Watchdog group AlgoTransparency says YouTube algorithms recommended a Russian website to analyze the Mueller report over 400,000 times (via The Washington Post).
RT
Formerly known as Russia Today, RT is a popular YouTube media channel with over 2 billion views. It recommended a video interview that was highly critical of American media coverage of the Mueller report, calling journalists “Russiagate conspiracy theorists” and “gossiping courtiers to the elite.”
Founded by former YouTube engineer Guillaume Chaslot, AlgoTransparency found that 236 out of 1,000 YouTube channels the site recommended were the RT video.
YouTube disputes the claim, saying that it couldn’t reproduce the group’s results:
The AlgoTransparency tool was created outside of YouTube and does not accurately reflect how YouTube’s recommendations work, or how users watch and interact with YouTube. We’ve designed our systems to help ensure that content from more authoritative sources is surfaced prominently in search results and ‘watch next’ recommendations in certain contexts, including when a viewer is watching news-related content on YouTube.
Following a report by the U.S. intelligence community that said the outlet had played a key role in Russia’s efforts to support President Trump’s 2016 election, the Justice Department told RT America it had to register as a foreign agent.