TEEN: Ooh! [teens laugh] - Ah, jeez. <i>FEMALE NARRATOR: How many hours have you spent</i> <i>going down a rabbit hole on YouTube?</i> [keyboard clacking] <i>- Is this real life?</i> [baby panda sneezes] <i>[tense music]</i> <i>NARRATOR: Pick your poison.</i> <i>[bell dinging] Cat videos...</i> <i>[cat whooshes, thuds] [smooches]</i> <i>Makeup tutorials...</i> <i>[board thuds] GIRL: Ooh.</i> <i>- Y’all believe the Earth is a [bleep] circle.</i> <i>NARRATOR: Flat Earth conspiracy theories...</i> <i>- Bull[bleep].</i> <i>[goat bleats]</i> <i>NARRATOR: But if politics is your poison,</i> <i>you could be pulled toward more extreme content.</i> <i>NARRATOR: The man in the video calling for 30,000 executions</i> <i>is Jair Bolsonaro,</i> <i>a fringe far-right politician</i> <i>who, last year, became the president of Brazil</i> <i>in an election that almost no one had thought was possible.</i> <i>And when we asked Brazilians how this could happen,</i> <i>there was one factor we kept hearing.</i> <i>[blipping sounds]</i> <i>YouTube.</i> <i>[pensive music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>MAX: For the last couple of years,</i> <i>we’ve reported on how social media</i> <i>has disrupted societies around the world.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>Myanmar, Sri Lanka,</i> <i>Germany,</i> <i>and now, Brazil.</i> <i>AMANDA: What we found is the extraordinary influence of YouTube</i> <i>on everyday Brazilian life.</i> <i>The artificial intelligence the company uses</i> <i>to entice people into watching more and more YouTube videos</i> <i>has affected things here in surprising,</i> <i>even disturbing ways.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>[soft piano music]</i> [indistinct chatter] [horn blows] [crowd chanting in Portuguese] <i>MAX: Brazil is in a period of upheaval.</i> <i>A deep recession,</i> <i>a massive corruption scandal,</i> <i>and a decade of leftist rule</i> <i>created an opening for an anti-establishment firebrand</i> <i>to win the presidency.</i> <i>Today, Jair Bolsonaro supporters</i> <i>are celebrating his success</i> <i>and the imprisonment of one of his leftist predecessors.</i> <i>MAX: Mateus is a 17-year-old high-school student</i> <i>who was turned on to politics</i> <i>when YouTube recommended a video</i> <i>that would come to change his life.</i> [funky rock music playing] [rapid guitar riff playing] <i>MAX: Nando Moura is one of Brazil’s</i> <i>biggest right-wing YouTube stars.</i> <i>He started simply,</i> <i>giving tips on how to play the guitar.</i> <i>But once he began ranting about conspiracies</i> <i>involving teachers, feminists,</i> <i>and mainstream politicians,</i> <i>his popularity soared.</i> <i>- [speaking Portuguese]</i> <i>MAX: He now has more than 3 million subscribers.</i> <i>AMANDA: Members of the far right repeatedly told us</i> <i>that their political awakening</i> <i>began with a video recommendation from YouTube.</i> <i>AMANDA: Both Mauricio and Mateus</i> <i>described watching one YouTube recommended video</i> <i>after another, leading them to videos</i> <i>that promoted long-shot presidential candidate,</i> <i>Jair Bolsonaro.</i> <i>AMANDA: For decades, Bolsonaro had been a marginal lawmaker,</i> <i>shunned for his extremist views...</i> <i>AMANDA: Mocking gay people, opposing women’s rights,</i> <i>embracing torture and hyper-aggressive policing.</i> <i>MAX: But as YouTube increased in popularity,</i> <i>an army of its right-wing personalities</i> <i>began to adopt and amplify Bolsonaro’s views.</i> <i>AMANDA: To understand how politics in Brazil works these days,</i> <i>you don’t go to the state capital.</i> <i>AMANDA: You come to a place like this,</i> <i>a makeshift studio in Sao Paulo.</i> <i>This is ground zero for </i>Movimento Brasil Livre, <i>or the Free Brazilian Movement,</i> <i>a powerful political machine that young conservatives have built up</i> <i>through online tools, especially YouTube.</i> <i>AMANDA: They churn out as many as 30 videos a week...</i> <i>[mouse clicking]</i> <i>Attracting millions of views.</i> <i>MAX: Kim Kataguiri founded MBL.