• leftytighty@slrpnk.net
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        1 month ago

        There are tons of highly educational YouTube channels, and traditional media has completely abandoned that kind of content. The average YouTube video has more educational content than “The Learning Channel.” And you are more likely to get accurate information about history than “The History Channel”

        This is a boomer take.

        • isles@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          What you say is true, but also ignores the alt-right pipelining that YouTube and others are seemingly complicit in, or at the very least is the result of perverse incentives.

          And I’ll say the exact same thing about TikTok. It’s serving as primary sources for many problems around the world, it’s giving more broad and informed, collegiate level discussions of the world, and it’s full of brainrotting limbic hijacking. All true and I don’t think any generation is fully equipped to deal it.

          We can also see historically that banning a “vice” has never effectively removed the vice from society.

          • leftytighty@slrpnk.net
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            1 month ago

            Yes the acquiescence of all editorial and publishing decisions by these tech companies to “the algorithm” (which somehow absolves them of responsibility) is the main culprit there.

            These platforms are more like radio infrastructure or TV infrastructure than any particular channel, and for the most part anything they specifically promote and fund doesn’t tend to be that alt right content which is completely algorithm driven and ad/sponsor/dark money supported.

            We need to employ nuance when discussing these platforms.

      • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        They said “a part of” not the sole providers of. Also there is tons of education content on YouTube. I have learned so much from YouTube. It’s actually a really great place to go if you are looking to learn a new skill.

        Maybe that hasn’t been your experience with it but that’s what I use it for the majority of the time.

        • Siegfried@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          I have learned a lot from YT, it’s a really good plataform for that. Languages, programming electronics, and the list goes on… that was my YT experience during the 2010s. But there is also a lot of bs out there, maybe fuled by monetization, extreme groups or just because mankind is stupid at its core, that is purely aimed to diffuse nonsense, catch peoples attention or plainly influence people views.

          Where I live, revisionism is teach at schools as if it is the real thing. “A part” sometimes is enough.

          My comment was originally thought more as a joke than as a real complaint, but in all seriousness, YT has become an extremely good tool both to learn and to influence people. I understand that “regulating it” would be also another double edged sword, but something has to be done.