.” This suggests the site is strictly dedicated to news — but it isn’t. Recently, the AP has mixed subjective, analysis-based content in with its hard news reporting. And while this content is sometimes distinguished by an “Analysis” label, other times it’s not. Last week, the AP’s article mentioning First Lady Melania Trump’s Republican National Convention (RNC) speech was rife with examples of subjective analysis also bordering on opinion. But this article lacked an “analysis” label and was shown alongside the rest of the AP’s news content. In the article, the authors break down everything from the tone of the RNC (calling it “dark” and “ominous,” which is sensationalist language, and is a subjective judgement), to President Trump’s poll numbers, to Melania Trump’s history, to other RNC speakers. In one instance, the writers offer a subjective interpretation of Trump’s campaign messages... Inconsistent or misused labels do more harm than good — especially when people are coming to the AP expecting balanced news coverage. Media bias is not exclusive to the AP; AllSides rates the bias of over 800 publications and sources throughout the political spectrum. However, AllSides reviews have consistently found AP to inject subjective statements and opinions in what’s portrayed as news coverage. AllSides has found news content from other prominent outlets on both sides — the left-rated Washington Post and right-rated Fox News, as examples — to show bias in elements like photo choice and bias by omission, but not as much for mixing overtly subjective writing into news reporting when compared to the AP."
The only media you're allowed to criticise are right wing media. Lots of liberals imagine a right wing bias is synonymous with unreliability, but when I point to left wing biases they usually keep quiet (which at least is somewhat more respectable than doubling down, which sometimes happens)
AllSides Moves AP Politics to Lean Left - "After months of research and analysis, including blind bias surveys conducted with nearly 4,000 people across the political spectrum as well as AllSides editorial reviews, AllSides found Associated Press news coverage of US politics has a Lean Left bias. AllSides now rates AP’s Politics and Fact Check sections as Lean Left. We separately rate AP News — its coverage of general news and world events — as Center... We are somewhat saddened to report this because AP has long been considered a gold standard of traditional journalistic ideals of balance, fairness, objectivity and integrity... Note that Center doesn’t mean better than a left or right-rated source. News sources with left or right bias play an important part in our national dialogue and media landscape, and they often highlight important news, issues, and perspectives that center sources miss. Bias is natural; hidden bias misleads and divides us. That’s why we work to make media bias easy to spot and transparent — so that people can consume a diverse news diet, properly understand what is going on, find the truth, and decide for themselves. But since AP specifically strives to be fair and unbiased, and influences the entire world of journalism with its standards and news reports, there is cause for concern when it displays an overall bias or agenda in any political direction... Blind bias surveys are excellent for getting an accurate review from participants because they hide the publisher’s name and brand. Participants only see the content, not the publisher"
How AllSides Media Bias Ratings™ Have Changed Over Time - "from 2017 to 2021, CNN’s online news bias (we don’t rate broadcast or TV content) shifted significantly, from Center, to Lean Left, to Left... USA Today is another example of a media outlet that has undergone a shift in its AllSides Media Bias Rating. While USA Today was Center for many years, we shifted it to Lean Left this summer. That’s because USA Today was rated Lean Left by people across the political spectrum in an April/May 2021 Blind Bias Survey and during a July 2021 Editorial Review by the AllSides team. Other examples of media outlets that have gone farther left over the years include ProPublica, The Daily Beast, Slate, Vox, Bloomberg and Politico... others have moved toward the center, including Independent Journal Review, Marketwatch, and Newsweek. The Epoch Times’ rating was also shifted from Right to Lean Right, after a Blind Bias Survey returned a rating between Center and Lean Right, though closer to Center, and an Editorial Review returned a Lean Right rating. AllSides uses multiple methods to rate bias, including Editorial Reviews, Blind Bias Surveys, third party data, independent research, and community feedback. Any time we shift a bias rating, it’s because the outlet has undergone one or more of these methods of review. Of course, our ratings are not “accurate” and never can be — bias is largely subjective and in the eye of the beholder... the AllSides Bias Ratings™ system and patent is specifically designed to reflect the