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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

#61

Post by kalleboo »

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…

I'm really happy with my YouTube recommendations as well. I'm sure they could be better at finding new stuff I haven't seen, but I don't get any "garbage" (e.g. I see no political stuff at all).

I also like how they're not afraid to surface older evergreen videos. I just got this 2-year-old video about a WW2-era Monopoly set recommended to me (never watched videos about board games, monopoly or WW2) and I thought it was fantastic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsrC79QV7cU

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#62

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

To offer a counterpoint, I absolutely love YouTube recommendations.

Once you get into watching videos belonging to a new field, you get a lot of recommendations for that, and it's great to use them to get a good nice overview of the field.

Likewise, repeat recos for songs etc are also very very convenient.

I think this is again a case of the vocal minority making it feel like everything sucks.

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#63

Post by Nasrudith »

naiveai wrote: post #25

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 con…

I think it is a case of "riding crop makers demand cars and trains use more horses". Self interested willful ignorance that it doesn't work that way and besides - if you want nothing is stopping you from maintaining your own lists on YouTube - but it probably won't be popular. They need to earn the position they want - not getting handed to them after demanding it.

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#64

Post by LordHeini »

grawprog wrote: post #53

Google's too busy optimizing ad delivery for youtube to care. I recently updated the android app, only change I noticed was now ads extend over the description and comments until you click a little x. That never existed before the update.

Try NewPipe.

Googles Youtube App drives me insane with all the crappy ads.

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#65

Post by frosted-flakes »

apricot13 wrote: post #45

I make a point to avoid watching recommended videos the exception being I tend to use youtube for researching products and recommended videos are actually helpful there. My youtube process is to go straight to the subs page daily, add all the videos to a 'watch later' playlist* so whenever I go to youtube I always have a curated list of just for me content and I don't get sucked down the rabbit hole. *not the watch l…

In the Android app, the default Watch Later playlist can be re-ordered just like any other playlist.

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#67

Post by grawprog »

LordHeini wrote: post #64
grawprog wrote: post #53

Google's too busy optimizing ad delivery for youtube to care. I recently updated the android app, only change I noticed was now ads extend over the description and comments until you click a little x. That never existed before the update.

Try NewPipe. Googles Youtube App drives me insane with all the crappy ads.

Yeah I do use newpipe to play music through an external player but I don't sign in on there so finding videos for channels I'm subscribed to gets kind of frustrating.

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#68

Post by HappySweeney »

thosakwe wrote: post #15

I don’t even buy the reasoning that the recommendations are somehow “personalized,” because they don’t seem to be... At all. I have never watched a political video on YouTube, or really anything unrelated to music or computer science, yet my “recommended videos” are always full of Ben Shapiro and his ilk. It’s easier to find relevant videos by doing a regular Google search, which is a little ironic.

I recently read a plausible theory as to why Ben Shapiro keeps coming up: YouTube's algorithm is being gamed so it ends up believing that Shapiro videos have something to do with what you just watched. So some group of people/bots "watches" a lecture on the mating habits of the red-tailed swallow, then Shapiro, then another lecture on birds, then Shapiro again. Eventually, YT thinks Shapiro vids are related to bird lectures, and makes the recommendations.

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#69

Post by DuskStar »

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…

I've gotten some real gems, but also some really irritating stinkers. Recently YouTube recommended a newly uploaded song with ~12 views listed and that was fantastic, but at the same time they recommended a "this is what 's planning for " video... that I'd already watched... from two years ago.

Re: YouTube should stop recommending garbage videos to users

#70

Post by rasz »

safeplanet-fesa wrote: post #52

I use my current YouTube account for two and a half years. In this time period I clicked "Not interested" in the right sidebar with suggestions around 3000 times - very many times, and I keep clicking it. Due to this huge effort, when I watch videos of my interest scope, I mostly receive good suggestions and I'm satisfied with the suggestion system; however when I occasionally watch something unusual to me, I do rece…

"fun" fact: "Not interested" button on Twitch uses a rolling ~300 item filo (First In, Last Out) list. Perfect placebo! You keep clicking and it keeps pretending to work.

I wonder if Google is not doing the same, as they do for Likes with 5000 limit https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/6m7k63/i_just_reac...

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