A systematic review: The YouTube recommender system and pathways to problematic content
Muhsin Yesilada, Stephan Lewandowsky · 2021
The systematic review aimed to determine whether the YouTube recommender system facilitates pathways to problematic content such as extremist or radicalising material. The review assessed the eligibility of 1187 studies and excluded studies using the PRISMA process for systematic reviews, leaving a final sample of 23 studies. Overall, 14 studies implicated the YouTube recommender system in facilitating problematic content pathways, 7 produced mixed results, and two did not implicate the recommender system in facilitating pathways to problematic content. Thus, the review's findings indicate that the YouTube recommender system could lead users to problematic content via the recommender system. The review indicates a need for corrections to the recommender system to shift users away from problematic content.