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The common thread in many of these stories is YouTube and its recommendation algorithm, the software that determines which videos appear on users’ home pages and in the “Up Next” sidebar next to a video that is playing. Some travel all the way to neo-Nazism, while others stop at milder forms of bigotry. Some young men discover far-right videos by accident, while others seek them out. Over years of reporting on internet culture, I’ve heard countless versions of Cain’s story: An aimless young man - usually white, frequently interested in video games - visits YouTube looking for direction or distraction and is seduced by a community of far-right creators. “I just kept falling deeper and deeper into this, and it appealed to me because it made me feel a sense of belonging,” he said. He is scarred by his experience of being radicalized by what he calls a “decentralized cult” of far-right YouTube personalities, who convinced him that Western civilization was under threat from Muslim immigrants and cultural Marxists, that innate IQ differences explained racial disparities and that feminism was a dangerous ideology. “I fell down the alt-right rabbit hole,” he said in the video.Ĭain, 26, recently swore off the alt-right nearly five years after discovering it, and has become a vocal critic of it. In the video, he told the story of how, as a liberal college dropout struggling to find his place in the world, he had gotten sucked into a vortex of far-right politics on YouTube. The threats, Cain explained, came from right-wing trolls in response to a video he had posted on YouTube a few days earlier. “I bought it the day after I got death threats,” he said.

Caleb Cain pulled a Glock pistol from his waistband, took out the magazine and casually tossed both onto the kitchen counter.
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The common thread is YouTube and its recommendation algorithm. Some travel all the way to neo-Nazism, others stop at bigotry. Some young men discover the videos by accident, others seek them out. Caleb Cain, who spent years consumed by what he calls a “decentralized cult” of far-right YouTube personalities, in Berkeley Springs, W.Va., April 10, 2019.
