"What do you think?" Understanding the Incel Community on YouTube

Proceedings of the ACM on Human Computer Interaction Volume 5 CSCW2 October 2021 Article Number: 412 pp 1-25 https://doi.org/10.1145/3479556

Commentary

YouTube is the world's largest host of user-generated and posted video content.

Unfortunately, the platform has also been accused of hosting inappropriate, toxic and disgusting content.

One community that is often associated with the sharing and publishing of hateful and misleading content is Involuntary Celibates (Incels), a broadly defined movement that on the surface focuses on men's issues.

In this study, we set out to analyze the Incel community on YouTube by focusing on the evolution of this community over the past decade and understanding whether YouTube's recommendation algorithm directs users to Incel-related videos.

We collected videos shared by the Incel community within Reddit and performed a data-driven characterization of the content posted on YouTube.

We found that the Incel community on YouTube has attracted a lot of attention and that the number of Incel-related videos and comments has increased significantly over the past decade.

We also found that users were 6.3% more likely to be suggested Incel-related videos by YouTube's recommendation algorithm within 5 hops of watching a non-Incel-related video.

The findings paint an alarming picture of online radicalization, where not only is Incel activity increasing over time, but platforms may also play an active role in directing users to such extreme content.