Stay In Your Room!

My curiosity about Google's algorithm never ends.
I'm starting to wonder if Google is dividing the web according to politics, and creating echo chambers of like thinking people, while preventing any cross pollination of ideas; so that nobody's mind will be changed through their coming across opposing opinions.

Like, when the Antifa guy goes to Youtube, there is a whole screen of recommended videos, with each one only affirming the world view that has been revealed as his via the videos he chooses to watch, and to like and to subscribe to.

I keep getting a stream of Fox News recommendations.

But, if I watch one Eckhart Tolle spiritual guidance video, then the recommendation area becomes repopulated with more of the same, but also a few others that are never recommended after me watching a Fox News one.

Youtube never recommends a Breibart News video; I would have to manually type that exact name into the search box to get to one. But while I'm watching it, the recommendation strip will show some totally different topics, but ones that I have, in the past been interested in, like gold prospecting, boxing, and Kentucky Derby race broadcasts.

They never recommend, for example, anything gay. If I want to watch a live stream of a Pride Parade, I would have to manually search for it. I wonder how many such videos I would have to watch in succession and like and comment and subscribe to the channel, before Youtube would start suggesting stuff from the Entertainment Tonight channel, for example.

I think the algorithm operates under the premise that no harm can come from showing people things that only reflect one side of any argument. Maybe you are a climate change denier; that's OK, they might suggest videos from other like minded "kooks," so that your beliefs will be reinforced; but at the same time will prevent all your other activity from being seen by the other side. That way nobody's beliefs will be changed.

Like, right now, if I let Youtube autoplay, I will see video after video ripping Biden over his handling of Afghanistan, while the feed to any account holder who has, say, donated to his campaign might never know that there is any dissent anywhere out there, over the guy's actions.

It' like everyone is being kept in separate rooms, so that everyone is "preaching to the choir" with any comment they might make. Only people who already agree with them will see what they write. Nobody will see anything that might make them think; or reconsider their beliefs.

You can't go into the next room and argue with the people in it.

I suspect this is true because out of a hundred comments made after, say, the above video, not one of them will say anything contrary, like "This is a bunch of B.S. fake news."

When the Antifa guy logs on, there will be no evidence on his screen that former president Trump was interviewed, if he was, for example. This may have been accomplished by his hitting the thumbs down on anything positive about the guy, or it may be baked into the algorithm.

So, I want to examine my stats surrounding the above video and see if I gain any unique visitors to this blog. Like will it become accessible to the however many million people who "also" like Greg Kelly?

I think they are doing a good job of separating everyone into the correct rooms.

Then, tomorrow, I might watch, like, comment, subscribe and share to here maybe a video of the statue of Robert Lee being torn down, and the time capsule that was under the pedestal and filled with artifacts of the late nineteenth century being replaced by BLM stickers and gay pride flags, and pictures depicting the "insurrection of January sixth."

Then I will check the stats and analyze the results.  

The mantra of "be sure to 'like' and subscribe" would be the engine that drives this. When someone who likes the same stuff I do does a search on a topic I may have written about, then they would see this blog amongst the results.