Polina A. Cobb
Professor Werry
RWS 100
30 October 2018
Analysis of “YouTube the Great Radicalizer” by Zeynep Tufekci
Is YouTube addictive on purpose? YouTube is an extremely popular website with almost 2 billion users each month, and the site is flooded with videos about various topics, some being extreme (Gilbert). Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist who researches the social impact of technology and the author of “Youtube the Great Radicalizer”, claims that YouTube’s algorithm recommends increasingly-intense videos to its viewers based off of previously watched videos, which continually keeps users watching YouTube. Tufekci employs countless rhetorical strategies to appeal to pathos, logos, and ethos; therefore, the author better persuades her audience to agree with her claim. In this paper, I will be specifically analyzing the credibility of the author, use of description, verbiage, analogies, “big names”, personal anecdotes, statistics and one specific source for analysis in order to better understand the strength of Tufekci’s argument and level of persuasion.
One of the first strategies utilized in the text, “YouTube the Great Radicalizer” is the credibility of the writer in order to support the appeal of ethos to the readers. The article immediately states that the author, Zeynep Tufekci, is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of “Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest.” The fact that she is an educated scholar at a well-respected, public research university and as well as a common ‘battleground’ for protests about the Confederate monument called “Silent Sam” displays her intelligence as a scholar and her understanding of the main topic in her article (Bacon). Tufekci is the author of an article about protests on social media, specifically Twitter, that includes research and data in regards to the subject at hand and as well as a thorough analysis about the effects that it has on individuals’ daily lives. The author also utilizes description to support ethos by discussing the personal investigation that she conducted in regards to seeing the extremism of YouTube’s recommended videos first hand. For example, she describes her exploration of main stream right-wing videos that immediately led her to a recommended list of videos about white supremacy and denial of the Holocaust. While opposingly, searches of left-wing videos directed her to videos about the possibility of secret government agencies and that the attacks of September 11 were done by the US government (Zeynep, 1). By utilizing her background, personal research, and description, the author was able to not only support her claim but also the integrity of herself as an author, and due to this, there is fairly little room for the audience to question Tufekci’s main claim as she fully supports all of her ideas. The author’s application of the writing strategy ethos showcases her knowledgeable background that further supports her reliability as an author and her main claim that YouTube’s algorithm is immoral.
Tufekci utilizes rhetorical strategies to appeal to pathos throughout her writing in order for her readers to support and better understand her main point. The author claims consistently throughout the article that YouTube continually and unethically recommends more radical videos based on the past and present viewing and searching history of the individual viewers. This claim is not completely hidden from viewers and is partially known amongst society, and some may even view the way YouTube recommends videos as being helpful for the users. However, the verbiage that the author employs shows that this technique that YouTube utilizes should be viewed as ‘dangerous’, ‘outrageous’, and ‘unacceptable. The author asserts a helpful analogy in her text to support her claim by inciting an emotional response in her readers; she compares the way that viewers feed and consume these videos to the way that individuals commonly indulge in sugar, fat, and salt as a guilty pleasure. However, these forms of guilty pleasures can engulf people and take control of their lives as some individuals in our society are commonly suffering from addiction to social media and the internet, spending hours of the day watching videos and taking in information, and to food as well where many individuals are becoming obese and threatening their lives due to their addiction and overconsumption of food. Due to the author’s use of rhetorical strategies to appeal to pathos, it would be extremely difficult for a reader to not feel emotional supportive to the author’s claim, especially due to her analogy that involves two forms of common addictions that affect many individuals. The author was clearly able to appeal to pathos by making her topic appear threatening and a danger to our society with her word choice and her strong analogy, engaging the readers’ emotions.
