Dear YouTube AI, I Am Not a Nazi

I do suspect that the recommendation algorithm for Premium is slightly different and perhaps more favorable to gun content. Pretty much all gun content is demonetized, and anything that’s demonetized gets recommended less; I suspect Premium is an exception to this. Also, there may be more gun content than usual lately because SHOT Show, a trade show for the gun industry, is happening this week.

The slickest and most subversive form of advertising is that which isn't immediately recognized as such.

I mean how else did you know what this leather apron club was? You seem to of described the content of the video that was recommended as if you watched it or clicked on it or interacted with it in some positive manner.

You sent a conflicting signal to YouTube by investigating the content that you don't want to be recommended by interacting with it a whole bunch.

Next time you get recommended things that you don't want to be recommended I'm going to recommend to you to not interact with it at all. Don't click on it don't do anything that is considered engagement to it.

I also use YouTube a bunch and I also pay for YouTube premium. All of my recommends are extremely accurate and that is because the only thing that I view or consume are things that I want to view or consume.

I don't click on things I disagree with or would be offended by I don't click on shorts because I hate that entire concept of content and I don't click on trash content like haha funny viral videos because I am under the complete understanding that interaction and engagement are what drive the algorithm that recommends me content.

I could get totally rabbit holed and click on this stuff that every once in awhile it tries to recommend me that is slightly outside of my bubble in order to research it and find out why it tried to recommend me this. but you know what that would do? It sends a signal to them that I clicked on the video and then I clicked on their homepage to find out more and then I clicked on their about to look at other channels associated with it maybe I clicked on a couple more videos to find out if all of their content is like this maybe I clicked on videos on the side that are related to the video that it thinks I would be interested in if I like the video I'm currently clicked on and all of these are positive signals that feed the recommendation engine to give me more things that I don't want to be given.

And I'll go as far as to say I wouldn't even do that in an incognito tab or from the same IP address or from the same computer because it will somehow leak into my logged in normal account.

I guess I also want to put forth the idea that the negative signal that you put out by saying you don't want to be recommended something is possibly exponentially weaker to the recommendation engine then any amount of investigatory engagement that you do. You say AI a lot and frankly this is how YouTube's recommendation engine has worked for a very long time and I think it's going to be an even longer time and it's going to require more invasive analytics for YouTube to be able to have the ability to pick up on intent of a click. Because that's what this really revolves around. If a human was behind the recommendation engine and you were able to small talk with said human during your frustration of investigating why you're being recommended something then that human would understand to ignore this engagement.

Youtube doesn't decide what I see, I decide that. Youtube merely offers me data that I filter.

Seems taking the web into my own hands is the only solution for this, I'm sure Youtube and other sites couldn't care less about their users.