I just find them to be dumb. 50% of my recommendations are videos I've already watched.
That's because there's not really that much great content on YouTube.
‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)
181–190 of 366 posts
Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)
#182I really like my YouTube recommendations after a lot of time on the site and manually clicking "I'm not interested" on a good number of them. I've also wound up with several accounts over the years that all have slightly different but overlapping content - my most recent account gets more stuff like Rambalac for example.
Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)
#183What I hate is, it's orders of magnitude more toxic for kids. Hyper-amplification of bad recommendations. For sure, Youtube's (bad) impact on current generation children will be felt (in a bad way) for many upcoming generations to come. At this point, it's literally technology gone rogue.
My wife and I recently made the decision to totally remove YT Kids from the kids' iPads (which they mainly use for long car rides). It's completely toxic in a way I didn't even realize it would be, and the videos aimed at the kids are the lowest quality garbage imaginable.
I had thought maybe YouTube Kids wouldn't be as bad as the InstaSnapFaceTwit, but it's just as bad. The content recommendations are so bad that frequently videos will be in Russian or Korean (our native language is English). And YouTube Kids encourages kids to have zero attention span by showing all sorts of recommendations all the time. My youngest can hardly get through a single ten minute YouTube video without clicking something else.
Our new rule is they can have some occasional screen time (though playing with real toys and playing outside are preferred), but when we do have screen time, we can do activities that are creative or imaginative or strategic (like games or making art or writing). If we're using tech as a consumption box, reading is best, followed by good movies that we can watch together.
I'm honestly happy now that YouTube Kids has been banned from my house. I'd commend every parent to do the same.
Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)
#184For 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…
Your recommendations must work different to mine. Second video from the top for me is "Jordan Peterson explains why you should never lie." I've never willingly watched a Jordan Peterson video in my life. I mainly use YouTube to watch tutorials related to my industry. As a test I decided to scroll through my recommendations and count when the first tutorial specific to my niche appeared. It was #119.
Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)
#185For 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…
> That's why I recommend to avoid signing-in into YouTube. Better watch anonymously so you can always clean the cookies and get out of the pit. There definitely needs to be a "reset" button on these services, or at least a better way for your to actively monitor your algorithmically-determined interests and give feedback (I swear, you watch one SNL video...). Another poster in the thread said you can do this by editi…
> Another poster in the thread said you can do this by editing your watch history, which frankly would have never occurred to me as a way to influence the algorithm.
Really, why? (I'm curious.)
> There definitely needs to be a "reset" button on these services
The reset button already exists in this context: Google and YouTube have options to automatically purge your various histories at the 1/3/6 month marks.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/2/20895183/youtube-history-...
Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That's why I recommend to avoid signing-in into YouTube. Better watch anonymously so you can always clean the cookies and get out of the pit. There definitely needs to be a "reset" button on these services, or at least a better way for your to actively monitor your algorithmically-determined interests and give feedback (I swear, you watch one SNL video...). Another poster in the thread said you can do this by editi…
You can also click the three dots icon next to the video thumbnail of recommendations and select "Not interested"
Yup, that's what I always do, and unsurprisingly my recommendations are great.
Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)
#187I just find them to be dumb. 50% of my recommendations are videos I've already watched.
It could really benefit from a simple "suggest things I've already seen y/n" UI toggle. Sometimes you do want it to do that, such as for music, but most of the time you don't.
Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)
#188I just find them to be dumb. 50% of my recommendations are videos I've already watched.
That's because there's not really that much great content on YouTube.
There is undoubtedly more great content than one could watch in a lifetime on youtube. The challenge is to identify and find it among the thousand lifetimes of trash.
Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)
#189I 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 much prefer a really good and feature full browse and search functionality rather than recommendations. Youtube has really poor search and even worse browsing ability.
Re: ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)
#190If you want a glimpse of the average person's youtube experience, open the site in incognito and go to the "trending" tab. It's a completely different site depending on what you initially search for when you start using it. The problem is, 80% of youtube userbase never really typed a search query for anything in the first place, and as a result the stuff they get recommended and watch is pure shit.
We don't actually know what the "ingredients" are for recommendations.
I don't think it's possible to draw conclusions from one's own experience with youtube recommendations and extrapolate it to others or to any sort of judgement about the quality of the algorithms. We are simply not privy to what, exactly, youtube is doing.
I think it's wise to heed Guillaume Chaslot's warnings. In the same way that youtube exploited (inadvertently or not) glitches in the brains of preschoolers (remember "Spiderman and Heidi" videos? if not, don't look it up). There's reason to believe these things can fly under our radar and influence adults in ways that are not perceptible and not something we would approve of in advance.