Homework for Monday

1. Engagement is important for Youtube executives because they need to have an audience, without an audience they would not be able to have a business. Engagement is also important because they can see which videos are most popular and make algorithms so that when users log back in they are presented with more videos like the ones they clicked on. This increases user engagement and increases the success of the website.
2. The issue with the recommendations page is that it will show videos that you might be interested in based on what you have already watched, and therefore reinforces biases if you are looking at videos about conspiracies, hate speech, or extreme political talk. A way of solving this problems is to scrap the recommendations altogether.
3. As previously mentioned, algorithms are made to show you content you want to see, and often the content we want to see only reinforces our own bias. Sometimes the content we want to see is poisonous, and by watching the same types of videos again and again we continue to poison our minds with false information or dangerous content.
4. I think borderline content would be a lot like the Brietbart content on “black crime”. Yes, black crime exists, but this title is obviously racist and perpetuates a false image of an entire race. Also, conspiracy videos are difficult. It is free speech, if someone wants to believe something stupid then that’s their right. For instance, I met someone the other week who wholeheartedly believed that Barack Obama was gay and that Michelle Obama was a transvestite, when I asked him where he got this information he told me that he got it from Youtube. Obviously this information is so ridiculous that it’s practically comical, but whoever uploaded it technically has the right to do so. The moment we decide to hinder people’s freedom of speech when it isn’t technically hurting anyone, we make things harder for ourselves in the long run. Freedom of Speech is more important than someone else’s idiocy. If someone wants to believe conspiracies then they have a right to do so. I think as a society we should begin to teach our children how to detect bias and false information, we should be implementing classes in schools that protect future generations from believing false information by teaching them how to fully check their sources.