This is an excellent and well researched piece of journalism.

This is a must listen podcast. It is scary at some points with how much we think we’re in control, but in reality, we’re just puppets.

I’ve just listened the "Start Here" episode and part of the second, in both pieces I’ve heard "far right groups", ok, I’m leaving here. I’m sick and tired of all this propaganda. This is too much. Movies, TV Shows, News...it’s all the same script, same words, same message. NO, THANK YOU!. I’ll try to find something instructive and free from ideologies. Stop the brainwashing.

This is an amazing podcast a must listen for anyone from anywhere.

This reminded me of the golden days of Radiolab! Really astounding reporting on a surprisingly related string of topics coupled with some seriously fantastic audio production.

Our current state of society is troubling. Listening to Kevin team dig into why we are where we are shed light on so many things. I do appreciate that they treated everyone they interviewed with dignity and were unbiased in their reporting.

This was one of the many sets of stories that alerted me to some of the problems with our modern technologies and the impacts they have on real people that we don’t always think about. So glad Kevin Roose did so much hard work to bring this to us.

Fascinating series. Was really refreshing to hear such excellent reporting on YouTube from young people who are actually familiar with the eccentric culture.

So!! Freakin!! Good!!

Lots of good insight and conversation. I never felt like the host was too bias for one side or another, which is refreshing these days. There’s more than one rabbit hole.

Note. I’d love to see more on extreme left though. Note: Not all pro gun Americans are psycho, far right people. Some of us just love to shoot and hunt and keep to ourselves in our simple lives, not obsessing with people on YouTube. :)

The first episode was promising but when you get to the YouTube executive interview the only focus is on alt right channels and their misinformation. Surely there’s misinformation being spread on the other side. What about all the people who used BLM to burn down cities and wreak havoc last year? Shouldn’t that be tamed also? I don’t identify with either side just wish this was more balanced. I think our society is in real trouble with the internet taking over our brains.

An excellent consolidation of what’s been happening on the internet over the past 10 years and how it has affected the political moment we are in currently. A very well produced and interesting format as well.

I have had this podcast saved for a while and I am eagerly awaiting a second season if there will be one. Ever relevant and fascinating, I’m so glad for this honest journalism. Very well done.

Well I devoured this in a day. Holy moly.... it’s funny how it’s about people falling into rabbit holes and that’s exactly how I felt about this podcast- couldn’t get enough of it. Thoroughly enjoyed, 10/10 would recommend. Makes me feel even better about deleting my social media accounts.

Of your kind and with your kind, makes tight little funnels into which ideas can be ceded. None escapes its reach.

The best podcast ever, thanks for the hosts.

Interesting topic but I really don’t care about this kid’s story. I’d rather hear about the science and data.

Truly one of the best podcasts I’ve had the pleasure of listening to. Definitely worth the listen, you will fly through the 8 episodes. Thank you NYT for this wonderful listen!

I know I’m not the first to say this, but this reporting is needed now, following the terrorist attack on the capitol.

Bias media. Sad the loss of journalism to activists.

Appreciate the idea of the show coming to life; it’s researched journalism but the show itself is sort of the process of researching how social media (YouTube being the focus) is impacting our society. There’s no conclusion as there’s a lot to figure out still by those creating the platform, users, and consumers. Story of this social experiment is still being written and we should think about how it’s impacting us. All I got from it.

I love and appreciate the way this podcast told the story of the internet’s role in our lives and how it has led us to where we are in this moment. Especially insightful on how we got to Q anon being a movement that is showing up and interfering with society and politics. It was great to listen to this the week of the insurrection on the Capitol.

Production-wise, this show is incredibly high quality and enjoyable to listen to. Recommending to everyone!

Listening in mid-Jan 2021 and I’d love to hear your take on Parker and the storming of the Capitol. Feels like a logical epilogue. Please come back! This reporting and analysis is so important!

I have never reviewed a podcast but I am shook by Rabbit Hole. Excellently reported. It is a combination of entertaining, terrifying, and eye opening. Highly recommend.

There doesn't seem to be an overall thread to this podcast. Someone probably had a very good idea to start this but that is not what it became.

This show is not: going to make you come to any conclusion about conspiracy theories, or who is susceptible to them, or how to stop them.

This show is: a hodgepodge of random interviews of people who spend too much time on the Internet.

Everyone involved in this podcast, from the producers to the writers to the subjects to the news journalists, think they are much smarter than they are. They have lied to themselves enough that they believe the facades they project.

Overall delusional. Would not recommend.

This is a hilarious caricature of many criticisms people level at nyt. The show starts off promising but gets completely unrooted by a difficult to listen to product placement episode for YouTube. It is grating and bad journalism. This is followed by an episode where the reporter disturbingly gushes over a YouTuber named PewDePie. They edit in quotes where pewdepie praises the reporter which feels superfluous, and then the host asks pewdepie beyond softball questions. I felt second hand infantilization listening to this, it was awful.

I listened to most of the series and plan on listening to the final episodes soon. It touches on some interesting stuff and is well produced. It is from objective and unfortunately does not take a nuanced or complex read of pertinent issues. It’s entertaining but frustrating.

