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YouTube Lets Users Override Recommendations After Criticism

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Re: YouTube Lets Users Override Recommendations After Criticism

#101

Post by taneq »

cma wrote: post #68
taneq wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was just talking to a family member recently about this. Her daughter is into horses and so is watching a lot of showjumping videos. Apparently the algorithm keeps trying to lead her off towards increasingly bad showjumping accident videos and from there basically into /r/watchpeopleandhorsesdie

Ironically that sounds like it might save his daughters life given the extreme dangers of show jumping.

I don't think she's in much danger at this stage. It's no different from a kid wanting to watch videos of racing cars - they don't need to see the possible gristly consequences unless they're thinking of actually taking up street racing or something.

Re: YouTube Lets Users Override Recommendations After Criticism

#102

Post by taneq »

anfilt wrote: post #79
taneq wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was just talking to a family member recently about this. Her daughter is into horses and so is watching a lot of showjumping videos. Apparently the algorithm keeps trying to lead her off towards increasingly bad showjumping accident videos and from there basically into /r/watchpeopleandhorsesdie

While I can understanding wanting to not watch such videos because how the events are covered in such videos. Mainly to gawk at grevious injuries/incidents. I do not like the idea filtering reality. A video could instead be if you do stupid thing X this happens. Then again it also depends on the age and maturity of the kid/teen. You dont want to terrify them or scare them wanting to try or learn new things. However l…

And sure, you as an adult should be able to watch whatever you want. But we're talking about little kids here, It's OK to shield them from the more horrible aspects of life. Let them be kids for a little while.

Re: YouTube Lets Users Override Recommendations After Criticism

#103

Post by [deleted] »

lopmotr wrote: post #71
dessant wrote: post #50

We still get recommended extremist videos on YouTube with no way to opt out, unless we create a Google account. Casual visitors will continue to be exposed to that type of content.

Everything is extremism to somebody. Just because you class what you saw as extremism doesn't mean it's wrong for casual visitors to see it. YouTube already has its own (however capricious) standard for what to hide from recommendations or remove completely.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube Lets Users Override Recommendations After Criticism

#104

Post by michael-ax »

dredds wrote: post #9
izzydata wrote: post #3

It's crazy to think that clicking on the "not interested in videos from this channel" button previously did not remove videos from that channel in recommendations. I used to press it up to 5 times on the same video and it still did nothing.

I click on "not interested" when it shows videos i've watched the day before, but then assuming i don't want to see videos of a similar type would be a mistake, yet that's how broken the system is. Any attempt to "train" the algo is wasted effort based on past experience. You could say we users have been "trained" by the algo not to even bother anymore.

I think this arises because we can't really model intentions as they involve irrational, subjective, qualitative preferences. .. That's to say, I completely agree with you.

Re: YouTube Lets Users Override Recommendations After Criticism

#105

Post by Double_a_92 »

taneq wrote: post #31
buzzert wrote: post #23

This doesn’t really solve some of the more concerning things about recommendations, which is the gradual ease into more extreme content. i.e., “super Mario speedrun” to “Top 10 speedrunning fails” to “Super Mario speedrunner gets owned” to “Why women shouldn’t be allowed to play video games” or other such hogwash.

Was just talking to a family member recently about this. Her daughter is into horses and so is watching a lot of showjumping videos. Apparently the algorithm keeps trying to lead her off towards increasingly bad showjumping accident videos and from there basically into /r/watchpeopleandhorsesdie

My mom likes watching Animal documentaries. The recommendations have completely gone out of hand. Showing things like very explicit videos of animals having sex, wild animals eating people, and other terrible things...

Also with videos about cute / funny babys. It slippery sloped into explicit birth giving videos and other almost pedophilic things.

I had to manually delete every video in her history to fix that.

