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So I finally installed tiktok. While registering, I indicated I was male. I was immediately shown what I can only describe as "anti-feminist" videos, women winning arguments against feminists, jordan peterson interview clips, etc. I generally scroll past these videos quickly, but they got more and more frequent, I probably made it worse for liking a few bill-burr clips early on, but it certainly started very early on.
My wife is a frequent tiktok user, she likes videos you'd expect of women, crafting stuff, recipes, etc. She gets also gets ton of overtly political feminist videos. Neither of us have strong feelings towards feminism. If anything, she's to my right on the gender issues.
I hear a lot of anti-tiktok rhetoric along the lines that china is invading our privacy. I'm much more concerned about tiktok dividing the younger generations and pitting groups against each other. This is probably more algorithmic than intentional, but this effect is almost certainly worse than the privacy concerns. I know this isn't anything new, other social media apps have similar effects, but I think the effect is much stronger with tiktok. With facebook, you inherit the political environment of your friends. With reddit and twitter you can choose your own echo-chambers. With tiktok, the decision is made against your will and almost instantly.
Same for YouTube..they always recommend Jordan Peterson clips even though I seldom watch his videos. I think this puts a dent in the narrative that social media is always pro-left. I suspect the reason for this is because Jordan Peterson and non-PC political videos have a high retention rate and follow-through rate. People who watch one video are highly inclined to watch more , probably more so than other niches.
This is probably true.
It’s also the origin of complaints about an alt-right “pipeline.” You watch one Peterson meme and your recommended videos will be destroyed by FACTS and LOGIC. Never mind whether or not you actually cared about Shapiro or whoever, YouTube knows that some people are really into both, so that’s where you’re sorted, bucko.
I’m of the impression that the effect waxes and wanes based on YouTube’s current algorithm. Though it could just be trends in how much vocal notice it receives? Either way, this phenomenon applies to the left as well. “Breadtube” was explicitly created to harness similar network effects. It’s best known for Contrapoints and I think hbomberguy. People make long-form talky videos and try for algorithmic cross-pollination.
The YouTube algorithm is notoriously opaque from the end user perspective, and truly is hasn't been transparent since YouTube made the first major adjustment to it by disincentivizing clicks over watch time and website retention. Back when they were on their meteoric rise in popularity, the Paul twins were famous for directing their viewers to their brother's videos and using each other's channels to 'trick' the algorithm and they both got really famous really quickly as a result. The algorithm correctly identified that viewers who watched Jake Paul very often watched Logan Paul videos, so as soon as you click on one of their videos in your 'Recommended' tab, YouTube had already started the process of tailoring your user profile to watch videos from the other brother.
Information about how and why the YouTube algorithm was changing from 2015-2020 would be so incredibly valuable for contextualizing a lot of the social movements we've seen recently, but too bad that this is information we will probably never get publicly.
Many successful youtubers emulate this by having multiple channels even if all of them have basically the same type of content. They just advertise content on the other channel during the video and maybe with a link in description. Sometimes this secondary channel gets even more popular than the main one, so this crosspollinating definitely has some effect.
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