Quote:
|
That book has probably done more to bring misguided young men away from the extreme right than any of the anti-indoctrination schemes currently targeting at risk youth.
|
On Sunday the NYTimes, being the NYTimes, put an entirely anecdotal story on their front page claiming that YouTube radicalized a young man who watched too many right wing videos and got sucked down a hell hole
They are pushing this narrative really hard right now, and it's great for them, because they get to put non-radical people they don't agree with in their infographic, and say look, you can't watch, like Jordan Peterson, because he is not a Nazi but we're saying he's somehow right next to them.
This is now the satanic panic of the 2010s, with worried parents saying YouTube offers "gateway drugs" of youtubers who are not necessary all-in right wing but maybe they are on the edge of it
Combined with the Maza/Crowder dustup and several other old-media non-stories about YouTubers -- what we are actually seeing now is old-media striking out against YouTube and individual YouTubers, because money! Individual YouTubers are taking the news and explaining it. NYTimes and Vox don't like that, because that is supposed to be their job. It's hard for them when you notice that people are doing a better job of it than they are, and not accepting their narratives.
But, obviously, anyone can take the news and just interpret it, and some people wind up quite good at it... better than the old media, even
~
The Babylon Bee,
which is The Onion of this era, is there to satirize the Times article:
YouTube Is Radicalizing Members Of The Right And Left To Have Actual Conversations
...which was a phenomenon you could actually see in the Times anecdote: this "radicalized" guy was also watching intellectual dark web and lefty videos by the end of his radicalization
Like The Onion used to, the Bee has a better sense of it than the Times.