</i> You guys have had a lot of success. What is it about YouTube that has worked so well for your message? - It’s not about the content of what we are doing that goes viral. It’s the way we show our content. <i>First thing, you need to</i> <i>look at all the news websites</i> and see what is interesting about politics that your public want to know about. - Second thing, what do you believe about this news? - And the third, what makes it spread across the Internet, you make a joke about it. - [speaking Portuguese] <i>MAX: But creating viral videos wasn’t MBL’s only goal.</i> <i>MAX: They used outrage and sometimes misinformation</i> <i>to recruit supporters</i> <i>and eventually called them to the streets</i> <i>to join other activist groups in protest,</i> <i>demanding the impeachment of the leftist president,</i> <i>Dilma Rousseff.</i> [crowd cheers] <i>MAX: A slate of MBL YouTube stars</i> <i>eventually capitalized on their YouTube fame</i> <i>to win their own races for public office.</i> [people cheering] <i>At 22, Kataguiri became the youngest congressman</i> <i>ever elected in Brazil.</i> Do you think that you would be here without YouTube? - I don’t think so. MAX: Why not? - I think so— because we would have no platform to speak what we believe in. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>AMANDA: But YouTube doesn’t just provide a platform.</i> <i>Its artificial intelligence amplifies sensational content,</i> <i>sometimes with terrible consequences.</i> [indistinct chatter] <i>AMANDA: This is Arthur Moledo do Val,</i> <i>a former scrap metal worker who became one of MBL’s most-watched YouTubers...</i> <i>AMANDA: When he started recording himself</i> <i>disrupting left-wing protests.</i> <i>It’s an outlandish tactic...</i> [people shouting in Portuguese] <i>AMANDA: That’s been wildly successful.</i> [indistinct chatter] <i>AMANDA: Do Val’s channel, Mamae Falei,</i> <i>has 2.5 million subscribers.</i> - [speaking Portuguese] <i>AMANDA: And last fall, he was elected to public office.</i> [indistinct shouting] <i>MAX: But there’s a reason why his videos</i> <i>are often heavily-promoted</i> <i>by YouTube’s recommendation system.</i> <i>[pensive music]</i> <i>Have you ever noticed that your searches on YouTube</i> <i>often wind up suggesting provocative content?</i> <i>Videos that entice you to watch more and more?</i> <i>This is what social media researchers call</i> <i>the rabbit hole effect.</i> - Why don’t we just look for [indistinct]? - Yeah. AMANDA: So let’s see what it... - [indistinct] up next, “anti-feminista“... - Oh, and here’s our—our pal. Mamae Falei. Arturo. - Oh, my God. It’s two steps away from Bolsonaro video. <i>AMANDA: Here’s how this works.</i> <i>The suggestions in the sidebar</i> <i>are chosen by a mathematical algorithm,</i> <i>which selects videos based on the habits of millions of users.</i> <i>This drives 70% of what’s seen on YouTube,</i> <i>which means it influences almost everything you watch on the platform.</i> - What we saw across all social media was just a deeper and deeper commitment to stickiness, time on platform, the idea that you just get people to really obsessively go there. <i>AMANDA: Danah Boyd studies YouTube and how the site has evolved.</i> - All of it becomes about optimizing for financial profit. <i>AMANDA: To maximize advertising revenue,</i> <i>YouTube is constantly improving its recommendation engine.</i> <i>In 2016,</i> <i>they switched to an artificial intelligence algorithm</i> <i>that has one central purpose—</i> <i>keep viewers watching as long as possible.</i> They started pursuing this goal of watch time. Did you, as a researcher, start seeing changes in the platform and what was on there? - The problem with a measurement of time on site, is that what gets amplified is that which is shocking, grotesque, sexualized, things that, you know, make you doubt, or make you angry, or make you afraid. That’s the content that captures people’s imagination always. <i>REPORTER: Recent searches on YouTube</i> <i>turning up bogus claims.</i> - YouTube promoted a video saying Hogg was a paid actor. <i>REPORTER: The bizarre conspiracy theory known as Pizzagate.</i> <i>The false story...</i> <i>MAX: YouTube has been criticized in the US</i> <i>for promoting conspiracy theories.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>And in Brazil,</i> <i>where YouTube has more viewers than almost every TV network,</i> <i>misinformation has caused widespread confusion</i> <i>about serious matters of public health.