While younger people are growing aware of the harmful effects of social media, people over 65 are consuming increasing amounts of far-right content online — and it’s impacting real-world politics.
I’ve seen this with my dad. He started watching YouTube shorts and I have to consistently remind him and try to counter what he’s watching sometimes.
He doesn’t fully go down that pipeline, but he’s interested in adjacent things that tend to be gateways into right wing stuff.
For example, he’s interested in space and then also interested in the potential of aliens or other myths and legends. But that quickly goes into conspiracy and then alt right BS. With AI fakes popping up I’ve caught him watching fake AI videos, stopped and said “hey this isn’t right. This is trying to manipulate us” and showed him how to check for AI video and audio generation.
He’s kinda catching on but it’s super tricky because if you willingly or unknowingly watch anything AI on youtube it seems to also feed you more of the same.
I honestly feel like I’m the parent trying to monitor my kids content they interact with now, but unfortunately I can’t cut them off from certain things LOL. Thankfully he’s still willing to have a conversation with me and I think mostly trusts my political takes and opinions. I think if he didn’t he would be at risk of going down some alt right bs
I’ve seen this with my dad. He started watching YouTube shorts and I have to consistently remind him and try to counter what he’s watching sometimes.
He doesn’t fully go down that pipeline, but he’s interested in adjacent things that tend to be gateways into right wing stuff.
For example, he’s interested in space and then also interested in the potential of aliens or other myths and legends. But that quickly goes into conspiracy and then alt right BS. With AI fakes popping up I’ve caught him watching fake AI videos, stopped and said “hey this isn’t right. This is trying to manipulate us” and showed him how to check for AI video and audio generation.
He’s kinda catching on but it’s super tricky because if you willingly or unknowingly watch anything AI on youtube it seems to also feed you more of the same.
I honestly feel like I’m the parent trying to monitor my kids content they interact with now, but unfortunately I can’t cut them off from certain things LOL. Thankfully he’s still willing to have a conversation with me and I think mostly trusts my political takes and opinions. I think if he didn’t he would be at risk of going down some alt right bs