> I was bombarded with recommendations of barely concealed white supremacists, and bizarre conspiracy theorists. I know that if I clicked on even one of them, then my recommendations will be full of that crap.
You were offered the recommendations, but you declined. It's still a matter of self-selection and self-exposure. How many recommendations would it take to turn you into a white supremacist? How many video viewings? If your answer is that no amount would, then the algorithms don't seem to be the real problem.
I did decline. But I have seen many of my parents' generation getting increasingly radical (I am not American, BTW. I am talking about India). They don't have the tools to understand what is going on. Their entire life was training to "read between the lines" of newspaper articles and journals. They are used to subtle lies and distortions, and they can catch that. Blatant outright virulent rhetoric - with the tone "this is some truth that must be told" - is ok in 1 or 2 videos. But the recommendation engine enmeshes them in that mire.
My mother is a PhD. I asked her whether she will accept a paper without sound academic bibliography. She said no. Then why would she believe in extremist videos with shady citations and outright lies? But she does. I think it is because of the recommendation engines which keep feeding similar videos. Just like Goebbels' maxim of repeating a lie often enough and loudly enough to make it the truth.
We can keep saying that our algorithms are fine. But if what we see today has never been seen in history, I think it is high time that we re-evaluate our current beliefs about the impact and the correctness of our work.
> I asked her whether she will accept a paper without sound academic bibliography. She said no. Then why would she believe in extremist videos with shady citations and outright lies?
This is very common. I would even say the norm. No person is fully rational. Rather, people may think rationally about certain things — their "speciality", perhaps — but not about others. Everyone is irrational in some ways.
> But if what we see today has never been seen in history
Which part do you think is historically unprecedented? The technology of course is unprecedented, but I don't see anything about the beliefs of people today that's unprecedented.
There was once a time when newspapers were never before seen in history. Just as your parents' generation learnt how to detect misinformation in newspapers, they and new generations will learn to detect misinformation in new forms of media. People adapt, we always have. I'm sure when your parents were young or during the early days of journalism, there were problems and misunderstandings when reading newspapers. It didn't really warrant rushing out to end freedom of the press or calling to halt newspapers.
You were offered the recommendations, but you declined. It's still a matter of self-selection and self-exposure. How many recommendations would it take to turn you into a white supremacist? How many video viewings? If your answer is that no amount would, then the algorithms don't seem to be the real problem.