</i> [indistinct chatter] <i>AMANDA: When the Zika virus hit poor communities like Maceió,</i> <i>mothers were desperate to understand what had happened to their babies.</i> <i>AMANDA: When they searched YouTube for information,</i> <i>they found wild conspiracies that blamed vaccines</i> <i>and even the insecticides designed to prevent Zika’s spread.</i> GISLEANGELA: [smooching sounds] <i>AMANDA: Mothers like Gisleangela were left confused.</i> [speaking Portuguese] <i>[gentle music]</i> <i>[tense music]</i> <i>AMANDA: Terrified, many families in Brazil are avoiding vaccines</i> <i>and anti-Zika insecticides.</i> <i>Health workers told us that this could be driving</i> <i>a resurgence in measles and yellow fever</i> <i>and lead to further outbreaks of Zika.</i> <i>But the Zika case is just one of many conspiracies</i> <i>that have been allowed to spread on YouTube.</i> <i>Viral videos have incited panic</i> <i>and put Brazilians in danger,</i> <i>often to the political benefit of those seeking power.</i> <i>[pensive music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>AMANDA: Valeria Borges has been a high school history teacher</i> <i>for 31 years,</i> <i>a profession she cherished until one day,</i> <i>she was thrust into a YouTube conspiracy.</i> <i>[foreboding music]</i> <i>MAX: Carlos Jordy posted the video.</i> <i>At the time, he was a city councillor.</i> <i>- [speaking Portuguese]</i> <i>MAX: Convinced the teachers were brainwashing schoolchildren</i> <i>into communism or homosexuality...</i> <i>- [speaking Portuguese]</i> <i>MAX: He sought proof by encouraging students to film their teachers.</i> <i>MAX: Jordy’s hero, Jair Bolsonaro,</i> <i>had first pushed this indoctrination conspiracy</i> <i>in 2012 on YouTube.</i> <i>MAX: Back then, his claims were largely dismissed as ridiculous.</i> <i>MAX: But five years later in 2017,</i> <i>a network of influential YouTubers</i> <i>resurrected the conspiracy.</i> <i>The videos were boosted again and again</i> <i>by YouTube’s recommendation system,</i> <i>igniting a nationwide panic among parents</i> <i>and propelling others like Jordy to higher office.</i> [people cheer] <i>AMANDA: After the video was posted,</i> <i>Valeria was inundated with online abuse and threats.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> - These teachers were besieged by death threats. Many of them were very afraid for their lives and their families. Is this something that you thought could happen, or something that you even wanted to happen? <i>[uneasy harp music]</i> <i>DEBORA: There is a pattern here.</i> <i>And they want to spread out the fear and the terror.</i> <i>MAX: Debora Diniz is a prominent abortion rights activist from Brazil.</i> <i>She now lives in hiding in the U.S.</i> <i>DEBORA: I started to receive threats.</i> Most of them, they described the way that they will kill me, that they will rape me, that they will kill my husband— step by step, what they will do before I die. One of the guys that we were able to identify— when the police asked him, “Why are you doing that? Why are you threatening her?” And he said, ”‘Cause I saw video at YouTube.” <i>MAX: According to Diniz,</i> <i>YouTube’s system of recommending one video after another</i> <i>created a cycle of intensifying outrage toward her.</i> <i>DEBORA: They start going in a loop,</i> and that loop is what moves the fantasy to someone saying, “I will do what has to be done.” - So does that make the company responsible for the death threats that have upended your life? - Legally speaking, it cannot tell you that, yes, but in an ethical perspective, in a democratic perspective, yes. Any company has to be accountable for supporting hate speech. <i>- All right, so this is Susan. She is the CEO of YouTube.</i> <i>- It is wonderful to have you. SUSAN: No.</i> <i>[cheers and applause]</i> <i>AMANDA: YouTube has routinely answered critics</i> <i>by claiming that it’s merely a passive provider of information.</i> <i>- We’re really more like a library.</i> <i>There have always been controversies if you look back at libraries.</i> <i>For the last two years, we have been really,</i> <i>really focused on— on responsibility.</i> <i>What all the— the news and the concerns</i> <i>and the stories have been about this fractional 1%.