Does YouTube Radicalize? A Debate Between NYT's Kevin Roose and Software Engineer Mark Ledwich

Big Technology Podcast

Alex Kantrowitz

Technology, Religion & Spirituality, Business News, Business, Religion, Science, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Entrepreneurship, Management, Marketing, Politics, News Commentary, Government, Investing, Tech News, Social Sciences, News

4.6 • 395 Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2021

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In June 2019, New York Times reporter Kevin Roose wrote The Making of a YouTube Radical, a story about how a 26-year-old man, Caleb Cain, was radicalized through YouTube. For the story, Roose examined Cain’s entire YouTube history, and plotted the path he took toward radicalization. Software engineer and researcher Mark Ledwich took issue with the story, citing his own research and claiming the notion that YouTube could radicalize was a myth. Instead of yelling at — and past — each other, Ledwich and Roose came together for a moderated debate on the Big Technology Podcast, where both stated their points of view, got a chance to respond to each other’s points, and ask each other questions. Further reading: Kevin's story: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/youtube-radical.html Rabbit Hole podcast: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/podcasts/rabbit-hole-prologue.html Ledwich's story: https://mark-ledwich.medium.com/youtube-radicalization-an-authoritative-saucy-story-28f73953ed17 Ledwich's research visualization: https://recfluence.net/

Transcript

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0:00.0	From LinkedIn News, I'm Leah Smart, host of Everyday Better, an award-winning podcast dedicated to personal development.
0:06.2	Join me every week for captivating stories and research to find more fulfillment in your work and personal life.
0:11.8	Listen to Every Day Better on the LinkedIn Podcast Network, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:17.4	I'm Tomer Cohen, LinkedIn's chief product officer.
0:20.6	If you're just as curious as I am about the way things are built, then tune into my podcast, building one.
0:26.7	I speak with some of the best product builders out there.
0:29.2	I've always been inspired by frustration.
0:31.9	It came back to my own personal pinpoint.
0:34.0	So we had to go out to farmers and convince them.
0:37.2	Following that curiosity is a superpower.
0:39.9	You have to be obsessed with the human condition. Listen to Building One on Apple Podcasts or wherever
0:44.8	you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to the Big Technology podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuanced
0:51.0	conversation of the tech world and beyond. And today we're trying something new.
0:54.8	We're going to have a debate that's going to discuss whether YouTube is indeed
0:59.2	radicalizing its users.
1:01.8	Joining us to discuss it on the con side is Mark Ludwitch, who's a software engineer,
1:07.8	who's done some data engineering about this stuff.
1:13.5	And on the pro, I feel like it's fun to put you in this category. Is Kevin Ruse of the New York Times, who's written
1:17.8	a widely shared and very interesting story about someone who did indeed get radicalized on
1:24.5	YouTube and then produced a very popular podcast about it called Rabbit Hole.
1:42.7	So just quick introductions, Mark, you are Australia-based, you're a software engineer.
1:46.9	That's right.
	...

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