I never click on them and I don’t consume any other content related to those countries but every so often I’ll see an anti (those countries) headline in my feed and then the next few days will have pro occupied China stories

It feels like targeted propaganda since I never see good stories about the other countries and it makes me wonder why YouTube hasn’t been broken up if they are too big to monitor that

  • finthechat@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    Vaguely related: yesterday I subscribed to a Japanese guitarist’s channel and then Youtube started spamming my feed with Hungarian political videos. Someone tell me how THAT works, lol. I only ever watch weeb stuff on Youtube.

  • Mr_Buscemi@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I started getting those too. Only recent Asian YouTube material I’ve been watching has been a podcast in Japan and one Piece anime clips lol. I get the South China posts every day now.

  • BrikoX@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Generally the algorithm tries to recommend “controversial” content as that makes people spend more time on the platform which leads to you in turn seeing more ads in that time.

    As to any specifics, nobody knows. Even Google engineers have no clue as they have no granual control of that algorithm.

    • pensa@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      I see this “drives engagement” claim all the time and at first glance it makes sense. But why would they do things like remove recommendations completely for users without watch history turned on? That is the exact opposite of driving engagement.

      • BrikoX@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        They need watch history to be able to track different metrics about you so it’s a gamble to make people that are used to relying on those recommendations to turn it back on. And they don’t remove recommendations completely, just from the home page as far as I know. I don’t use YouTube native client.

        • pensa@kbin.social
          1·
          1 year ago

          I guarantee that they still keep everyone’s watch history whether they consent or not. Facebook has been building shadow profiles on people for years. It’s reasonable to surmise that all major tech companies do the same. They simply removed the usefulness for the user but they still keep and profit from it for themselves.

          Anecdotally, before they removed recommendations for not having a watch history I would still need to create new accounts on occasion due to being locked into the same recommendations based on my watch history. Even though I opted out of watch history from the time of account creation.

  • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
    1·
    1 year ago

    I tried looking for positive stories about trans people to show one of my friends who was going down a conservative transphobic rabbit hole.

    I couldn’t for the life of my find anything other than videos by Fox News, Ben Shapiro and other conservative talking heads and alt-right conspiracy accounts.

    Then I later found out through an article of an online magazine about one trans teen person who said their YouTube channel was being banned and an their content blocked. They were just videos of their daily lives as a trans person and the challenges they faced.

    Social networks receive money by powerful conservative media groups to push their content up and establish policies in their favor.

  • zephyreks@lemmy.ca
    0·
    1 year ago

    Ah yes, SCMP is truly a pro-China news source. Nevermind that it’s blocked in mainland China.

        • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.caOP
          0·
          1 year ago

          Apparently other outlets have noticed a shift in it being an Occupied China mouthpiece since Alibaba bought it in 2016

          • zephyreks@lemmy.ca
            0·
            1 year ago

            Doesn’t SoftBank/Yahoo hold almost a majority of Alibaba stock… And that Alibaba explicitly didn’t list in Hong Kong and chose to list in the US instead?

            SCMP has published some fairly critical articles recently:

            “China’s hi-tech ambitions under threat from inadequate scientific literacy”

            “‘Somebody has to eat the cost’: China’s monumental local debt challenge mounts”

            “China banning clothes that hurt national feelings would be a sitch too far”

            And articles that deviate from standard Chinese policy:

            “Marriage equality is clearly the best choice for Hong Kong”

            “More LGBTQ rights could help Asia financial hubs draw global talent”

            As well as commentary on the Hong Kong report about radiation from Japan-imported fish.

            Nevermind that Jack Ma is perhaps most notorious for being intensely critical of Chinese regulators. Indeed, Alibaba IPOed in the US instead of Hong Kong solely so Jack Ma could maintain more control over the governance structure of the company.

            • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.caOP
              0·
              1 year ago

              Since the change of ownership in 2016, concerns have been raised about the paper’s editorial independence and self-censorship. Critics including The New York Times, Der Spiegel, and The Atlantic have alleged that the paper is on a mission to promote China’s soft power abroad.

              https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China_Morning_Post

              You can follow the sources there to their articles

              But now you know :)

              • zephyreks@lemmy.ca
                0·
                1 year ago

                Ah yes, citing Wikipedia… who’s sources explicitly state that Beijing never contacts them and that Jack Ma’a policy has been to be skeptical of the government’s role. Classic.

                It’s only Beijing that we never hear from, he says. He adds that he wishes that were different.

                …

                Describing the ideal relationship between companies and the government, Jack Ma has said something along the lines of: “Go ahead and flirt with it, but don’t marry it.”

                …

                The paper still reports extremely critically on issues that the Chinese state media avoids.

                …

                Executive Vice President Joseph Tsai, for example, has complained that the Western media reports on China in a biased and one-sided way because they disagree with communism. He has said that the South China Morning Post should report on things “as they are.”

                Turns out, when you shift your focus from being a purely Hong Kong-oriented paper to an international one, your editorial scope changes.

                When in Hong Kong writing about mainland China, you can afford to be more critical because your readership has a pretty fair view of mainland China (given that, y’know, they’re literally right beside it}. When writing for the international audience, there are far more things that need to be cleared up.

                As I showed above, SCMP is clearly deviating pretty far from Beijing’s policy (in large part because Alibaba and Jack Ma have always maintained a somewhat skeptical stance relative to the government) and often comes out openly against Beijing’s positions. All you’ve shown me is people saying “oh no but Alibaba is Chinese and China is bad and thus SCMP is bad.” Just the tiniest but racist, don’t you think?