An Open Letter to Rebecca Lewis

Dear Rebecca,

You don’t know me. I doubt you have ever heard of me. In fact, I’m 99% sure that we have never even interacted with each other on social media. On top of all that, I suspect you won’t even take the time to read this, though I hope I am wrong about that last part. If I am wrong, and you are actually reading this, I have one simple request.

Please stop.

I ask of you, in complete sincerity, to just stop this whole ordeal. Stop while you’re ahead. You’ve already embarrassed yourself, and you’re only going to keep embarrassing yourself further if you keep going down this road. It’s not too late to turn around and say “alright, guys, I’m sorry, I was wrong.” I think that if you did that, most people you tarred and feathered would be perfectly willing to forgive you.

Maybe you don’t know what I’m talking about. Let me jog your memory. Back in late 2018, you published a study entitled Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube. We were promised “insights into the connection between influence, amplification, monetization, and radicalization at a time when platform companies struggle to handle policies and standards for extremist influencers.” Finally, this study would reveal how this strange political network “adopts the techniques of brand influencers to build audiences and ‘sell’ them political ideology.”

At first, it seemed you’d done something genuinely impressive. Mainstream media loved your work. The Guardian promoted the study. Wired wrote positively about it, as did Mother Jones. Vox, Vice and Variety loved it. It seemed that you had really exposed a dangerous secret on YouTube.

But then people started actually looking into your study, and things began to fall apart.

Some people noted that the study’s methodology makes use of a technique known as “snowball sampling”, a method which is “based on referrals from initial subjects to generate additional subjects.” There is nothing wrong with snowball sampling, as it is a perfectly valid research method. However, as some researchers have noted, “snowball sampling is an applicable method to use for mapping [networks]… [but] qualitative studies are [also] needed in order to interpret the networks in real-life contexts.” In other words, snowball sampling is good at revealing connections between individuals, but without evaluating the nature of these connections, the data is essentially meaningless. And what a surprise, the infamous graph from your report doesn’t use any qualitative methods to interpret the supposed “Alternate Influence Network.”

Then there’s the fact that some of the data seems outright fabricated. Several of the supposed links between content creators are actually non-existent. “There is a line from me to Coach Red Pill,” independent journalist Tim Pool explains. “I have no idea who Coach Red Pill is. There is a line from me to Some Black Guy. I have never collaborated with or even inter- I don’t believe I’ve interacted with Some Black Guy… there is a line from me to Andy Warski. I may have met Andy Warski at VidCon, but I don’t believe we’ve actually interacted or anything of that nature, maybe I said ‘hi’… They have a line from me to Destiny. I only somewhat know who Destiny is.”

Not only were there fabricated connections, but there were also omitted connections that probably should’ve been there. Why is Sargon’s interview with Alt-Right figurehead Richard Spencer there, but not his interview with ContraPoints, a progressive content creator on YouTube? To the casual onlooker, this would seem like an omission to make it seem that only people you don’t approve of can be gateways to far-right ideas. After all, why does ContraPoints, an arguably famous YouTuber, get a free pass on the exact behaviour you criticise Joe Rogan for doing? Perhaps it’s because when you look at an actual map of political YouTube, the truth is that everyone, regardless of their beliefs, is a “gateway” to the far-right, at least by your own study’s logic. But this goes against the narrative that this is a mostly right-wing network, so the more left-leaning elements of political YouTube were simply brushed under the rug.

Additionally, the report makes multiple references to “search results and video recommendations”, laying the blame for the rise of heterodox content at the feet of YouTube’s algorithms. But more robust research indicates that the algorithms have little effect. Instead, the rise of non-mainstream content is actually based on supply and demand. One of the researchers who discovered this noted that “We think [the algorithm] theory is incomplete, and potentially misleading… we think that it has rapidly gained a place in the centre of the study of media and politics on YouTube because it implies an obvious policy solution — one which is flattering to the journalists and academics studying the phenomenon.”

There are other criticisms, of course, such as the absurdity of carelessly glossing over the gap between “mainstream versions of libertarianism and conservatism, all the way to overt white nationalism”, and the fact that the study as a whole relies too heavily on guilt by association. But I think you get the idea by now. As soon as your study was subjected to a hint of scrutiny, it all fell apart. What, on the surface, seemed to be a respectable study was nothing more than the kind of ideologically motivated pseudoscience that was lampooned by the infamous Grievance Studies hoax.

And now a whole year has passed since the Alternative Influence study was released, and now you’ve released another study that recycles talking points from your first study. And then, just over a week later, new research comes out showing that many of the figures you are so scared about actually deradicalise people rather than radicalising them.

And all of this is why I’m asking you to stop. Just quit while you’re ahead because you are turning your career into one big joke, and it’s really embarrassing. Not only that, but your smear campaigns are hurting various independent content creators by enabling moral guardians who get a kick out of cracking down on controversial political content like there’s no tomorrow. And on top of that, maybe you could apologise to the content creators you lied about? Just say “hey guys, sorry I helped fuel a smear campaign against your work.” I think many people would be happy to forgive you.

That’s all I really have to say. Hope you have a nice day.

Best wishes,

Curtis.