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I counted 47 flat earth videos recommended to me in one week and that number is the whole problem
So I got curious about the flat earth thing after a coworker brought it up at lunch, and I decided to actually watch some of it instead of just rolling my eyes. I made a note each time YouTube or TikTok pushed one at me over seven days, and the count hit 47, which is way more than I expected. Here is the part that got me: maybe 3 of those videos actually addressed the globe model's best arguments, and the rest just repeated each other with dramatic music. I think the real debate is not flat vs round, it's why the algorithm treats a wild claim and a physics lecture as equal weight. Has anyone else actually tracked how many times this stuff gets fed to them in a normal week?
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terryf621d ago
Read a piece a while back about how YouTube's system kinda just follows watch time, not truth. That stuck with me. The guy who wrote it said the algo doesn't know flat vs round, it just knows what keeps you staring. So a smooth talking flat earth guy with spooky music beats a boring lecture every time. 47 in a week sounds about right too, once you click one they just pile on. I tested it myself, watched a single video out of curiosity and got flooded for days after. The crazy part is these channels look legit at a glance, same thumbnails, same setup as real science stuff. Most people never even notice they slid into a rabbit hole until they're deep in it.
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