The author utilizes many ‘big names’ in her article in order to support her claims and appeal to logos. Tufekci utilizes the findings of a past Google engineer, Guillaume Chaslot, in order to support her main claim that YouTube is one of the most powerful radicalizing influences of this century. Chaslot supports her claim by stating that based on the first search of the user, the algorithm put into service by YouTube will then start constantly recommending the viewer pro-left or pro-right videos, which will be more intense and radical, and as the viewer continues to click on these videos, they become more left and right winged and therefore become more extreme and extensive as well. By utilizing the statements of an intelligent and credible professional in the field of interest, Tufekci supports her claims using the personal anecdotes of Chaslot and the statistics and data he found while working at Google. Tufekci also describes a specific investigation that was conducted by the Wall Street Journal and assisted by Chaslot as well, and the research found supported the idea that YouTube did commonly ‘feed’ viewers far-right or far-left videos to viewers who watched news from standard sources. Due to an uproar caused by YouTube recommending videos that promote the conspiracy theory that the survivors of the Parkland, Florida shooting are nothing more than ‘crisis actors’, Jonathan Albright, a researcher at the famous university, Columbia, discovered that by typing ‘crisis actor’ into the search bar, thousands of videos promoting conspiracy theories appear about various shootings, including the one in Newtown, Connecticut (Zeynep, 2). Due to the large amount of strong evidence from many verified sources and institutions, it is hard for a reader to not be persuaded partially or fully to side with the author’s claim. The author purely utilizes sources that aide their main claims but does not apply any material from authors who have differing viewpoints, and by doing this, Tufekci assumes that her audience already mostly or partially agrees with her as she feels no need to address the other side’s stance. The usage of knowledgeable sources with many from educational institutions solidifies Tufekci’s claim that YouTube’s recommended video algorithm is extreme and assisting in the radicalization of many debated topics, due to the high popularity of the website and app.
One of the most helpful sources in aiding Tufekci’s argument is the Wall Street Journal. As mentioned previously, Tufekci discusses an investigation that was done by the Wall Street Journal and former Google engineer, Guillaume Chaslot about the content of YouTube’s recommended videos. Tufekci quotes that the Wall Street Journal discovered that YouTube commonly “fed far-right or far-left videos to users who watched relatively mainstream new sources” (Zeynep, 1). It is important and helpful that Tufekci included this specific quote from the source because it provides factual confirmation of her claim, and the quote is clearly articulated, strong in regards to supporting the claim, and overall related to the main idea of her article. When viewing the original article by the Wall Street Journal, it was evident that a quote on a main point was omitted, which discussed how YouTube’s algorithm may affect the recommended video list for the viewer but has no effect on the recommended videos on YouTube’s homepage. Tufekci understandably did not include this quote in her article as it goes against her main claim, and instead, she utilized a quote that would better support and further her claim. Through her use of picking specific quotes to put into effect or avoid, she can better persuade the audience to agree with her claim about the extremism of YouTube’s recommended videos.
Tufekci as a whole has an extremely compelling argument. However, there are two weaknesses in her argument that she could have utilized to make it stronger. Tufekci’s tone and verbiage throughout the entire article makes it clear that she is under the assumption that her readers already agree partially with her claim. Because of this, she does not address any main opposing viewpoints or cites sources that disagree with her claim and therefore, provides very little to no rebuttals. The usage of a moderate amount of rebuttals in her work would have strengthened her argument as a whole by showing that she considered the issue from various angles and understands both sides to a certain degree. The second weakness in Tufekci’s argument is that there was no clear solution presented for the issues presented in her writing. At the very end of the article, it states, “there is no reason to let a company make so much money while potentially helping to radicalize billions of people, reaping the financial benefits while asking society to bear so many of the costs.” This last line is true, but because no answers for the issues were provided, her readers have no way to utilize the information they learned and are left with a sense of hopelessness and that nothing can be done to fix the problem. If Tufekci fixed both of these weaknesses, her argument would have been more solidified and therefore, more persuasive for the readers overall.
Tufekci’s argument that YouTube recommends increasingly extreme videos to its users, in order to keep them continuously glued to YouTube videos, is dangerous as these videos can cause addiction to the internet and social media and possibly change people’s perceptions as well. Through writing this paper, my belief on the topic has greatly changed; I was aware of an algorithm that was used to recommend videos to me and other viewers, but I had no idea that the videos became more radicalized over time. Because of this, I want to hinder the amount of YouTube that I watch and let others know about this algorithm that causes individuals to be purposefully addicted to the video website. Tufekci’s article was effective in showcasing her message through her employment of rhetorical strategies that supported her appeals to pathos, logos, and ethos.
Works Cited
Bacon, John. “Confederate Statue, Known as ‘Silent Sam,’ Toppled by Protesters on UNC Campus.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 21 Aug. 2018, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/08/21/confederate-statue-silent-sam-university-north-carolina-chapel-hill/1049796002/.
Gilbert, Ben. “YouTube Now Has over 1.8 Billion Users Every Month, within Spitting Distance of Facebook’s 2 Billion.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 4 May 2018, http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-user-statistics-2018-5.
Tufekci, Zeynep. “YouTube, the Great Radicalizer.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Mar. 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-politics-radical.html
Polina Cobb RWS 100 