I don't think we all realise how much YouTube matters.

"With the war outside his home, he spent much of his time indoors watching YouTube videos, lost in its “recommended” algorithm. One day he was watching a film produced by one of Russia’s top propagandists titled Batya (or Dad). It was about Alexander Zakharchenko, who served as the Kremlin-appointed leader of the occupied Donetsk region from 2014 until he was assassinated in a café bombing in 2018. When the movie ended, YouTube recommended a pro-Kyiv film about a brutal and decisive battle between Ukrainian and Russian forces in August 2014. Kolya watched once, then again. “Ilovaisk 2014. Donbas Battalion” tells the story of Ukrainian volunteer troops trying to hold the eastern town of Ilovaisk in August 2014, while besieged by Russian forces and their separatist proxy fighters. Scores of Ukrainian fighters would be killed when Russia reneged on its promise to allow them safe passage through a “humanitarian corridor” out of the encirclement. The battle turned the tide of the war in Russia’s favour and led to a controversial ceasefire that gave Moscow time to regroup and continue its invasion while proving to Kyiv that Putin could never be trusted.

The film led Kolya down another YouTube rabbit hole. When he came up for air, he says, he was “pro-Ukrainian”."

https://on.ft.com/3w41rGp