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YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

arstechnica.com

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Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#21

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

striking wrote: post #8
apacheCamel wrote: post #7

I propose an idea, maybe: every video you watch, the original author of that video can set up a list of recommended videos to watch after you are done with the one you originally came for. This way, the original video author has a say in where you head in your Youtube rabbit-hole experience. This is just off the top of my head early in the morning so probably not the best idea, but honestly it seems better than what…

They can already add suggested videos in end screens and in the info card drawer (although the info card drawer is not used nearly as often as it could be, and YouTube doesn't necessarily do a good job of drawing attention to it).

What is the info card drawn and how do I interact with it?

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#22

Post by danso »

donatj wrote: post #11

The majority of my YouTube recommendations are videos I’ve already watched , despite there being innumerable videos in the back catalogues of my subscriptions I have not seen. My wife has the exact same problem. Surely I haven’t seen all of YouTube. I would love if it recommended me things I would be remotely interested in watching, even if they were “garbage” over this. At this point I would almost prefer sketchy co…

I have a tendency to rewatch videos over and over, or rather, replay them because they make for good not-too-distracting background noise (I do the same with “The Big Lebowski”). Nearly my entire recommendations feed is videos I’ve seen a dozen times or more, and because I often visit YouTube to just quickly find something for background noise, I’ll just click whatever’s near the top. And next time I visit YouTube...those videos are at the top again.

That’s kind of annoying to me but I figured that it’s a problem of my own making. But it sounds like the algorithm behaves this way for other users who aren’t as weirdly repetitive as me?

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#24

Post by wastedhours »

Am I the only person who gets actually relevant recommended videos when logged in?

I'd say 80% of the recommended videos are directly related to the interests I've shown with my viewing habits. I went through a period of watching at least an hour a day so perhaps that's it and they have some serious data behind me (and I never watch conspiracy, politics or prank videos for them to appear anywhere near them).

Whenever I'm logged out though, then yeah, complete dumpster-fire.

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#25

Post by naiveai »

This article has a catchy title, but is absolutely terrible. Curated human recommendations and/or "YouTube staffers should think like journalists" are both two of the worst ideas for the internet I've heard in quite a long time. They don't reduce bias by any significant amount consistently (and I suspect the authors know this), and thinking of a platform where millions of seperate people upload ungodly amounts of content per second as a platform to be curated just like a news site is just fundamentally misunderstanding the scale and nature of Cyberspace.

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#26

Post by rapnie »

> YouTube's recommendation engine "isn't built to help you get what you want — it's built to get you addicted to YouTube," argued Guillaume Chaslot

Well.. for me the bad recommendations and search results are having the exact opposite effect. If I have a direct link to a cool video then its fine, but clicking around in the UI is an absolute time-waster.

But then again I'm not logged in and have FF + uBlock + PrivacyBadger and maybe its made deliberately annoying then..

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#27

Post by ekingr »

I would argue that it is the same story for traditional media - albeit to a less extreme extent. In France, even on public channels, reality shows and dubious scandal-sounding programs now represent a high share of the broadcasts.

For sure it is less extreme than the topics mentioned there, but still the programs are optimized to make you addicted and boost stats. Neutral fact-based or educational content is disappearing quickly.

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#28

Post by chaosbutters »

wastedhours wrote: post #24

Am I the only person who gets actually relevant recommended videos when logged in? I'd say 80% of the recommended videos are directly related to the interests I've shown with my viewing habits. I went through a period of watching at least an hour a day so perhaps that's it and they have some serious data behind me (and I never watch conspiracy, politics or prank videos for them to appear anywhere near them). Whenever…

same boat. I get really good recommendations logged in but it is a dumpster fire if logged out

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#29

Post by judge2020 »

wastedhours wrote: post #24

Am I the only person who gets actually relevant recommended videos when logged in? I'd say 80% of the recommended videos are directly related to the interests I've shown with my viewing habits. I went through a period of watching at least an hour a day so perhaps that's it and they have some serious data behind me (and I never watch conspiracy, politics or prank videos for them to appear anywhere near them). Whenever…

Same for me. I've found that if I exhaust every video of every one of the few people I watch, it might start showing their videos once again, but only after it's been months since I've seen it and it's only one or two of the 10+ they put on the home page.

Worth noting that I pay for YT Premium, so maybe Google is training my recommendation model more or feeding more niche YouTube videos to it than they would for ad-driven (or ad blocking) viewers.

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#30

Post by ptah »

striking wrote: post #8
apacheCamel wrote: post #7

I propose an idea, maybe: every video you watch, the original author of that video can set up a list of recommended videos to watch after you are done with the one you originally came for. This way, the original video author has a say in where you head in your Youtube rabbit-hole experience. This is just off the top of my head early in the morning so probably not the best idea, but honestly it seems better than what…

They can already add suggested videos in end screens and in the info card drawer (although the info card drawer is not used nearly as often as it could be, and YouTube doesn't necessarily do a good job of drawing attention to it).

they have in-video links but they automatically play what their algorithm thinks instead for some reason
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