average judgment of all Americans, not just any single group, such as journalists, academics, or the company assigning the ratings. We believe this system makes our ratings the most trustworthy and credible available today. But for someone who is on the far left, the center may seem far right; for someone who is far right, the center may seem to be far left. You may disagree with some of our ratings — that's okay! Use our ratings as additional input to form your own judgement. You can also click on the ratings on our site and on our media bias ratings page to tell us what you think the rating should be. We review this feedback and often do additional analysis if lots of people disagree with a rating. Why does the bias of a media outlet change over time? It can be due to many factors: a change in the outlet’s ownership, a change in editorial staff, or a change in journalists. Sometimes it’s because of shifts in the broader political landscape. For instance, AllSides found that Fox News was more Lean Right during the Trump administration, but shifted to Right after the election of President Biden, and possibly as the result of Fox News firing 16 digital editors from its Digital department in Jan. 2021 (this is pure speculation, but it does stand to reason that a change in staff could affect content). Similarly, we’ve found some media outlets were more sensationalist during the Trump administration, but have since toned down their word choice (though perhaps not enough to change their bias rating)."
Meme - "JOURNALISTS IN MEXICO
I EXPOSED THE GOVERNMENT'S SCHEMES WITH THE CARTEL AND NOW MY DAYS ARE NUMBERED
JOURNALISTS IN USA
I COPY AND PASTE TWEETS THAT OFFEND PEOPLE INCLUDING ME"
WaPo: SCOTUS Nominee Brett Kavanaugh Had Credit Card Debt, Paid It Off - "The left-leaning press revealed its next angle of attack on Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh Wednesday with a Washington Post deep dive into his finances. The paydirt: In 2016, he had between $60,000 and $200,000 of debt, then he paid it off in 2017... A 2017 Experian report found that the average American household has $24,706 in debt without including mortgages. A Money magazine analysis of Federal Reserve numbers from 2016, however, when looking more narrowly at only Americans in Judge Kavanaugh’s age group of 45-54 who do take on debt, found an average non-mortgage, non-home loan debt of over $200,000... Much of the Washington Post piece is devoted to emphasizing that, if confirmed, Kavanaugh may be the least wealthy member of the Supreme Court... Unlike most of the current Justices, Kavanaugh has spent his entire career in public service and did not spend time in lucrative private practice, nor did he work as a full-tenured law professor, nor marry a wealthy spouse."
Sandmann lawyer joins Rittenhouse team, says Zuckerberg a 'top' target of numerous 'solid' lawsuits - "The lawyer who represented Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann during his defamation cases has joined Kyle Rittenhouse’s legal team, and says there will be "at least 10" defamation lawsuits against prominent figures and companies for comments against the teenager. "I’ve been hired to head the effort to determine whom to sue, when to sue, where to sue," Todd McMurtry, who now represents Rittenhouse, told Fox News Digital... Though the legal process for potential defamation cases is just beginning, McMurtry singled out Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook for a "factually false" designation on the platform that listed the Kenosha shootings as a "mass murder" incident. The designation resulted in Rittenhouse’s social media accounts being pulled down and restricting positive comments about the teenager... "To call somebody a mass murderer is seriously defamatory. And then to use the power of social media to basically … censor any views that would take opposition to that mass murderer statement is a serious effort to destroy his character. And it was seriously mistaken and seriously defamatory." Outrage erupted after Facebook and Instagram designated the shooting during the Kenohsa riot a "mass murder incident" before a trial or verdict, with the Wall Street Journal's editorial board arguing in 2020 that such a designation hurt the teenager's shot at due process and called the move an "alarming resort to censorship."... McMurtry said he didn’t want to "necessarily tie the cases together," but pointed out similarities between Sandmann and Rittenhouse, as both were minors during the incidents and were "were falsely wrongfully condemned by the media and social media."... As for proving damages, McMurtry told Fox News Digital he knows "for a fact that [Rittenhouse] can prove that his job prospects are permanently diminished." "Not to mention what they call perpetual reputational harm, which means that Kyle is never going to have an interaction with anybody where they don't know who he is. And this is going to follow him around for the rest of his life." "Everybody's going to prejudge him in every new interaction that he has with everybody for the rest of his life, and that's called perpetual reputational harm. … The social media hysteria caused all this because people can't act reasonably and rationally in certain circumstances""
