There are 1.5 billion YouTube users in the world, which is more than the number of households that own televisions. “Turn around and punch the heck out of that little boy.” They scuffled for several minutes until one had knocked the other’s tooth out. “I’m going to post it on YouTube,” said a teenage girl, who sounded like she might be an older sibling. This was the algorithm taking me on a journey of its own volition, and it culminated with a video of two boys, aged about five or six, punching and kicking one another. I had cleared my history, deleted my cookies, and opened a private browser to be sure YouTube was not personalising recommendations. The answer was a slew of videos of men mocking distraught teenage fans of Logan Paul, followed by CCTV footage of children stealing things and, a few clicks later, a video of children having their teeth pulled out with bizarre, homemade contraptions. This conveyor belt of clips, which auto-play by default, are designed to seduce us to spend more time on Google’s video broadcasting platform. Then I clicked on the “Up next” thumbnails of recommended videos that YouTube showcases on the right-hand side of the video player. The next day, I watched a copy of the video on YouTube.
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