The Youtube video platform was one of the forks of Facebook Tracking Exposed; this started as part of the ALEX project when Tracking Exposed was hosted by the University of Amsterdam.
Supporting Youtube has been crucial to generalize the algorithm analysis methodology, understand which are the common problem and which are platform dependent, and most importantly to start running tests without the need to have a logged in user account. Youtube Tracking Exposed has been one of the most creative project Tracking Exposed, and some of the most original investigations invented by us are described below:
2021
- development and expansion: YouChoose.AI. Youtube.tracking.exposed as backend, have been sponsored by the Next Generation Internet program Ledger. The team has expanded, and we begin to move from showing why an algorithm matter to give back control.
- FiterTube: Echo chambers, Filter Bubble and Polarization During the US elections, we realized a collective project at the Digital Methods Winter School 2021. We simulated echo chambers, we studied the construction of filter bubbles and consequent political polarization of suggestions. (report, slides, details).
2020
- Trexit: Polarization and Reinforcement during Brexit During one of the final phase of Brexit, we made a three days analysis of the algorithm with ten researchers from all over the world. The research aims to split the group in two and see how YT considers different activities to personalize the following recommendation. (report, slides, video, details).
- The first collaborative observation, a new methodology replicated to study Youtube claim’s on COVID-19 disinformation. WeTest; it produced the publication YTTREX: crowdsourced analysis of YouTube’s recommender system during COVID-19 pandemic
2019
- Released working browser extension, good enough for researchers and running workshops. This was the first video platform analyzed by Tracking Exposed and this was the project analysis.
- Personalization: every second matters, our report from the Digital Method Summer School, was the very first time we start to understand how personalization works in YouTube! The first experiments.