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle brands Elon Musk ‘a bully’ after Twitter exchange - "MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle blasted tech mogul Elon Musk after he posted a meme online making fun of the president’s son Hunter Biden. Musk posted the meme on Wednesday referencing Hunter Biden’s history of reported drug use and other illegal activities. “Imagine the positive impact you could have on the world if you used the extraordinary amount of influence and power you have to spread decency, kindness and positivity?” Ruhle, who hosts a late-night show on MSNBC on weeknights, replied to Musk’s tweet. “Imagine if MSNBC did that,” Musk responded... “It baffles me that a man literally on top of the world would waste time punching down”"
The media cannot be criticised
Apparently the media and/or Hunter Biden and/or a top journalist are powerless
Mirror of exchange
Over Half of U.S. Journalists Don’t Believe Both Sides Deserve Equal Coverage - "Younger journalists and those who say their outlet has a left-leaning audience are most likely to say equal coverage is not always warranted... 76% of U.S. adults think that journalists should always strive to give every side equal coverage, compared to 44% of journalists... A separate survey found that of 46 countries around the world, the U.S. ranks dead last in news trust, with just 26% saying they trust the news most of the time, according to a Reuters Institute Digital News report. Could this be because some readers do not see their views given a fair shake in the press?... journalists who are worried about misinformation are more likely to say that not every side deserves equal coverage. The idea that some perspectives don’t deserve to be covered because they are “wrong” or “bad” can lead to one-sided, biased news, in which perspectives the journalist does not agree with are omitted. This is why we created the AllSides balanced newsfeed, which allows you to get a broader view and see if a media outlet is not covering a certain angle... just because a view is on the fringes doesn’t necessarily mean it is wrong or unworthy of being heard and explored — consider that the idea that cigarettes and sugar were bad for your health used to be fringe views... In most quality journalism schools, students historically have been taught to see themselves as neutral observers — people whose job it is to objectively describe what both sides are saying, to explore issues in depth, and to let the reader issue a judgment call for themselves. They are taught to strive for balance, and are typically taught not to see themselves as being in the role of arbiter. But with a lack of proper training and emphasis on this — either from professors or editors — many journalists omit voices they think are “bad” or “harmful,” even if those perspectives are common or shared by many. This amounts to advocacy journalism or even propaganda, in which the journalist is trying to convince you of one side... imagine if voices arguing that black people should be allowed to eat at restaurants were never heard. We’d be living in a very different society today. Journalists will always have a tough job, and humility is required. Journalists must recognize that their own judgment may not always be the right one or shared by all, and that other views ought to be explored. While society engages in debate about key issues, readers need to be able to see all sides of an issue so that they can make judgment calls for themselves. This is why AllSides believes our mission of getting people out of their filter bubbles ultimately improves our democratic society — democracies cannot function without a free flow of information that gives multiple perspectives"
They get around that by claiming that one side is wrong
This seems to have started with climate change, when the liberals proclaimed the both sides rule of thumb could be done away with. So much for the "myth" of the slippery slope. Principles exist for a reason and we violate them at our peril
If people don't trust the media, clearly there's a problem with the people and those who criticise the media. The liberal media can never be criticised. But Fox News deserves to be bashed, of course
A one-source story about a 10-year-old and an abortion goes viral - The Washington Post - "This is a very difficult story to check. Bernard is on the record, but obtaining documents or other confirmation is all but impossible without details that would identify the locality where the rape occurred. With news reports around the globe and now a presidential imprimatur, however, the story has acquired the status of a “fact” no matter its provenance. If a rapist is ever charged, the fact finally would have more solid grounding."
