New ADL report on extremist content exposure

From our new report:

How harmful is YouTube? Critics worry that it plays an outsized role among technology platforms in exposing people to hateful or extreme ideas, while the platform claims to have substantially reduced the reach of what it calls “borderline content and harmful misinformation.”1 However, little is publicly known about who watches potentially harmful videos on YouTube, how much they watch, or the role of the site’s recommendations in promoting those videos to users.

To answer these questions, we collected comprehensive behavioral data measuring YouTube video and recommendation exposure among a diverse group of survey participants. Using browser history and activity data, we examined exposure to extremist and white supremacist YouTube channels as well as to “alternative” channels that can serve as gateways to more extreme forms of content.

Our data indicate that exposure to videos from extremist or white supremacist channels on YouTube remains disturbingly common. Though some high-profile channels were taken down by YouTube before our study period, approximately one in ten participants viewed at least one video from an extremist channel (9.2%) and approximately two in ten (22.1%) viewed at least one video from an alternative channel.2 Moreover, when participants watch these videos, they are more likely to see and follow recommendations to similar videos.