YouTube may be building different political realities for men and women

A new study found the platform’s recommendation algorithm steers users toward sharply different political content based on inferred gender.

[Source Image: Unsplash]

BY Chris Stokel-Walker

The persuasive power of platforms like YouTube has long been apparent. It’s why the Trump campaign, for instance, bought out the masthead ad space at the top of YouTube 20 times during the 2020 election cycle, including an audacious buyout on Election Day.

But the platform’s algorithm can also be politically persuasive. A new study published in the Cornell University repository arXiv suggests YouTube’s recommendation system actively directs male and female users into vastly different political information environments, even when their initial political interests are identical.

Researchers deployed 160 automated social bots: 80 programmed with what the researchers called........

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