Observatory

YOUPOL / Explore

Themes and arguments.

The arguments put forward or contested in the videos, grouped by theme and by period. Our local model draws them from a sample of political sentences, then they are checked against the sentences; each quote links back to its video.

The theme

Authority

Political sentences about authority: obedience, order, the use of force against those who break norms.

Reliability of the classifier 0.87F1 0.70checked precision The method

Period

Last 7 days Last 3 months* 2026* 2025* 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2009–2017

The last seven days are read again every day. * provisional: part of the period’s videos are still to be transcribed. Greyed out: reading pending.

361
political sentences on the theme: 39
sentences read: 34%
of the period’s YouTube videos transcribed: Gemma 4 31B
read on 4 October 2026

The theme in a typical video

Far right 6.6% 22 videos
Manosphere 1.8% 3 videos
Conspiracism 2.9% 4 videos
Culture 5.8% 2 videos

Mean share, per video, of the political sentences on the theme; each video counts once, from 20 political sentences.

Where the theme’s sentences come from

Far right 94% 338 sentences
Manosphere 1% 3 sentences
Conspiracism 4% 13 sentences
Culture 2% 7 sentences

This split follows the size of each orientation’s corpus: it describes the channel selection, not the weight each side gives the theme.

Arguments come from a sample shared by the territories. Only excerpts from channels in the selected country and their associated arguments are kept here; counts are recalculated.

While the reading is pending

What the videos say, sentence by sentence.

The sentences the classifier ties most clearly to the theme, taken from different orientations and channels; each one comes out of its video, which opens in a side panel.

« Tout ça, la police et les pancartes, pas de chef, pas de directeur de campagne, rien. Je vais vous dire que... mais Qu'est-ce que ça m'a rapproché des gens, le fait de tout faire moi-même, de tout prendre les rendez-vous, c'est rare que tu n'as pas le... »
« On est dans le constitutionnel, on n'est pas dans le criminel. Mais quand même, on a des contacts. Et la problématique, c'est qu'il faut que les gens cessent de vouloir aller chercher de la visibilité en faisant des coups d'éclat. »
« Alors, il n'a pas de frontières. Donc, ça nécessite une autorité centrale et mondiale pour tout »
« Les avions de chasse. Je pense que tous les investissements du secteur de la défense, le Parti québécois a dit qu'il aurait sa propre armée. »
« Un immeuble qui est en rénovation. Écoute, il y a des policiers qui sont même rentrés dans des conduits de ventilation. »
« Let's go Trump. Fais-le ton corps, c'est rendu le Canada pour ton pays est un danger de sécurité nationale. »

The videos

Where the theme weighs most.

Videos of the last four months, ranked by the share of their political sentences the classifier assigns to the theme; each record opens in a side panel.

The percentage is the share of the video’s political sentences assigned to the theme (at least 20 political sentences and 5 on the theme).

The periods

The theme, year by year.

Political sentences on the theme by period; click a period to show it. The number also depends on the share of videos transcribed, which varies a lot from year to year.

55 2009–2017 15 2018 24 2019 14 2020 745 2021 1.2k 2022 2k 2023 5k 2024 2.9k 2025* 539 2026*

How the arguments are drawn

The theme’s political sentences are drawn at random by period, with quotas per orientation and a cap per channel and per video. Our local model reads the sentences without knowing their channel or orientation, groups those making the same argument, separates those reporting it in order to contest it and sets aside those off the theme. Orientation shares and quotes come from the sentences, never from the model. The last seven days are read again every day.

The detail in the method