Reid Brown remembers the first time he was absorbed by the algorithm: he was just 13 years old, watching videos after school when YouTube started pushing him for controversial content.
Over time, the videos became more and more extreme, says Brown, now 21.
“It started out pretty benign,” he recalls. “You’re watching something about teen fashion and then the next thing you know, the algorithm would push you to a Ben Shapiro video.”
Although Shapiro describes himself as a conservative political commentator, his views are controversial, and some are downright discriminatory. He has suggested, for example, that transgender people suffer from a “mental disorder”.
But he has a combined 9.4 million subscribers and followers on YouTube and Twitter, many of whom are young, as Brown was when he was pushed in Shapiro’s direction.
Although Shapiro is not affiliated with any hate group, experts in media, gender studies and the radicalization of young men say the commentator’s content is prevalent in extremist online communities.
And exposure to controversial (and increasingly harmful) views on sexism, the objectification of women and the LGBT community has these same experts raising concerns about how far-right extremist groups are using TikTok, YouTube and other social media apps in a drip campaign. slowly radicalize vulnerable teenagers and young men.
While TikTok’s decision to remove influencer Andrew Tate’s account for misogynistic content the company said violated its policies put the discussion in the spotlight, the personal stories of people like Brown offer a unique insight into the effect content can have on teenagers.
The videos Brown watched as a teenager were often misogynistic, he said, and they began to affect the way he thought and how he interacted with people at school.
Documentary and podcast producer Ellen Chloë Bateman has researched online radicalization among young men and the incel subculture. (Zoom)
“I remember repeating some sexist attitudes, things about the pay gap… Especially when I was going out with my friends, we were repeating all these things that we were seeing on the internet. A lot of sexism and misogyny.”
Seeing his friends act these things out in person made it “more real” than just seeing an idea online, he said.
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That’s exactly how online radicalization works, says Ellen Chloë Bateman of Brown’s experience.
A documentary and podcast producer who investigates online radicalization among young men and the incel subculture, Batemen describes radicalization as a “slippery slope” that can begin as algorithms push guys into video that is increasingly harmful
Then “someone might join a comment thread and tell you to join their discord group [where] the content gets darker and darker, and it’s edgy,” he said. “It’s entertaining for some guys, and before you know it, you’ve stumbled into an extremist subculture.”
The targets are often young men who feel lost or isolated; they look to these groups as a way to escape those feelings, he says.
Joanna Schroeder, a writer specializing in gender and media, says that young men can feel “irrelevant” if they are not able to speak through the way they think about the media they consume. (Zoom)
“The appeal of these hate groups is that they provide isolated young people with a sense of community and power, often for the first time in their lives, and give them a target, someone to blame for the challenges they perceive in their lives”.
Some young men may also see empowering messages for women and girls as an attack on masculinity, says Joanna Schroeder, a writer whose work focuses on gender and media representation.
“Maybe they see Me Too stuff … maybe they see a T-shirt or a bumper sticker that says, ‘The future is female,'” she said. “There’s a lot of encouraging content for girls … and if [young men] they don’t get a chance to talk about their feelings about it, they can see that “men are irrelevant”.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what’s going on … but they can feel that way.”
So how can our society offer young people a way to work with their feelings in a healthy way?
That’s what Morris Green asked himself, and what he says he hopes his organization can deliver.
Find a healthy outlet
Green is a health education consultant with GuysWork in Nova Scotia, an organization now in its 11th year.
Green says he began working with schools in Nova Scotia in 2012, hoping to give young men a safe space to talk about their feelings, mental health and to disrupt problematic ideals about masculinity.
Morris Brown focuses on creating safe and inclusive spaces for young men through Guys Work. (Submitted by Morris Brown)
These harmful social norms can include anything from pressuring young men to drink alcohol to not wanting to be seen as vulnerable or asking for help, he said.
There is also often homophobia and the worry that peers may perceive anything other than straight as ‘not normal’.
“We wanted to basically normalize help-seeking behavior,” he said.
Green said the GuysWork sessions focus on fostering a sense of safety and inclusion for young men who may not have an adult role model or someone they feel they can talk to.
“We’re really trying to be creative … with the lessons and the facilitation, to create that safety for some really important conversations that just aren’t happening in most cases.”
And it’s paying off.
In 2020, GuysWork participated in a study with the University of St. Francis Xavier of Antigonish, NS There, Chris Gilham, associate professor and lead researcher, found that GuysWork was able to positively change young men’s views on some male norms he said. can be detrimental to short- and long-term health outcomes.
Many of the 180 students who participated said they felt they no longer needed to perform a “certain type of typical, traditional masculinity” and could instead be “kind, caring, kind and considerate,” Gilham said.
Bateman and Schroeder agree that role models are critical to the healthy development of young men. They say it’s important for parents to talk to their children about the type of content they consume online.
“[Parents] you need to look for signs of radicalization, including changes in language and behavior,” Bateman said.
How to have healthy conversations
While parents can’t get ahead of all the technology their teens might use, Schoeder said, they can offer help by teaching them media literacy — and early on.
“We start doing media criticism with them when they’re quite young, so they have the ability to analyze something when it’s put in front of them.”
And it’s important to be curious about teens rather than reacting angrily if they share that they’re watching controversial videos, he said.
LOOK | Algorithms and their agenda:
How algorithms target young men
Joanna Schroeder, a writer who focuses on gender and media, explains why social media algorithms are targeting young men and how this can affect what they’re looking at online.
“Ask them questions about how they feel [the content] and then affirms his goodness to tell you about it.”
As for Brown, he is now a fourth-year mechanical engineering student at Dalhousie University. He said he was able to avoid being exposed to more extreme content by using social media less often and instead reading literature and various media publications.
For him, it really comes down to the impact of social media.
“Young men are not inherently sexist. I think it’s the algorithms that can really make them that way.”