One of the best. Kudos for everyone who worked on this.

I am 26 this year and also found the internet during my high school years to be a refuge, but never went too far into YouTube or message boards, mainly just tumblr. I’ve only listened to the first episode but this podcast is one that seems to chronicle my generation’s coming of age, from 9/11 and sandy hook conspiracy theories to Qanon, and really opened my eyes to what was beneath the surface that I wasn’t paying attention to. My parents have always subscribed to our local newspaper, the New York Times (in print!) and listened to NPR as the authority news sources, so I had an example to follow, but I never really read or followed traditional news platforms until 2016, when I was 21 and on the cusp of graduating college. I just could not understand how people could morally think this way and was so angry all the time, but I can see now how if you never had an example to follow in terms of how to get your news and facts, you could so easily get sucked into this stuff. Thank you for this, I’ll be recommending to literally everyone I know because after the insurrection it is even harder for me and the people in my life to wrap our heads around.

This is not unbiased. It’s wrought with political agenda. No thank you.

By the end of the second episode you’re like wait where is the end? Did it just cut off? Then I realized, “oh they are doing what they are exposing...creating a way to fall down this rabbit hole”. Clever and not. For the reasons they outline in the episodes. It is informative; explains what is happening to folks. I don’t watch YouTube videos unless it’s a tv show clip that I choose (not recommended).

Helps explain how many younger ppl get mobilized toward extreme right and how modern internet algorithms effect our culture.

You touched a bit on progressive minded people getting sucked into the extreme groups but you focused much more of FAR right groups. Did you even touch on Antifa or BLM? They have used technology to gather to destroy cities and MSM doesn’t refer to them as extreme left groups.

very one sided and typical of NYT

Each episode links together to tell an engaging story about our current world and its relationship to the internet. It introduces us to characters and stories we know and others we don’t to demonstrate the intricacies of the cyber world, its vulnerabilities, and our shared responsibility of its existence.

This is the perfect podcast for this time. It’s kind of Social Dilema-ish. It really opens your eyes to a spiral we all experience on the internet, but opens your eyes to the severity of the situation.

Great engaging sound design. I’m 26 and I had no idea any of this you tube stuff was happening and I was just so unaware. Also I am FULLY convinced that the YouTube creator who did the fascist stuff is a COMPLETE psychopath and megalomaniac

Great podcast. It’s not breaking any new ground, but does provide interesting perspective by focusing on individuals who have gone down the internet rabbit hole.

Also, excellent editing and production value.

Yes the woman interviewed has “left” Q, but the way she got there — via a long YouTube interview of Senator Elizabeth Warren - is scary. Sen Warren is smart, perhaps even effective as a Senator (and/or professor), but her ideology doesn’t just translate into direct political action IMHO. Democracy doesn’t reflect ideals/idealism but a negotiated consensus with input from all angles - meaning, from actual individuals with actual human experiences (and not algorithms; tiktok, YouTube, Twitter or other).

I was fully engrossed in this podcast. It was entertaining and informative at the same time. Plus, it really shed light on an issue that we all should more be aware of.

I loved this! I binged it all in one night! Well done!

Listened to most of this, seemed pretty interesting to start. I’m fairly undecided on a lot of this, but then it just became an ad for YouTube. Which doesn’t really make sense considering how the first episode began.

I went into this with an open mind and I know NYT is left leaning so I anticipated that skew. Did not anticipate the YouTube propaganda.

I like it. Well done. Just wondering why this direction chosen vs the many other directions of radicalism that are happening as much. Would love to hear the same investigative with others.

This show is very powerful from start to end. It left me lingering with a need, or at least an urge, to do something about the massive misinformation that is taking place before our very eyes.

The reality is that there isn’t much we can do directly: listening to the show, I came to realize informing ourselves and paying attention to the sources we use to do so, might be a powerful enough weapon to, at the very least, not fall pray to it ourselves; It also filled me with hope that we maybe able to steer those we love in the right direction if we have enough accurate information, although, sometimes, it’s just way out of reach.

The use of Claire de Lune as an audio motif in this podcast is *chef’s kiss.* Great condensed analysis of how the way we use the Internet is changing our cultural perceptions of reality.

It’s so funny, the ad for the nyt talks about how they’re unbiased, but it’s so clear they only are concerned with the left point of view. They don’t even interview a conservative YouTuber.

This show had promise, but instead we get a lengthy and tedious effort to resuscitate the reputation of PewDiePie, who we learn is not a Nazi (he’s not “political” he assures us). This after coming dangerously close to creating a false equivalence between white supremacy content and left leaning content in the early episodes, each of which are dismissed as “political” by the reporter. This show is suffocating in whiteness—I couldn’t finish.

Please put out more podcasts like this!

Great podcast, highly recommend!

Stellar show. Well told and ultra relevant. While certainly not the only show to tackle this top, this is probably the best. In terms of scope, perspective and narrative it stands above everything else I have found.

Everyone needs to listen to this podcast. This isn't "leftist propaganda", it's a combination of experiences by people who have been through brainwashing by media and how easily false information is spread. Very well done. Informative, thought provoking, truly amazing journaling. Well done.