Radicalization of Ideas Due to Echo Chamber
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-brazil.html
The article explains how Youtube played a key role in radicalizing Brazil. Jair Bolsonaro, a barely known figure in national politics, was a star in Youtube’s far-right community in Brazil. Through Youtube, which is watched more than almost any TV network in Brazil, Bolsonaro was able to become President. Youtube’s recommendation algorithm helped trend non-mainstream videos and helped spread conspiracy theories and misinformation about diseases.
This Youtube network is related to the behavior and dynamics of networks discussed in class because the actions of certain people in a network can widely impact others. It is similar to the graph of the 2004 U.S. Presidential election in Chapter 1 in which we saw that there were many more links between the same party, so it was like an echo chamber in which members of a community reinforce one another’s ideas. The Youtube recommendation network was very impactful because it linked many seemingly disparate sources such as far-right and conspiracy channels that were citing each other. And even though hearing from a few videos about some seemingly implausible rumor or conspiracy might not seem truthful, when you get endless recommendations about it, it becomes more believable. Youtube became a place where people in Brazil learned about radical right wing ideas and it kept on recommending even more extreme videos that people would not normally watch, but did because of the recommendation algorithm. It caused people to even believe that the Zika virus was spread through vaccines and it caused many people to refuse them and not trust doctors, but “Dr. Google” and “Dr. Youtube” instead. This cycle of video caused a cycle of hate and spread of misinformation.