Although it is under-studied relative to other social media platforms, YouTube is arguably the largest and most engaging online media consumption platform in the world. Recently, YouTube’s scale has fueled concerns that YouTube users are being radicalized via a combination of biased recommendations and ostensibly apolitical “anti-woke” channels, both of which have been claimed to direct attention to radical political content. Here we test this hypothesis using a representative panel of more than 300,000 Americans and their individual-level browsing behavior, on and off YouTube, from January 2016 through December 2019. Using a labeled set of political news channels, we find that news consumption on YouTube is dominated by mainstream and largely centrist sources. Consumers of far-right content, while more engaged than average, represent a small and stable percentage of news consumers. However, consumption of “anti-woke” content, defined in terms of its opposition to progressive intellectual and political agendas, grew steadily in popularity and is correlated with consumption of far-right content off-platform. We find no evidence that engagement with far-right content is caused by YouTube recommendations systematically, nor do we find clear evidence that anti-woke channels serve as a gateway to the far right. Rather, consumption of political content on YouTube appears to reflect individual preferences that extend across the web as a whole.

尽管与其他社交媒体平台相比，它的研究不足，但 YouTube 可以说是世界上最大、最具吸引力的在线媒体消费平台。最近，YouTube 的规模引发了人们的担忧，即 YouTube 用户正在通过有偏见的推荐和表面上不涉及政治的“反唤醒”频道的组合而变得激进，这两个频道都被声称将注意力集中在激进的政治内容上。在这里，我们使用 2016 年 1 月至 2019 年 12 月期间超过 300,000 名美国人及其个人级浏览行为在 YouTube 内外的代表性小组来检验这一假设。使用一组标记的政治新闻频道，我们发现 YouTube 上的新闻消费由主流和主要中间派来源主导。极右翼内容的消费者，虽然比平均水平更高，代表一小部分稳定的新闻消费者。然而，根据反对进步的知识和政治议程定义的“反觉醒”内容的消费稳步增长，并与平台外极右翼内容的消费相关。我们没有发现任何证据表明与极右翼内容的互动是由 YouTube 推荐系统引起的，我们也没有发现明确证据表明反唤醒频道是通往极右翼的门户。相反，YouTube 上政治内容的消费似乎反映了整个网络上的个人偏好。受欢迎程度稳步增长，并且与平台外极右翼内容的消费相关。我们没有发现任何证据表明与极右翼内容的互动是由 YouTube 推荐系统引起的，我们也没有发现明确证据表明反唤醒频道是通往极右翼的门户。相反，YouTube 上政治内容的消费似乎反映了整个网络上的个人偏好。受欢迎程度稳步增长，并且与平台外极右翼内容的消费相关。我们没有发现任何证据表明与极右翼内容的互动是由 YouTube 推荐系统引起的，我们也没有发现明确证据表明反唤醒频道是通往极右翼的门户。相反，YouTube 上政治内容的消费似乎反映了整个网络上的个人偏好。