YouTube may push users to more radical views over time, a new paper argues

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube’s difficult summer rolls on. Recent stories have revealed that the company might be accidentally generating video playlists for pedophiles; the Federal Trade Commission is investigating the site’s targeting of ads toward children; and the New York Times linked the site’s popularity to the rise of right-wing extremism in Brazil. (Also: everything linked at the top this column.)

But nothing has defined YouTube’s summer more than the conflict between Vox.com video host Carlos Maza and right-wing pundit Steven Crowder. The conflict — over whether someone with millions of followers should be allowed to repeatedly call another YouTuber a “lispy queer” — highlighted the gap between what YouTube’s community guidelines say is allowed, and...

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