"How over is it?" Understanding the Incel Community on YouTube
Journal
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Date Issued
October 20, 2021
DOI
10.1145/3479556
Abstract
YouTube is by far the largest host of user-generated video content worldwide.
Alas, the platform has also come under fire for hosting inappropriate, toxic,
and hateful content. One community that has often been linked to sharing and
publishing hateful and misogynistic content are the Involuntary Celibates
(Incels), a loosely defined movement ostensibly focusing on men's issues. In
this paper, we set out to analyze the Incel community on YouTube by focusing on
this community's evolution over the last decade and understanding whether
YouTube's recommendation algorithm steers users towards Incel-related videos.
We collect videos shared on Incel communities within Reddit and perform a
data-driven characterization of the content posted on YouTube.
Among other things, we find that the Incel community on YouTube is getting
traction and that, during the last decade, the number of Incel-related videos
and comments rose substantially. We also find that users have a 6.3% chance of
being suggested an Incel-related video by YouTube's recommendation algorithm
within five hops when starting from a non Incel-related video. Overall, our
findings paint an alarming picture of online radicalization: not only Incel
activity is increasing over time, but platforms may also play an active role in
steering users towards such extreme content.
Alas, the platform has also come under fire for hosting inappropriate, toxic,
and hateful content. One community that has often been linked to sharing and
publishing hateful and misogynistic content are the Involuntary Celibates
(Incels), a loosely defined movement ostensibly focusing on men's issues. In
this paper, we set out to analyze the Incel community on YouTube by focusing on
this community's evolution over the last decade and understanding whether
YouTube's recommendation algorithm steers users towards Incel-related videos.
We collect videos shared on Incel communities within Reddit and perform a
data-driven characterization of the content posted on YouTube.
Among other things, we find that the Incel community on YouTube is getting
traction and that, during the last decade, the number of Incel-related videos
and comments rose substantially. We also find that users have a 6.3% chance of
being suggested an Incel-related video by YouTube's recommendation algorithm
within five hops when starting from a non Incel-related video. Overall, our
findings paint an alarming picture of online radicalization: not only Incel
activity is increasing over time, but platforms may also play an active role in
steering users towards such extreme content.
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