</i> <i>Look, if we took down that content,</i> <i>there would be so many other—</i> <i>so much other content that we would need to take down.</i> <i>AMANDA: YouTube repeatedly declined our requests for an on-camera interview.</i> <i>[blipping noises]</i> <i>When we shared the results of our investigation,</i> <i>company officials acknowledged</i> <i>that its recommendations had helped spread misinformation about Zika</i> <i>and they promised to make changes.</i> <i>But they also denied</i> <i>that YouTube boosts right-wing channels...</i> [audio stops] <i>Or that the rabbit hole effect is even real.</i> <i>[mystical music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>MAX: To test for the rabbit hole phenomenon in Brazil,</i> <i>researchers at Harvard conducted a computer-automated study.</i> <i>They followed thousands of video recommendations,</i> <i>tracing something like a subway map</i> <i>for how the platform directs viewers.</i> - We followed, basically, the channels and the recommendations and then we analyzed this to make sense of the universe that YouTube creates. <i>MAX: The results were disturbing.</i> <i>Brazilians were disproportionately recommended videos</i> <i>from the far-right pro-Bolsonaro bloggers</i> <i>and conspiracy theorists.</i> - The far-right is much bigger in scope, more channels there that are also much more often recommended than the same case for the left. <i>MAX: But in studying YouTube’s algorithm in Brazil,</i> <i>the researchers encountered something completely unexpected—</i> <i>a revelation that had nothing to do</i> <i>with politics or misinformation.</i> JONAS: What we found was 40 to 50 channels that seemed to fall under the general topic of what we might call child exploitation— not a lot of clothing, and this was a community that YouTube’s algorithm put together. It seemed like it started with— in the context of sex education. - Describing their first time having sex, making gestures that are suggestive. JONAS: And from there, YouTube’s channel recommendation kinda, like, moved towards sexually suggestive side. - Sometimes, the women were of age. AMANDA: Mm-hmm. - Often, they were not. - So what you found was a network of videos that had been kind of collated together by the algorithm of really young kids that seemed to have been selected because they featured some sort of nudity or suggestive content? JONAS: That’s correct. - So many people let their kids put their content on social media and videos and things like that because they think, you know, “My kid’s not famous. “I don’t need to worry about who’s gonna see this because who would ever come looking for it,” which makes sense except the thing that comes looking for it is the algorithm, and it doesn’t know anything about this child, but it does know that there is something about this video that’ll get people to click. <i>[pensive music]</i> All of them are little kids, like, six year old, five year old, something like that, and almost all of them are in some sort of a suggestive position. There’s no nudity. They’re not doing anything sexual. Usually, they just seem to be part of these ordinary channels, and it’s just horrifying to think of these kids whose— you know, they probably have no idea. Their families probably have no idea that this company has taken their content and served it to people for their, like, sexual gratification, basically. It, like... <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>The way the videos were grouped together</i> <i>certainly seemed like evidence of the rabbit hole effect in action.</i> <i>Once we alerted YouTube to the problem,</i> <i>the algorithm stopped recommending some of these videos</i> <i>alongside one another.</i> <i>The company suggested the changes were probably due</i> <i>to routine system tweaks,</i> <i>which makes us wonder,</i> <i>“Is it possible to fix a problem</i> <i>that you claim doesn’t exist?”</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>- [speaks Portuguese]</i> <i>AMANDA: Since his election, Bolsonaro and the far right</i> <i>have turned their YouTube-boosted world view</i> <i>into official government policy.</i> <i>And as YouTube’s reach continues to expand,</i> <i>so will its influence,</i> <i>and not just in Brazil.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i>