The problem faced is unprecedented soapboxing. Insane ideas have been around as long as humanity. Usually you stand on a soapbox and preach, people ignore you. Some might even disuade others from listening.
The problem with online opinions is that while the "opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one" adage is true, online nobody is there to tell you "stop watching this stupid thing". And we all know YT comments are a heap of garbage. Also YT/Instagram comments are fully moderated by the author, so removing all disagreements is easy. Easy to give the appearance of consensus.
And worse, once you watch one, YT's algos want to keep you watching so suddenly you are flooded with related vides.
I've found it almost impossible to remove a specific feed or ideology from my YT recommendations. As an example I once watched Yanis Varoufakis speak at the Oxford Union. He has appeared on panels with Slavoj Zizek who is a person I personally can't stomach. Almost immediately after the Yanis video I had YT recommend me to watch a panel with Zizek and Varoufakis discuss in 2016. I didn't watch it - but since then I get Zizek constantly recommended in my feed.
Note I don't use google for searches and my YT is running pretty much isolated in Chrome while I use Firefox/Tor for all other browsing. So google doesn't know me and YT knows me only via my handle that is otherwise not connected to anything (outside YT).
I have countless examples like this. YT keeps pushing me down a specific ideological path without any action on my part. Sometimes it's great but in those cases where it's not it's not just bad but outright dangerous. I don't think YT has the effect on my since I'm way past a point (age) where my behavior can easily be formed. But I can see how this sends somebody over the cliff who is still figuring out who they are.
People like rockstar2016 (aka the MAGA killer) or the woman who went into Youtube HQ and starting shooting the place up were probably a good examples of how social media can radicalize those that are the most vulnerable.
The problem with online opinions is that while the "opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one" adage is true, online nobody is there to tell you "stop watching this stupid thing". And we all know YT comments are a heap of garbage. Also YT/Instagram comments are fully moderated by the author, so removing all disagreements is easy. Easy to give the appearance of consensus.
And worse, once you watch one, YT's algos want to keep you watching so suddenly you are flooded with related vides.
This leads to a problem.