Before they charged someone for this, it looked even more ridiculous. "Unproven" is not a rating that claims liberals approve of get
Journalist Nicki Minaj Exposed Has Been Receiving Death Threats - "Nicki Minaj exposed a journalist who was harassing her family for an interview over comments she made on social media about the COVID-19 vaccine causing alarming side effects. On her Instagram story, she posted screenshots of a text thread between her family member and a reporter who claimed to be from Guardian Media named Sharlene Rampersad. In the thread, Rampersad was asking for an interview to discuss what Minaj had said about how a friend of her family member struggled with impotency and swollen testicles after being vaccinated. Rampersad was being warm at first when requesting an interview with the friend but when she didn’t get a response, she sent threatening messages. “But just letting you know, CNN is in the country looking for you,” Rampersad wrote. “And when they find you, they won’t hesitate to reveal where you live or where your gf lives…anything and anyone who is tied to you. If you speak to me, we won’t reveal those details. So what do you say?”"
Nicki Minaj threatens journalists and posts their personal details online amid vaccine controversy - "Singer Nicki Minaj has posted the personal details of journalists who attempted to contact the source of her controversial Covid vaccine views on social media. The targets of her ire were Sharlene Rampersad, who works for Trinidad’s Guardian Media Limited, and Daily Mail reporter James Fielding... “At Guardian Media Ltd. we denounce intimidation of journalists in any form ... the use of aggression on social media to intimidate can have adverse physical and psychological effects on people. As a responsible media house, we encourage others to stand up against this type of behaviour as we can all make a difference in addressing this global challenge posed by the pervasive nature of social media.”"
Liberal logic: when a leftist journalist threatens to dox you, exposing her threats means you're the bad guy
Perma Banned - Posts | Facebook - "I could hardly give a fuck about Nicki Minaj - but the way Murican MSM behave as if they're some kind of Stasi/Gestapoo really drags me into some trippy places. Its funny actually, Guardian and CNN initiate a shitshow by trying to pull that CNNBlackmail shit again, (because god forbid her opinion is offensive) thinking they'll get away with it. Lets just say when Nicki doxxed said CNN "Journalists" to her 100+million rabid fans (Kpop stan-tier rabid), as abhorrent the concept of doxxing is, my sympathy for the Journos is...substantially tempered. Simply because, they set the playing field, they wanted to play dirty. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes as they say. They started it by bringing a person's family members and personal life into it. Just like how CNN harassed a doctor's home and business for having opinions on Vitamin D. Oh yeah, of course MSMs are trying to spin is off as her starting it, not the actual fact that she was the one who had her family threatened in the first place. In other words...lying to protect their ilk as if they’re just blameless victims. Mmhmm, a-ok when they're doing the doxxing and the blackmailing, but when god forbid someone actually decides to punch back...oooh suddenly its an atrocity! Journos in Murica and the West rn are no different from gangsters."
Lawrence King on Twitter - "People will "unfollow" a friend for having a different opinion But they wont "unfollow" the news + mainstream media for constantly fabricating anger and stress in their life that they can live without"
Lack of media scrutiny of Biden a glaring issue - "On the other hand, the same media that has been questioning and investigating Trump and his family for four years, including pushing baseless allegations regarding Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluding with the Russian government, is now treating President-elect Joe Biden like a fragile crystal vase. During the presidential election campaign, the unbalanced coverage of Trump and his challenger was breathtaking and unprecedented."
