Is Youtube a breeding ground for the far-right?

For all the talk of 4Chan and the alt-right, it's Youtube which is now more significant as a focal point of far-right ideas. I know this because I've been seen it first-hand. I watched some videos by right-leaning Youtubers just to know what their arguments were and then Youtube algorithms started recommending me more radical things, including videos with 'ethno-nationalist' ideas.

For me, the Youtube right has three different layers. First, you have mainstream Conservatives or 'classical-liberals'. I'm thinking of Dave Ruben, Shapiro, Jordan Peterson and the so-called Skeptic community. Their primary frames of reference are hating social justice warriors, extreme-feminism and other straw-leftists. Some of them claim not to be on the right at all but I'm judging them by their arguments, not by their self-definitions.

Secondly, you have the alt-lite. This group includes Sargon of Akkad, Stephan Molyneux, Tommy Robinson, Paul Joseph Watson and others. They have the same arguments and priorities of the first group but also dabble in ethnonationalism and 'race-realism' arguments. The final group includes people who are outright and unapologetic NAZIs.

The problematic thing is that there are connections between the different layers. The mainstream right - in particular, Dave Rubin - give a platform to radical-right figureheads. He lets them speak their views without even cursory journalistic criticism and Ruben himself is funded by the Koch Brothers and is a supporter of Jari Bolsanaro in Brazil.

There are also thematic links between all three layers. Debates are framed around 'free-speech' in opposition to a partially imagined version of the radical left. However - when you look into it - the actual speech that is being defended is often nothing more than the right to have racist (or racist-adjacent) views and their examples of the radical left overreach are normally teenaged college activists. Jordan Peterson has done much to legitimise the idea of 'Post-Modern Neo-Marxism' as an all-encompassing bogeyman which is destroying western values. I honestly cannot tell the difference between this and the Cultural Marxist conspiracy theory and that is something which actually does have NAZI origins.

Most right YouTubers are not NAZIs but I do think they are popularising far-right ideas. By mislabeling the left as extreme and dangerous, it provides the far-right with cover. If Hitler was a socialist (sic) and Antifa are 'the real Fascists' then actual fascism can be safely ignored. By giving an uncritical platform to racialised ideas, they are making it possible for far-right ideologies to reach a much wider audience than they otherwise would. Most of the channels I mentioned have over a million subscribers and I'm sure some on this website will count amongst them.