These days, I can’t help feeling that the YouTube algorithm is forever serving up far-right content for me. I don’t just mean the white supremacist far-right, but also the hard right of Muslim thought. Wherever I turn, I seem to encounter the most reactionary politics, drowning out all other voices.
It probably doesn’t help that I have history turned off and privacy prioritised, so that Google never really gets to know me well enough to serve me tailored content. Perhaps I should revise that strategy, so as to rediscover more appropriate output.
On the other hand, could it be that it is just that the hard right are most active and prolific in generating content for social media? The loud and raucous who thrive on controversy clearly have no issue pumping out content at a steady rate, regardless of need or wisdom.
Those aligned more closely with the traditional character of the middle way — the modest, humble and reserved, more mindful of “speak good or remain silent” — naturally only output content when they consider it wise and beneficial to do so. Thus do the loud voices win the day, always.
Perhaps it’s not that the algorithm is broken, only that it can only serve up what it weights as being popular. As in life and the world in general, quieter, more nuanced voices are forever drowned out by the flood of noise. That is a tragedy.
But so it is that the seeker must strive and exert their utmost in seeking out moderate voices calling to a better way. As the saying goes, “Seek and you will find.”
Last modified: 8 January 2023
