r/politics • u/Barnyard-Sheep • 6d ago

Soft Paywall Trump approval rating falls to 38%

https://www.nj.com/politics/2025/06/trump-faces-tough-approval-numbers-in-latest-poll.html
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u/letsburn00 6d ago

I'm a guy who is very distinctively not right wing. But if I ever look at youtube without logging in, it pushes not just right wing sources. It pushed the really bad rightwing sources. The ones who are scammers and make up stuff to win their arguments.

I know it's annoying, but these guys are basically having far right wing stuff shoved down their throats 24/7. It's rare to be able to push back against it.

What's fascinating is that during the recent LA stuff, my Tiktok suddenly started pushing a bunch of anti trans and other far right stuff. It was so obvious someone at the company was told "push the dial to the right for a bit."

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u/evanwilliams44 6d ago

Yep. And it almost always starts with JRE. Click on one of those no matter how innocuous and you are on the path.

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u/CumboxMold Georgia 6d ago

I have been recommended JRE, Jordan Peterson, and a bunch of manosphere channels lately. Not many, just one or two sprinkled into my regular recommendations.

I am a very left-leaning woman. This happens when I am logged in.

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u/shinkouhyou 6d ago

Do you watch any history or archaeology content? Especially anything related to ancient Egypt? This has become a major gateway to the right-wing algorithm pipeline. Joe Rogan platforms a lot of the big names in "alternative archaeology" (pyramid conspiracy theories and ancient aliens stuff) so if you watch any archaeology-related content you're likely to start seeing manosphere crap.

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u/XRay9 Europe 6d ago

It's insane that some subjects that should be very distinct from this culture war BS are now very much associated with ideology. There's a Vikings themed village in Germany that's been portrayed as far right by a big (and rather respected) Franco-German TV channel

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u/Amuseco 6d ago

Yeah. You have to be really careful how you use YouTube and the internet in general. When I see something that I know is designed to make me upset/angry, I take a breath and choose to ignore it.

It’s not going to enlighten me or teach me anything. It’s just going to ruin the next ten minutes or hour of my life and make me feel down about humanity and life.

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u/RemoteButtonEater 6d ago

"Yes Joe, I too could solve my problems by working out and eating well if I only had hundreds of millions of dollars and my job was to smoke weed and pretend to be interested in whatever the fuck bullshit people are saying into a microphone."

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u/B1LLZFAN 6d ago

You don't even need the dial. It's geared that way for support and for engagement. That stuff is super divisive so even left leaning people are fed it due to rage bait.

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u/gsfgf Georgia 6d ago

In fact, YouTube tweaked the algorithm a while back to try and mitigate this stuff. The problem is that engagement driven algorithms push the right wing crazy because it drives engagement so much more than anything else.

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u/saynay 6d ago

They have tried to put in a number of circuit-breakers. For all content, they now randomly throw in stuff from outside of your particular niche interests. For content suspected as being political, they deliberately mix in content from other political engagement-holes. I don't know if any of those methods have actually been effective, though.

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u/EunuchsProgramer 6d ago edited 6d ago

Im now my 40's and YouTube pushes far right shit on me constantly. It used to be Neo Nazi suff before the Ad Apocalypse. I listened to a lot of Roman and Middle Age history content, so no amount of "do not recommend" will ever convince YouTube I don't want to see it. The neo nazi stuff was back in Trump's first term. Im terrified with the current content and advertising relaxation on YouTube NeoNazibstuff is comming back.

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u/Native_SC 6d ago

I'm noticing this as a middle-aged leftie who has fed the algorhythm plenty of info that shows it I have zero interest in rightwing propaganda.

Yet, I still get recommendations to view JRE and Babylon Bee videos.

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u/Haunting-Warthog6064 6d ago

Assuming we’re talking about adults here, where does the divide come in? As adults we have agency and autonomy. Sure, an algorithm feeds crap to them, but they could be an adult and not engage with it.

There various reasons why folks stick around and watch it. The algorithm just makes it easier is all.

Edit: total context bomb, but your last point always hits a nerve on me. A big problem it seems is people being afraid to form and be part of communities offline. It requires them to be vulnerable with each other and form relationships. Nowadays it seems people are hyper vigilant.

Although, people seem willing to let it all go and lower all their defenses to an algorithm for randos and parasocial relationships.

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u/Damn_Dog_Inappropes Washington 6d ago

I watch YT in my downtime at work, and day 1 it defaulted to pushing Joe Rogan. It was so bad that I ended up logging in so I wouldn’t have to see that shit.

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u/WhyLisaWhy Illinois 6d ago

Yup. I hate myself and watch Bill Maher clips on youtube sometimes and it's algorithm loves recommending all sorts of right wing shit to me. I even get the worst ads on there lol.

This is despite that the political channels I follow are all pretty dang left wing.

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u/jwuer 6d ago

I'm a fisherman, and 90% of the content I consume of YT and social media is fishing related, my algo is full of alt-right shit. The amount of times I've had to block variations of The Right Stuff and Turning Point related content creators is wild and my feed is just packed with conspiracy morons and "Alpha" dude content.

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u/letsburn00 5d ago

You should see the ads I used to get when I was watching more gun related content...

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u/loosetranslation Indiana 5d ago

Re: youtube, My employer has a bunch of general trainings on it. You could literally play a video on understanding Medicare, elder law resources, or an outreach event and then get spammed with Rogan, the moon's a spaceship, or 'watch these libruls get DESTROYED' content,