YOUPOL

An observatory of political YouTube and TikTok.

YouPol tracks more than 100 political channels and accounts in France, Quebec and the United States. Using machine-learning and artificial-intelligence methods, the observatory collects, archives and analyses the videos, what they say and the reactions they draw from the public.

Seven days of content on YouTube and TikTok · 29 September to 5 October 2026

Political YouTube and TikTok, the last week in brief

Every video published by the tracked channels is transcribed, summarised and counted by our local models. This panel gathers the synthesis of the last seven days, the records to read, the themes, the public figures named, the arguments and the removals; the three countries together or one of them, as you choose.

704
videos published
532
transcribed
256
records
193
hours of speech
81.9M
views
The synthesis of the week
France, Quebec and United States · 29 September – 5 October 2026
Period
The synthesis proposed by our local model · last 7 days

Debates on Mediapart revelations, insecurity and the economic crisis

The content mainly addresses democratic tensions, security, and the economy. In France, left-wing channels denounce systemic racism and police repression, while the far-right emphasizes insecurity and judicial leniency. Positions differ regarding the authenticity of Mediapart's investigations into Jordan Bardella. Economically, left-wing social demands contrast with far-right calls for reduced public spending and libertarian financial advice.

France Dominant topics include Jordan Bardella's writings, insecurity in certain neighborhoods, and the crisis in the educational system. Left-wing channels analyze far-right communication and social inequalities. The far-right denounces state failure and the instrumentalization of youth. One conspiracy theory channel mentions a restriction of public liberties via Europe.

Quebec Discussions focus on the Canadian economic crisis, bureaucratic management, and the judicial system. Far-right and conspiracy channels analyze the attractiveness of the United States and corporate bankruptcies. The far-right also criticizes the justice system and opposes affirmative action in criminal sentencing.

The synthesis in full and the daily syntheses

Topics of the claims in 256 records: Institutions and democracy (16%), Economy and labour (13%), Security and justice (12%), Education and culture (9%).

The records to readAll the videos

The most viewed videos of the week, in each country, whose content synthesis is produced by our local model; each opens in a side panel.

Quebec97 videos
United States255 videos
The themes, month by month Since 2016
August 2025 – October 2026 · mean share, per video, of the political sentences on each theme
Orientation
  1. Authority 12.0%
  2. Equality and inequality 10.0%
  3. Democracy 8.2%
  4. Distrust of the state 6.8%
  5. Environment 5.9%
  6. Progress 5.7%
  7. Technology 5.5%
  8. Tradition 5.4%
  9. Immigration 2.4%

October 2026: mean over 83 videos; each video counts once. Since 2016

The public figures most named The ranking
June – October 2026 · ranking balanced by country, each country counts once
List
  1. Donald Trump 1,750
  2. Jordan Bardella 937
  3. Emmanuel Macron 630
  4. Jean-Luc Mélenchon 684
  5. Marine Le Pen 555
  6. The Pope 297

Number of transcribed sentences naming them; bar: channel orientation; line: twelve months. Closed list of public figures. The full ranking

The arguments of the moment By theme
Gone from the platforms… All
  1. FRANCE TRAVAIL : RÉVÉLATIONS SUR UNE AFFAIRE D'ÉTATBLAST, Le souffle de l'info · made private · 4 October 2026
  2. Pourquoi continuer à faire venir des gens qui rejettent nos valeurs?Québec FIER · deleted by its author · 4 October 2026
  3. Video creator's analysis of the geographical and social origins of the radical leftLAPIN DU FUTUR · unavailable, no reason given · 3 October 2026
  4. ADIEU ET PARDONLAPIN DU FUTUR · made private · 3 October 2026

120 videos removed in 120 days; a video transcribed before its removal keeps its record.

Latest transcripts12 min ago
Updated every hour; the last seven days, recomputed every day. The collection figures are in the counter, bottom left. Explore the observatory
The corpus

Three countries, two platforms, 126 channels

Each channel is chosen and coded by the team: an orientation, a country, a language. The far right is deliberately over-represented, to study it closely; the American channels, in English, are transcribed and summarised without going through the classifiers, which are trained on French.

Our method

Detect, extract, transcribe, classify, name, summarise

Six methods, run on the project’s computers, each documented with its models, thresholds and reliability. Pick a step.

01 · Detect

The channels’ RSS feeds are read every six hours; every week their full list of videos is reread. A detected video enters the queue with its date; those of the last seven days go ahead of everything else.

The detail in the method

Cadence
every 6 h, full listing every week
Priority
the last seven days first

The method in full · The methods paper (PDF) · Cite the project

The team

Three researchers

Tristan Boursier

Tristan Boursier

Postdoctoral researcher · co-lead

Sciences Po Paris · Université du Québec en Outaouais

Research design, orientation coding and political analysis.

Antoine Lemor

Antoine Lemor

Postdoctoral researcher · co-lead

Université de Sherbrooke · CIRST · RFICS

Methods, machine learning, infrastructure and website.

Arnaud Miranda

Arnaud Miranda

Research collaborator

CEVIPOF · Sciences Po Paris

Political theory and analysis of reactionary discourse.

The team and the affiliations · Write to us · Cite the project

Project paper