Only a fraction of YouTube recommendations on Canadian political videos are relevant
YouTube’s recommendation algorithm seems to be trying to actively steer users away from political content and toward more viral or popular videos, an in-depth CBC analysis of over 20,000 recommendations shows.
Go looking for videos about Canadian politics on YouTube and you’ll find an endless supply of content. Searches for “Andrew Scheer” or “New Democratic Party” yield thousands of videos.
But when it comes to YouTube’s suggestions — curated videos automatically picked by artificial intelligence and tailored to suit a user’s preferences — it’s a different story.
While the recommendation algorithm — which has been accused of pushing content based on conspiracies and hate speech in Canada and elsewhere — seems to have cleaned up its act, Canadian political content is scarce in YouTube’s recommendations.
Jeff Yates, Roberto Rocha, Andrea Bellemare – CBC News – Oct 04, 2019.