"Opaque algorithms with their singular purpose—“keep watching”—coupled with billions of users is a dangerous recipe
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Most RT viewers don’t set out in search of Russian propaganda. The videos that rack up the views are RT’s clickbait-y, gateway content: videos of towering tsunamis, meteors striking buildings, shark attacks, amusement park accidents, some that are years old but have comments from within an hour ago. This disaster porn is highly engaging; the videos been viewed tens of millions of times and are likely watched until the end. As a result, YouTube’s algorithm likely believes other RT content is worth suggesting to the viewers of that content—and so, quickly, an American YouTube user looking for news finds themselves watching Russia’s take on Hillary Clinton, immigration, and current events. These videos are served up in autoplay playlists alongside content from legitimate news organizations, giving RT itself increased legitimacy by association.
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The social internet is mediated by algorithms: recommendation engines, search, trending, autocomplete, and other mechanisms that predict what we want to see next."
https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-is-not-the-same-as-free-reach/
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