We need to be more honest in our reporting on Biden | Financial Times - "these “fact-checking” articles, such as this one in AP, were widely shared on Twitter as proof of yet more “fake news” by the Trump campaign and the media that support him... whatever you think Biden was meaning to say, to call the idea that he was accidentally referencing George Bush “fake news” and instead to assert so confidently that Biden was in fact referencing George Lopez seems a bit off. Unless Hodges has some sort of superhuman ability to see into Biden’s mind, how can he possibly state this with such certainty? And anyway, again, why would this have been any better? There was also the suggestion that Biden wasn’t actually getting in a muddle at all, but instead had suddenly interrupted himself midway through his sentence to speak directly to George Lopez, which, having watched the clip several times, seems to us like an even less convincing idea... The fact is, none of us know who Joe Biden was referring to when he said George (maybe not even Biden himself — how many of us are completely aware of what our brains were doing when we fluff something up?). And we’re not sure it matters anyway. What we do think matters, however, is that there seems to be an instinct across the Trump-disliking media to push back against negative news about Biden — whether the journalists believe it’s true or not — because it might be damaging to Biden’s chances of winning the election. We saw the same instinct after the first TV debate between Trump and Biden. Much of the media declared it had proven that Biden had not lost any of his mental acuity, and chalked up all of his stumbles to his stutter (which he has suffered from his whole life). Whereas we thought it had proven almost the opposite: that the former vice-president’s mental faculties had noticeably suffered in the years since he was in office (which is not that surprising; he is almost 78 after all). If you compare Biden’s performance with footage of him debating in 2012 or 2008, the difference is stark (though we felt he performed slightly better in the last debate)... there is a difference between being selective in what you publish, and actively misrepresenting reality. The short-term effects of that strategy might be effective, but over the long term, it will chip away further at trust in the media. America’s mainstream media might be doing everything they can to get rid of a dangerous president. But in so doing, they are setting a dangerous precedent"
Media Response to Biden Win Is Concerning for Journalism Future - "Biden is no Trump, but for the preservation of our democracy, the press can't play favorites in any case. I saw enough following the election to know that, if we stay the course, journalism is heading down a far more perilous path than any taken during Trump's tenure. The fourth estate needs to correct itself... The second course of action needed, and arguably the most important, is increasing the diversity of perspectives journalism permits. Facilitating public discourse is the immense responsibility that the media takes on when they choose what stories to tell and decide whose opinions to include. More than ever before, it is imperative that the media allow for varied and, when necessary, challenging opinions that invigorate staled discussion. Personally, I've felt this reluctance to include varied perspectives more and more acutely as a young writer trying to break into the élite and closed-off world of journalism. The most memorable exchange I've had with an editor was when he told me he'd only accept commentary from an "actual expert" — not some amateur who had a few interviews. In frustration and absolute indignation, I burned the bridge, in so many words... High-profile departures from major news companies have sparked conversations about the press' role in the parallel universes Americans find themselves in. Debates over the nature of journalism and of balancing a menagerie of perspectives in the newsroom have spilled out from the cutting-room and into the public eye. Bari Weiss, previously an opinion editor and writer at The New York Times, resigned in July. Her resignation letter, which she published online, featured almost 1,500 words of criticism and contempt for what she called an "illiberal environment." Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept, resigned in October over the "same trends of repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity" that pervade the national press. Andrew Sullivan, a widely-read and consistently-controversial former columnist for New York Magazine, announced his departure from the magazine in the same vein. While I often find myself at odds with each of these three on particulars, I can't help but call attention to the larger trend. Divergent ideologies don't feel welcome in mainstream media anymore."
