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

Democracy

Political sentences about democracy, as an ideal or as a regime: elections, institutions, representation.

Classifier: F1 0.88 Checked precision 0.90 How reliable are the classifiers?

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.

638
political sentences on the theme: 40
sentences read

The theme in a typical video

Far right 25.3% 15 videos
Manosphere 3.6% 2 videos
Conspiracism 13.7% 3 videos
Culture 4.2% 1 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 90%Manosphere <1%Conspiracism 9%Culture 1%

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.

Representative sentences, not grouped

While the reading is pending, here are the sentences the classifier ties most clearly to the theme, taken from different orientations and channels.

« Mais si on vient à l'économie, le prix du pétrole, il y a une spéculation dans laquelle les... les proches de Donald Trump s'en mettent plein des poches. Mais ce que je trouve dommage, c'est que le Congrès ne met pas ses culottes. »

« Vous déciderez qui va gouverner le Québec. Vous pouvez choisir le PQ de Paul-Saint-Pierre Plamondon, »

« Fait que de dire, nous sommes d'abord et avant tout des citoyens, c'est le politique qui décide pour l'individu qu'est-ce qui devrait arriver en premier dans sa vie. Puis, dans une démocratie libérale, normalement... c'est les individus qui vont se décider eux-mêmes ce qui est […] »

« Parce qu'il faut changer le système parlementaire britannique sur lequel on est basé. Et un Québec indépendant ou péquiste, peu importe. »

« Et tous les petits pays, ils vont voter ce qu'on va leur demander de voter, parce qu'on a les moyens de leur faire voter ce qu'on veut voter. Et il y a des soumains. »

« Je sais qu'il y a des montants d'argent d'alloués par chaque électeur. Si j'annule mon vote, est-ce que ce montant d'argent-là... »

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.

176 2009–2017 117 2018 103 2019 27 2020 1.5k 2021 3.6k 2022 5.3k 2023 9.2k 2024 6k 2025* 1.5k 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