‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#91

Post by haolez » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC

gfxgirl wrote: post #44

I know I'm old but dang for some reason I really dislike recommendations from almost any company. For media I grew up in the 70s and had the TV Guide. I'd look through to see what I wanted to watch, circle some things and then watch. No spying what-so-ever. So, I like for example HN where AFAIK I'm not tracked so much and I choose what I want from the top of the list. Conversely I mostly hate Amazon, Netflix, Amazon…

I open private tabs as well for some videos that interest me, but that I wouldn't like to keep receiving recommendations on similar videos. I thought I was alone :)

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#92

Post by em500 » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC

I skimmed/read the entire article (dated June 2019). It does not not contain anything new or surprising for most of the HN audience (not a critique of the article itself, which is aimed at a broad audience).

There are some very fundamental questions that I don't think we have really good answers to yet.

- Like all social media, Youtube's algo is aimed at maximizing aggregate view time, and people working there are directly rewarded for that so it's difficult to change. You could bring up some obvious criticism, that recommending crap will destroy the value/brand in the long term. But that's extremely hard to measure/proof, especially when all short term KPIs point in the opposite direction. So you need the top leadership (who still has to answer to the Board/shareholders) to take the contrarian position on faith.

- The article/Chaslot claims that Youtube's recommendations are not about "what the viewer wants". The obvious question is then, how do you measure "what the viewer wants"? Youtube / social media's main metrics, engagement minutes does not seem obviously flawed. Even if they were, I have not seen any practical alternative (either in this article, or many other discussions). People often bring up analogies with nicotine and other addictive substances, that engagement is largely involuntary. But the main issue with nicotine is clearly harmful for health. If it weren't, there would probably wouldn't be much legislation around it, even given the adddictiveness. The more apt analog may be soft drugs like cannabis, where the legislative momentum seems to move in the other direction.

- The fundamental issue is not that social media is not giving people "what they want". It's that often people want things can be bad for themselves and/or for society. This is very difficult to resolve without taking a strongly authoritarian/paternalistic standpoint.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#93

Post by ceejayoz » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:37 PM UTC

tmakks wrote: post #59

ceejayoz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID misinformation is a bit of an outlier in how the various social networks are treating content, though.

I agree but still a good example that OP's statements are questionable.

No, it's not. It's like saying smoking is good for you because there's this one 120 year old smoker.

COVID misinformation is being tackled with specific manual attention because the algorithm was prioritizing it, and because it's receiving fairly unique amounts of attention.

Google's (and Facebook's and Twitter's) hands were forced here. They'd much rather be leaving it alone like they do with other conspiracy theories.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#94

Post by haolez » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

hackeraccount wrote: post #11

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…

This is really annoying. A couple days ago, my wife was having trouble sleeping and I selected a competitive Tetris match video for her as a joke. Now I can't stop getting recommendation for all tetris-related stuff. I want my Tetrisless life back.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#95

Post by dijit » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

This feels a bit like stating the obvious.

I felt the "pull" of the alt-right because of YouTube;

It begins innocuously enough, someone shares something that's a thoughtful piece on "googles culture" or something which is left leaning, then in the recommendations there is a response, usually a passionate argument against SJW's or whatever, once you watch one it's basically game over (at least this was the case 1-2 years ago); My entire feed was completely inundated with 'Ben Shapiro owns the libs" or "SJW owned compilation" usually featuring that very loud and aggressive feminist lady with the dyed red hair in the thumbnail.

it was only with concerted effort (IE; clicking "Not interested"... a lot!) that I was able to eventually save my account, but I still get the odd Jordan Peterson and even right now I got a recommendation for "Power&Panic; the last days for Christian nationalism" by "The Thinking Atheist".

What's worse is YouTube used to require me to give a predefined reason to not recommend something; and "too political" was not one of those choices.

I'm absolutely certain that the same thing happens for others too towards the left. It's incredibly radicalising.

I just do not give a fuck about politics, my YouTube watch history is all music and conference talks.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#96

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #60

For me YouTube recommendations are not toxic, they are so amazing I some times wonder how comes the world around is not heaven when everybody has free access to this. That's because I always watch high-quality educational content and some beautiful comforting and inspiring music. So for me YouTube is a fountain of knowledge, visual and musical aesthetics etc. Every day I get inspiration, healthy kind of fun and learn…

[deleted]

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#97

Post by traverseda » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #95

This feels a bit like stating the obvious. I felt the "pull" of the alt-right because of YouTube; It begins innocuously enough, someone shares something that's a thoughtful piece on "googles culture" or something which is left leaning, then in the recommendations there is a response, usually a passionate argument against SJW's or whatever, once you watch one it's basically game over (at least this was the case 1-2 ye…

Why don't you just delete the underlying videos from your youtube history? I've had history turned off for a while, so my recommendations are only based on likes, subscriptions, and the actual content I'm watching at that moment. It seems like cleaning/clearing the history would solve the problem?

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#98

Post by qwerty456127 » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

murgindrag wrote: post #89

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem that hard to get out of a pit, even with the account. It just takes a couple of days of browsing of the new type of content, along with maybe clicking "don't recommend this channel"/"not interested" 3-4 times, and the algorithm switches to the new things... The algorithm doesn't care, it just recommends.

I want Youtube to recommend educational videos, a la Extra History and 3B1B. That's most of what I watch on Youtube. Youtube recommends stupid crap based on what other people like. If I watch one stupid video not in incognito, ALL of the recommendations become stupid videos because those videos have better metrics. Youtube actively guides me away from educational content. Even within educational videos, if I click on…

> ALL of the recommendations become stupid videos because those videos have better metrics. Youtube actively guides me away from educational content.

Back when I was not particularly into YouTube and hadn't had many great recommendations YouTube insisted I should watch Sapolsky's Harvard lectures - these probably had particularly good metrics. Once I started to watch them (and was very satisfied) more and more great recommendations started to appear.

> It's quality stuff, but you gotta find it yourself.

People should start sharing curated lists of high-quality no-bullish YouTube videos/channels. Kind of like those awesome-everything on GitHub.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#99

Post by rsynnott » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:46 PM UTC

tmakks wrote: post #59

ceejayoz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID misinformation is a bit of an outlier in how the various social networks are treating content, though.

I agree but still a good example that OP's statements are questionable.

Wait, they're claiming that Youtube recommends a lot of conspiracy bullshit, which is pretty well documented. You're pointing out that Youtube bans one specific narrow type of conspiracy bullshit, which is true but irrelevant. I don't see how that makes their statements questionable.

Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)

#100

Post by tsukurimashou » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

newlikeice wrote: post #14

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?

Define healthy information, also I think too much information (good or bad for whatever it means) is always bad for anybody