The Media Had 4 Years to Figure Out Trump Voters. They Blew It. - "A healthy media might have learned from its mistakes, engaged in soul-searching, and tried to gain some insights into the working-class coalition that Trump had assembled. Clearly, this didn't happen, because four years later—in the midst of a nail-bitingly close election—the predictions of the pundit class have proven to be no more accurate than they were in 2016. In fact, by some measures the experts performed even worse than last time: The pre-election polls, which suggested a landslide Biden victory, Democratic control of the Senate, and gains in the House, are so spectacularly wrong it calls the validity of the profession into doubt... Once again, Trump is more popular than the media thought was possible. Perhaps more importantly, the media continues to be wrong about why Trump is popular, and about which people like him. Unable to admit that a Democratic Party held hostage by liberal arts graduates who write their preferred pronouns on their name tags might be out of touch with the working class voters who traditionally vote blue, many cable news talking heads settled on any number of alternative explanations: from Russian interference to lingering, perhaps resurgent, racism throughout the U.S. (CNN's Van Jones called it a "whitelash" in 2016.) Trump, though appears to have improved—albeit modestly—his totals with minority voters, including and especially Latino voters. The narrative that Trump's divisive rhetoric about foreigners and immigrants renders him completely toxic to minority voters just doesn't match the reality. Indeed, the results thus far suggested that the racial gap—at least for Latinos—is shrinking, and class and educational attainment are becoming more salient considerations than race... Institutions like The New York Times and The Atlantic have grown much more squeamish about inviting dissenters into their midst. Publications are now occasionally beholden to staffers who think it's the job of journalists to run interference for the Democratic Party and hide stories from readers if they could conceivably help Trump. Many young rising stars in the world of investigative reporting think newsrooms have wrongly prioritized objectivity and should move toward a kind of "moral clarity" that is likely to make their institutions even more confused about why millions of people—roughly half the country—have aligned themselves with Donald Trump. As independent thinkers exit the mainstream media, groupthink and blind spots among the legacy press are likely to get worse. The result would be a travesty, and not an outcome anyone should want or root for."
USA Today reporter Gabriela Miranda fabricated sources for 23 articles - "The journalist who is said to have used the fabricated sources was identified as Gabriela Miranda"
Liberals will continue to pretend that only Fox News and the Daily Mail cannot be trusted
Joy Reid's Ratings Tank As Rumors Swirl She Could Be Gone From MSNBC: Report - "Greg Gutfeld poked fun at Reid by saying MSNBC was too “terrified” to ever fire her. Gutfeld argued that Reid’s “scam” was to call everyone around her “racist” and that she had executed her plan so well that MSNBC was probably too scared to let her go because she would call them racists, too. “The ghouls saying Musk is pro-hate speech, always fling the hate first. lesson: they can call you an evil racist; but fight back? thats labeled hate speech. How joy reid remains employed is a tribute to her boss’s cowardice”... Reid has made a slew of outrageous comments, but one could argue she’s made a few defamatory comments about Kyle Rittenhouse. After a jury found him not guilty on all five counts, Reid argued Rittenhouse’s acquittal has a historic precedent that goes back to the days of slavery... “The next chapter in the Kyle Rittenhouse story are likely multiple defamation lawsuits against not only several media outlets but also MSNBC in particular and a host named Joy Reid, who we had the pleasure of hearing.” “As for Mrs. Reid and multiple contributors calling Rittenhouse a racist, a white supremacist and, most importantly, guilty until proven innocent… I have got four words for you: ‘Covington Catholic Nicholas Sandmann’ – who sued CNN for what, $275 million, and forced them to settle”"
Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "Yesterday was one of those days that further lowered my opinion of the new media. In a nothing story, Kyle Rittenhouse said he was “going to be going [to Texas A&M]”. He didn’t say when he planned to start attending school there or even whether he had applied; it was just a comment on his future plans. When the school was contacted they said he hadn’t applied yet. The media then framed this as a Rittenhouse “lie”, that this was “refuted”, and “the university begs to differ”. Apparently, Rittenhouse is the first teenager in the country to announce what college they were going to go to without first applying and being accepted. The current acceptance rate for Texas A&M, a public college, is 63%."
Tim Pool on Twitter - "Several op-eds claimed that Youtube was radicalizing people Journalists jumped on this narrative without evidence Two academic papers have come out providing evidence to the contrary Journalists are calling it fake and telling people not to report on their findings."
