Conservative YouTube Content Leads To ‘De-Radicalization,’ Not Radicalization
A new study out of Penn State’s Political Science Department found that rather than conservative content online leading to radicalization, as the popular “gateway” narrative insists, the reverse appears to be true.
The study, titled “A Supply and Demand Framework for YouTube Politics,” published online in October, takes a closer look at the popular narrative that YouTube serves as a “radicalizing agent,” particularly for the right. Conservative content, the narrative goes, supposedly acts as a “gateway” for viewers, potentially leading them to the fringes of the far-right.
But, as Birkbeck University of London’s Eric Kaufman puts it in his succinct summary of the study’s key finding, “Contrary to the ‘gateway drug’ narrative,” the new study “shows the Intellectual Dark Web (i.e. [Jordan Peterson], [PragerU], [Joe Rogan], [Ben Shapiro], [Rubin Report]) is de-radicalizing potential Alt-Right...