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Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

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Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#111

Post by mondo9000 »

jlawson wrote: post #51
bengale wrote: post #3

It does seem to be getting better, for a long while I had to make sure to clear my history of any conservative leaning videos or I'd end up down a rabbit hole. Too many and all of a sudden its bloody flat earth videos and other insane conspiracies. Made it very difficult to try and watch a balanced set of videos.

This doesn't match reality. I've watched lots of conservative videos and I've never seen anything about flat Earth or "insane conspiracy theories". Honestly this comment thread seems like trying to build a narrative bridge between straightforward right-leaning content and bizarre conspiracies. The goal is to use censorship of bizarre conspiracies to justify censoring right-leaning content by conflating the two. I'm v…

The strange thing about slippery slope is that it is both a logical fallacy and an effective means to accomplish political objectives (of course one does things incrementally)

Left wing conspiracies are usually narrow in scope: the Republican party, the Koch brothers, George Soros, Dick Cheney, the Oil Industry, its not really the same as a intra-national conspiracy that transcends party lines.

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#112

Post by gotocake »

AltruisticGap wrote: post #109

Manual selection doesn't bode well. I like to watch spiritual and metaphysical talks, Papaji, Eckhart Tolle, Conscious TV, Rupert Spira and the like. I don't want someone to tell me what's "true" or what's "real" by refering me to the so called "facts". Sounds like a slippery slope to me... There sure is a lot of drivel on YouTube.. much of it like content farms playing search engines, is driven by the ad revenue. I…

I don't want someone to tell me what's "true" or what's "real" by refering me to the so called "facts". Sounds like a slippery slope to me...

It sounds at a first reading as though you’d feel everything since the Enlightenment has been a slippery slope. To be fair to YouTube though, if you want an environment devoid of “what’s ‘true’ or ‘what’s real’ by referring [you] to the so-called ‘facts,’” then YouTube seems like it should be your paradise. I watch mostly technical, science, and history videos, but apparently YouTube interprets that as a preference for ranting conspiracists and people who make Joe Rogan look like a gentleman and a scholar. I can only imagine the trash it throws up if you actually seek it out!

If you want to create a bubble of people saying things totally divorced from anything like reality, what more could you ask for than YouTube?

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#113

Post by hateful »

jalgos_eminator wrote: post #85

Say what you want about YouTube recommended political videos, but I have found some absolutely great music because it showed up in my recommended. A small Canadian band showed up in my recommended and that first song captivated me. Then I listened to their other singles and two albums, and now I'm going to their show next month. Also, I just found an artist from Belarus that makes fantastic synthpop. The weird thing…

I agree. I've found a host of new artists this way. I've taken to subscribing to a few choice channels that have live performances (mostly local radio stations). There are a few that do a thing where they have a band on and the do one original and one cover - sometimes I end up finding two new bands.

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#114

Post by [deleted] »

manfredo wrote: post #100
jsheard wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way the algorithm pushes steadily more radical content is really concerning. Try making a completely fresh browser profile and deliberately browsing around right-leaning or "anti-SJW" channels and see how long it takes before YouTube starts pushing videos about white genocide and the impending destruction of western civilization by the muslim hordes (not very long in my experience). edit: I just tried this again…

Interestingly, YouTube actually recommends liberal content at a rate substantially higher than conservative content. Centrists content links to liberal content about three times more frequently than it links to conservative content. Is there evidence to corroborate the claim that YouTube is pushing people to extreme content? The data seems to indicate otherwise. https://www.thepostmillennial.com/does-youtube-facilita…

[deleted]

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#115

Post by hateful »

jalgos_eminator wrote: post #85

Say what you want about YouTube recommended political videos, but I have found some absolutely great music because it showed up in my recommended. A small Canadian band showed up in my recommended and that first song captivated me. Then I listened to their other singles and two albums, and now I'm going to their show next month. Also, I just found an artist from Belarus that makes fantastic synthpop. The weird thing…

I also recommend going to https://www.youtube.com/feed/music . It's a landing page that used to be behind a "Music" button on the youtube homepage, but has since been removed. But luckily the page still exists. It gives you a bunch of different playlists, including "Recommended" and "Latest Videos". I like the Latest Videos because it allows me to see what's "current" at a glance, even if I choose not to view any of them, I can see what' going on in the mainstream.

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#116

Post by atonse »

alttab wrote: post #41
atonse wrote: post #40

We currently don't allow our son to watch anything on youtube, simply because it's a cesspool of horrible videos for children. You're always almost one click away from some violent video where cartoon characters are getting their limbs chopped off, etc. And it's sickening that Google's done nothing about it. Secondly, I can't watch any video without it taking over my recommendations. Alex Jones for example. I still h…

>> There should be a way to watch a video once and not have it take over your recommendations. Log out.

Even if you logout, your anonymous session has its own set of recommendations. No?

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#117

Post by timmaah »

jalgos_eminator wrote: post #85

Say what you want about YouTube recommended political videos, but I have found some absolutely great music because it showed up in my recommended. A small Canadian band showed up in my recommended and that first song captivated me. Then I listened to their other singles and two albums, and now I'm going to their show next month. Also, I just found an artist from Belarus that makes fantastic synthpop. The weird thing…

The Dead South ?

They seem to be oddly popular on youtube.

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#119

Post by alacombe »

driverdan wrote: post #37
ilaksh wrote: post #33

Unfortunately things are converging on the Chinese model. Young people in the US have been so brainwashed against anything really critical of the government that they are literally earnestly requesting political censorship.

I downvoted you because YouTube made no indication they're censoring anything at the behest of the government. They're also not removing content, just adjust what's recommended.

Replace "government" with "Silicon Valley groupthink" and the same argument applies. Meanwhile, Google is happily doing business in China & other oppressive country when I'm absolutely certain they do censor based of government standards.

Re: Continuing our work to improve recommendations on YouTube

#120

Post by blihp »

scribu wrote: post #93
corobo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be even better is if they had somewhere that you could just specify what episode it is in a series rather than it try to guess based on titles

Youtube creators already have the ability to create series inside playlists. Example: The Slow Mo Guys channel has a "Planet Slow Mo" series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbIZ6k-SE9Shmj0Uvxtrv...

The problem is when you first find a video that's interesting you don't necessarily find the playlist that it belongs to. (or worse, you find it in someone else's playlist which includes the video along with other seemingly random videos that the playlist creator was interested in)
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