FILE – This March 20, 2018 file photo shows the YouTube app on an iPad in Baltimore. YouTube is updating its hate speech policies to prohibit videos with white supremacist and neo-Nazi content. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Every day, YouTube pushes a list of news videos into my feed that they term “Top News.”

As you can see from the screenshot I took, they are nothing but mainstream and cable channels from different countries. The subjects include the announcement of Ross Perot’s death, a dancing cockatoo, and a car that caught on fire during a gender reveal. 

Now let’s take a look at some independent news personalities and their videos.

Tim Pool’s latest videos far and away outclass any of these videos by miles, and some of this stuff is hard hitting news. Pool’s coverage of the border crisis and politicians involved with it has been majorly watched videos.

Now, you may say that the videos from the “Top News” picks are only hours old, and fair enough. However, going over the video content of channels like CBS News, the majority struggle to crack 10,000 views. Those that do go beyond still very rarely ever top Pool’s selection of news videos.

Compare that to progressive independent news source David Pakman whose recent offering outclasses CBS News as well.

The Quartering on YouTube, which primarily covers cultural news, also consistently outperforms the major news networks.

Despite these channels consistently discussing news, it’s not considered good enough to be “Top News” according to YouTube. A dancing cockatoo, however, is.

Pakman posted a video discussing this push of YouTube’s for more mainstream news to take center stage, where in he discusses just how bad it’s become. In the video he points to a graph that shows the recommendations from YouTube toward independent news, and you can see for yourself the recommendations generated from the YouTube algorithm push mainstream news channels far more than independent news channels.

Pakman notes that he spent the weekend researching this and attempted to see who was gaining the recommendations that would have otherwise gone to these independent channels. Pakman shows us a graph generated by monitoring YouTube’s algorithm that shows the recommendations “dive off a cliff” at May 1st, where as CNN, Fox News, and other corporate news channels skyrocketed.

Pakman wanted to stress that this wasn’t just affecting conservative news channels, but news channels across the ideological spectrum. In other words, if you’re not a corporate entity, YouTube probably won’t recommend you.

Pool also posted a graph that shows what Pakman is talking about.

Welcome to your new corporate Youtube experience.

Youtube has been suppressing independent commentary in favor of corporate Cable TV News

cc @dpakman pic.twitter.com/QPPsE7jq5M

— Tim Pool (@Timcast) July 9, 2019

YouTube is likely abandoning creators and personalities that base themselves on their platform due to the fact that it’s become too “dangerous” for it to do otherwise.

Enjoy dancing parrots as your “Top News” in your sterile YouTube experience.