Another study debunks the media's "YouTube radicalization" theory - "in 2019, the New York Times decided to try arguing the case of YouTube actually being a bastion of alt-right ideology – by publishing an article authored by Kevin Roose, featuring a liberal college dropout who claimed YouTube’s recommendations tab was “a vortex of far-right politics” that was responsible for turning him into a “alt-right radical.”... it was enough to prompt a media narrative about YouTube’s alleged role as some kind of “algorithmic champion” of ideology – but now the study carried out by Ledwich and Zaitsev – based on more than 760 political channels on YouTube across the ideological landscape, and more than 23 million recommendations for 675,000 videos uploaded since 2018 – found no evidence of this. Similar data has found the same... YouTube’s late 2019 algorithm is “not a radicalization pipeline (…) in fact it removes almost all recommendations for conspiracy theorists, provocateurs and white identitarians; benefits mainstream partisan channels such as Fox News and Last Week Tonight; disadvantages almost everyone else.”"
Algorithmic Radicalization — The Making of a New York Times Myth | by Mark Ledwich | Medium - "An opinion piece for the New York Times went so far as to call YouTube, “one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century.” What makes this story easy to believe is our own experience of YouTube’s recommendations. We are shown a wider spectrum of content than traditional media — the wildest of which we are more likely to remember and mention. A study I recently conducted with Anna Zaitsev (a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley) uses a rigorous methodology to classify channels into ideological groupings. We use this large dataset on recommendations to shed light on the most widely held claims about algorithmic radicalization. Three reviewers manually collected 760+ political channels and watched hours of content to classify them as left/center/right and give them soft tags (e.g. MRA, libertarian, anti-SJW). Our system collected 23M+ recommendations since November for 657K videos created since 2018... the algorithm encourages filter bubbles, especially for partisans... Some groups are clearly advantaged; 14.6M more recommendations were from Centre/Left MSM videos towards Partisan Left than the other way. When it comes to more fringe groups, the recommendations always flow away from them... Contrary to the narrative promoted by the New York Times, the data suggests that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm actively discourages viewers from visiting content that one could categorize as radicalizing or otherwise questionable. This chimes with what YouTube themselves have said... Curiously, just as Caleb Cain was radicalized by far-right videos, he was also then de-radicalized by left-wing ones. Over time, he had “successfully climbed out of a right-wing YouTube rabbit hole, only to jump into a left-wing YouTube rabbit hole.”... In his own way, Caleb defines what the left-leaning legacy media sees as the archetypal actor in our mediatized, post-truth era: Someone who completely lacks all critical thinking, consumes an endless stream of online information, and dogmatically believes any political position they are told. It's hard not to notice how this meme is symmetrical to the NPC meme created by the online-right. NPC stands for “non-player character” and is someone who has no agency, blindly believing left-wing media propaganda. Penn State political scientists Joseph Philips and Kevin Munger describe this as the “Zombie Bite” model of YouTube radicalization, which treats users who watch radical content as “infected,” and that this infection spreads. As they see it, the only reason this theory has any weight is that “it implies an obvious policy solution, one which is flattering to the journalists and academics studying the phenomenon.”... Writers in old media frequently misrepresent YouTube’s algorithm and fail to acknowledge that recommendations are only one of many factors determining what people watch and how they wrestle with the new information they consume. I believe their fixation with algorithms and tech comes from subconsciously self-serving motives, a mechanical understanding of radicalization and a condescending attitude towards the public. It works like this: If only YouTube would change their recommendation algorithm, the alternative media, the racists, cranks and conspiracy theorists, would diminish in power and we would regain our place as the authoritative gatekeepers of knowledge. Old media’s war on decentralized media is not limited to misinformation about YouTube’s algorithm. I believe this motivation partially explains why this wild piece against free speech and this hit piece on Cenk Ugur found their way into the paper of record."
