YouTube Algorithms Allegedly Amplify Eating Disorder Content to Adolescent Girls
December 10, 2024
YouTube's recommendation algorithm has allegedly been directing teen users to harmful content promoting eating disorders and self-harm, according to a study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. Almost 70% of the recommended videos in searches related to dieting or weight loss reportedly contained content likely to exacerbate body image anxieties.
- Alleged deployer
- youtube, google
- Alleged developer
- youtube, google
- Alleged harmed parties
- adolescent-girls, youtube-users
Source
Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/873
Data source
Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).
When citing the database as a whole, please use:
McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.
Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide
We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.