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Comment by j7ake | Hacker News Reader

An intriguing hypothesis, is there any data to support this theory ?

YouTube's algorithm shows people more of the stuff they like to watch. The most popular content on Youtube is primarily driven by demand, not by execs at Youtube.

Is that what it does? I find it likes to recommend stuff i absolutely hate because i've, what's the word, engaged too much in the past with videos i hate, and people like me tend to engage too much with videos they hate too.

Google is being pressured by politicians to replicate the results they want. Slowly YouTube is becoming a huge real life social experiment, where Google is trying to control public opinion through censorship and the recommendation engine.

Google is trying to earn money, as much as they can. No need to imagine a conspiracy about censorship and control public opinion...

I am sure that is the goal, on some level. But it is not good at that goal.

>YouTube's algorithm shows people more of the stuff they like to watch.

More of the stuff that will increase a user’s watch time; subtle difference. I’d be surprised if they haven’t also experimented with adjusting for overall ad revenue; some specific ads pay more than others.

There is not only a hypothesis but there is a whole science behind it. That's part of the PhD research of Larry Page for the PageRank algorithm. It's pretty much like a modified way of Academic Paper ranking. Innovators, Influencers, Advocates, Envangelists are all terms used to qualify the types of edges on a social graph.

Not really. PageRank is a centrality measure for networks, not a sociological theory / hypothesis. It is very useful in finding the most popular nodes in a network, but it says nothing about whether this popularity is byproduct of culture or the other way around.

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