Professor Nyhan publishes report on exposure to online political extremism

The January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol exposed what has been obvious to scholars for years: political extremism and white supremacist ideologies are unsettlingly common in the United States. Critics argue that online platforms such as YouTube play an important role in exposure to extremist ideas, but there has been little research on who accesses this content or how often they do so. In a recent report, Professor Nyhan and colleagues address this question and examine exposure to political extremist content on Youtube. In the Executive Summary of their report, they conclude "our data indicate that exposure to videos from extremist of white suprmeacist channels on Youtube remains disturbingly common." The authors found that almost 10% of their study respondents viewed at least one video from an extremist channel, while 22% viewed videos from channels that are known to peddle political misinformation. "Despite the recent changes that YouTube has made, our findings indicate that far too many people are still being exposed to extremist ideas on the platform," Professor Nyhan said in a story on the report in USA Today.