Day after day, YouTube's algorithm tries to determine what our main interests are to present “recommended content”, and if possible, to make some money change hands. In general terms, that mechanism works well... but it has a flaw: It only learns that you want more, and it delivers it by adapting its homepage, without regard for its validity or legitimacy. The TheirTube portal helps us visualize those changes.
How the YouTube Algorithm Works
Let's assume for a moment that you like cars. You want to know more about maintenance, restoration, and optimization. You also enjoy motorsport competitions, whether official or not. From Formula 1 to a bit of off-road in the mountains, if it has four wheels, it has your attention. What I've just described is perfectly normal. It's a hobby, even a passion. But there are online algorithms dying to know this, and the system behind YouTube is no exception.
Around the world, YouTube users consume the equivalent of about 1 billion hours of video per day. 70 percent of that volume are recommendations made by the algorithm, based on our preferences. In the previous example of cars, the algorithm won't hesitate to bombard your homepage with fabulous restorations, modifications, race clips, and much more. A nearly perfect bubble that allows you to get what you want from YouTube, and spend more time on the platform... but what happens when the bubble is "bad"?
When the Bubble Is Bad
I mean that the algorithm can end up reinforcing false ideas, conspiracies, fake news, paranoia. You know: COVID-19 and 5G networks, Bill Gates' evil chips, detoxification techniques, pumpkin pulp curing cancer. People have died because of those ideas... and others were very close. The TheirTube portal aims to provide shortcuts that allow us to see what some of those bubbles show. For the moment, TheirTube is divided into six categories: Liberals, conservatives, conspiracy theorists, preppers, climate change deniers, and fruitarians.
Although some of the recommendations YouTube makes within those bubbles are directly absurd, its aim improves as the user starts adding videos and clicks. TheirTube only shows the first link of the chain. The project is a creation of designer Tomo Kihara, and is backed by the Mozilla Foundation, which has already exposed the horrors of YouTube's algorithm in the past.
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