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I find youtube recommendations crap because if I watch something on one subject it seems to assume the subject is now the love of my life and proceeds to offer a zillion on just that subject. regarding what the article is talking about ... eh, it seems like they're saying it works fine but sometimes puts up videos whose politics they don't like. Short of going in and removing the stuff you don't like so that other pe…
Also don’t get me started on getting bombarded and suggested only “sound variations” videos which are noisy, rude and an attack on the senses - pure garbage content. Definitely a huge leap to assume I’ll find this interesting based on my previous choices.
Maybe instead of complaining here I should just go ahead and delete YouTube :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The trick is to actively tell YouTube what you don’t like, it work quite well for me.
I did try this a few times, but usually it have little effect on my recommendations.
And god help you if you watch even one off-topic video - like another comment mentions, YouTube algorithm then concludes you want to see a million more. Reminds me of a Weird Al lyric about TiVo: "I watched Will and Grace one time, one day. Now TiVo thinks I'm gay."
My youtube sucks, I'm always looking for stuff to kill my time and youtube recommend the same crap videos 500 times in a row. It take a long time to find something I want to watch.
I've been loading the Youtube homepage every 15 minutes for the past week (I've been sick). It's the same videos over and over again. If I scrolled past it the first time, I'm still going to scroll past it the 100th time I see it.
I don't know how Youtube's algorithms work internally, but lately the front page is just so broken that it's baffling. The sidebar recommendations are another discussion -- those are possibly more pernicious but at least not as obviously dysfunctional.
How is it possible to have the largest repository of video content in the world, yet Youtube is only able to recommend me the same videos over and over again (half of which I seen already or quickly clicked out of). There is also a simplistic list of recommended categories, which I would change if I could, and those never change either.
If the front page were just completely random, it would be better than it is now. If I could actually tell Youtube to show me videos with a low-to-moderate view count and a high upvote ratio, then that would be fabulous and I probably would encounter new subjects and ideas rather than getting stuck watching the same garbage over and over. I'll never let my future children spend even a second on Youtube, because the stuff that it recommends to kids is so asinine that it just makes me mad.
I really believe that collectively we are all much dumber because of the Youtube's pathetically bad algorithms.
I find youtube recommendations crap because if I watch something on one subject it seems to assume the subject is now the love of my life and proceeds to offer a zillion on just that subject. regarding what the article is talking about ... eh, it seems like they're saying it works fine but sometimes puts up videos whose politics they don't like. Short of going in and removing the stuff you don't like so that other pe…
christ, no kidding. this was my first clue that google has fundamentally changed as a company and it was time for me to leave.
ive been using gmail since it came out and watching YouTube with a signed-in, non adblocked experience for years. the algorithim doest give a SHIT. if i watch one "The Office" clip, thats suddenly 60-80% of my feed despite the fact that i dont particularly like the show. im not sure what theyve doing with all my data theyve been harvesting like gollum, but it sure isnt being used for my benefit. (i dont have kide, no one else uses my account, dont watch youtube through vpn, etc etc)
and dont get me started on the ads. ive never installed an anime girl fighting game, from gplay or anywhere else. stop it.
so how does it work so go on me? I find urges to check the feed all the time. But the content rarely engages me. I watch a couple minuets then switch. What is going on here? why am I gravitated towards it? Can I use the same process to my benefit? Like can you build your own algorithm to get you addicted o healthy information? Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Youtube's "recommended for you" section is a slot machine for whatever will engage you. For me it's novelty, for a lot of people it's an irresistible clickbait title. Nobody is immune to it, although I feel the hacker news crowd might be suspect to clickbait much more specific than whatever youtube chums the waters with on their front page when you're not logged in and have no history (open Youtube in an incognito window to see what I'm talking about, it's terrible).
Personally, I find the opposite. When I watch conservative content on YouTube, the recommended video is almost always very milquetoast - almost always an episode of “Uncommon Knowledge” by the Hoover Institute (despite me finding those extremely boring and therefore actively avoiding them), or a speech by Roger Scruton/Jordan Peterson/Douglas Murray - thinkers who are right-wing, but “safe”.
In my experience both accounts do not try to push me to extremes. They DO try to keep me in a bubble, and both are very happy to lead me away from politics in general.