Re: YouTube Lets Users Override Recommendations After Criticism

#106

Post by xg15 »

lopmotr wrote: post #64
xg15 wrote: post #52

To be honest, this looks like a CYA feature to get out, not like something that is actually intended to be used. They took pains to give the "follow the recommendation" action the most frictionless path possible in the UI - just wait and do nothing. In contrast, this new feature to dial back recommendations is a buried in an obscure menu only reachable by clicking a button labeled "..." in a counterintuitive location…

Are you proposing that they don't autoplay anything that you haven't explicitly opted in to? Discovering new creators is pretty important to both Youtube and its users. Or do you want it to autoplay something that's not based on any personalized recommendation? That would reduce the value of Youtube over TV in that it caters to niche interests.

Actually yes, I would propose that you opt-in to Autoplay as a whole. Make it a separate function that people can activate if they want to binge watch or whatever, but keep it off by default.

I have seen a good number of people who struggled with the Autoplay mode in presentations, either could not stop it in time or forgot about it and then had their presentation derailed by the next video. I've seen exactly zero people who actually wanted to use it.

Of course this is wishful thinking when the CEO's performance metric is to keep their users glued to the screen as long as possible.

> The move comes after Susan Wojcicki and other YouTube executives were criticized for being either unable or unwilling to act on internal warnings about extreme and misleading videos because they were too focused on increasing viewing time and other measures of engagement.

Re: YouTube Lets Users Override Recommendations After Criticism

#107

Post by tobr »

izzydata wrote: post #3

It's crazy to think that clicking on the "not interested in videos from this channel" button previously did not remove videos from that channel in recommendations. I used to press it up to 5 times on the same video and it still did nothing.

I’m confused. What was this feature for, then? Just to let off steam when they suggest terrible videos?

Another infuriating thing about that button is that it visually overlaps the video itself (at least in the iPhone app). I don’t know how many times I’ve fatfingered it and started playing an upsetting video rather than report it.

Re: YouTube Lets Users Override Recommendations After Criticism

#108

Post by xg15 »

cameronbrown wrote: post #85
3xblah wrote: post #67

I thought for a moment they were going to turn off recommendations. For users not signed in, they are on by default. Instead this is like asking users to click thumbs up or down in response to an ad, "Don't show me this ad again" or fill out a survey about the ads. The issue is not that the user is annoyed by a specific toxic video. That is only the effect, not the cause. The issue is that Google's recommendation sys…

> Either fix it to stop promoting "popular" garbage (which is "popular" because it is auto-recommended and auto-played), or turn if off by default. Or maybe people like content that you don't? People aren't drones who watch something because it was shovelled into their watch next. Chances are it was decent content. For them. If you consider this a dark pattern then you probably need to get a better perspective. There…

> People aren't drones who watch something because it was shovelled into their watch next.

Actually, in this context, they are. If YouTube were content with people using recommendations as you describe, they could simply keep the sidebar list where you could click on one if you're interested. (or the recommendations that pop up after a video is played, or the home screen or the seemingly half dozen other places they show recommendations)

Instead, they implemented Autoplay mode, which basically works exactly like the force-fed drone model you described.

Re: YouTube Lets Users Override Recommendations After Criticism

#109

Post by fphhotchips »

dredds wrote: post #53
darkpuma wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those sort of videos in particular have a very large replay value, as many insomniacs may play that video every night.

Which is kinda my point. The amount of HD traffic and wasted bandwidth is just insane. At what point would YT just acknowledge the same viewer is watching (or listening) the same video over and over and over again before offering a download button? (sure tech ppl can use 3rd-party tool, but all are blocked on Google Play, and most others limited to short vids only)

Youtube has a download button. You just have to pay for it.

Re: YouTube Lets Users Override Recommendations After Criticism

#110

Post by dredds »

cameronbrown wrote: post #89
cush wrote: post #83

One of the things I hate about the current algo is that I get suggestions from freebooters who upload pirated content. Say for example, John Oliver airs at 9pm, by 9:32 his opening monologue is already pirated and at the top of my feed. No matter how much I dislike, report, or ignore these videos, they always pop to the top. I don't view them, and never give them clicks, but because I watch every official John Oliver…

His videos are region locked so re-uploads are popular in places like my country. Very unfair imo.

The official channel has recently been unblocked in my region, so those pirates must be having the desired result.
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