YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#181

Post by subtract-smiles » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 2:52 AM UTC

I've found that the algorithm can be extremely volatile for some things and barely react to others. I watch half of one video by a 'pop' youtuber like MrBeast or LazarBeam and that's the only recommendations I get for a week. Likewise, I can spend hours and hours listening to more passive content like music or long-form documentary style videos and I barely see any bump in that kind of content recommended for me.

The most effective tweaking methods to the algorithm I've found is just subscribing to people who cover a genre I want to see more of and then watching videos from their videos recommended section.

I'm perpetually confused by YouTubes weights for choosing recommended videos.

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#182

Post by fastball » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 2:59 AM UTC

Legion wrote: post #167

The only way to make YouTube even remotely tolerable is with liberal use of the "Not Interested" and "Don't Recommend Channel" functions. I also set up separate YouTube viewing accounts by interest, so that I can clobber away everything not related to a specific interest in that particular account (eg. anything not sports related gets "Don't Recommend Channel"'d in my Sports YT account). YouTube pretty much fights yo…

I just use this Chrome extension[1] (though actually with Brave for the ad-blocking) and don't worry about recs at all. When I want to watch a YouTube video I go on YouTube and am given a list of recent uploads by my subscribed channels. I pick one, watch it, then usually close the tab because there are no recs on the screen to lead me on an endless rabbit hole.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unhook-remove-yout...

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#183

Post by Underphil » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 2:59 AM UTC

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #32

The trick to improving YouTube recommendations is to regularly prune uninteresting videos and channels. Eventually this should start surfacing videos you're more likely to find interesting. I've actually hit the end of my recommendation stream on the mobile app after marking dozens of videos with Not Interested. Once this happens it starts recommending videos you've already watched or older videos from creators you'v…

None of this works for me. I get constant recommendations for (what I consider to be) asinine lifestyle videos, and music videos completely unrelated to my interests.

It doesn't matter how many times I say I'm not interested in K-pop, it doesn't help.

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#184

Post by happytiger » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 3:01 AM UTC

This concentration of videos around recent topics and YouTube’s circling of that content seems to be one of the reasons so much disinformation and misinformation gets pushed on the platform. It’s not just an inconvenience.

If I watch a video from one or the other side of the political spectrum, or watch something more fringe just because I want to learn about the subject, I get nonstop recommendations for more videos and more videos and more and more and more of the same, nonstop forever. I can’t escape the subject without wiping the account, and while there does seem to be an effect from block channel dislike seems to do little.

I feel like I’m staring into a bathtub full of water in the middle of the ocean. YouTube needs to fix their discovery tools because I think it’s causing someone who goes down a rabbit hole to keep going down that rabbit hole with ease, and that’s not really that cool with radicalizing content.

Just my 2c from recent experience. Love the platform (except for the increase in ads to cable levels recently) otherwise.

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#185

Post by sircastor » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 3:02 AM UTC

mikrl wrote: post #80

I didn’t like when they removed the dislike counts, and I still don’t like it. When I look for videos of folks working on Subarus, I don’t want to have to manually scrub through the video to gauge the quality. Before I’d just look at the ratio and if I was feeling generous I’d preview the frames to see if they had what I wanted. Now it takes me at least 2 mins longer to get to the same judgement which begs the questi…

I haven’t ever used the dislike button. It never functioned as a “don’t give me more of this”. I did use the “not interested” option to do so, but as others have said “dislike” is ambiguous, not to mention the opportunity for abuse.

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#186

Post by ipaddr » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 3:04 AM UTC

brigandish wrote: post #180

everdrive wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some might say that you can still use search At some point Youtube search was neutered. I get 5-10 results for any given query before Youtube gives up and just offers me recommendations rather than search results. Interestingly, if I search google for [search term] site:youtube.com, I actually get pages of results which are never present in the Youtube search. Sadly, it seems that Google has intentionally diminished…

Search is entirely crippled for new stories now. If I saw some breaking news on Twitter I used to pop over to Youtube to find original or better footage than news services were getting, or to get it faster. Impossible via YT's search now, it's just pages and pages of old-media channels with their thoughts on the footage, always clipped down and talked over. Even Twitter seems to do this now, it's becoming harder to f…

Do you ever filter by day, month, week?

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#187

Post by DiggyJohnson » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 3:05 AM UTC

sircastor wrote: post #185

mikrl wrote: post #80

I didn’t like when they removed the dislike counts, and I still don’t like it. When I look for videos of folks working on Subarus, I don’t want to have to manually scrub through the video to gauge the quality. Before I’d just look at the ratio and if I was feeling generous I’d preview the frames to see if they had what I wanted. Now it takes me at least 2 mins longer to get to the same judgement which begs the questi…

I haven’t ever used the dislike button. It never functioned as a “don’t give me more of this”. I did use the “not interested” option to do so, but as others have said “dislike” is ambiguous, not to mention the opportunity for abuse.

How is this a useful response to the perspective shared in the GP?

Even if you don’t use it, it’s still a useful signal. Are you saying this isn’t the case? For example, did you find the dislike ratio to be a misleading signal, when it was around?

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#188

Post by honkler » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 3:06 AM UTC

brigandish wrote: post #180

everdrive wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some might say that you can still use search At some point Youtube search was neutered. I get 5-10 results for any given query before Youtube gives up and just offers me recommendations rather than search results. Interestingly, if I search google for [search term] site:youtube.com, I actually get pages of results which are never present in the Youtube search. Sadly, it seems that Google has intentionally diminished…

Search is entirely crippled for new stories now. If I saw some breaking news on Twitter I used to pop over to Youtube to find original or better footage than news services were getting, or to get it faster. Impossible via YT's search now, it's just pages and pages of old-media channels with their thoughts on the footage, always clipped down and talked over. Even Twitter seems to do this now, it's becoming harder to f…

you will watch ze approved media, and you will be happy.

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#189

Post by DiggyJohnson » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 3:06 AM UTC

daveoc64 wrote: post #131

mikrl wrote: post #80

I didn’t like when they removed the dislike counts, and I still don’t like it. When I look for videos of folks working on Subarus, I don’t want to have to manually scrub through the video to gauge the quality. Before I’d just look at the ratio and if I was feeling generous I’d preview the frames to see if they had what I wanted. Now it takes me at least 2 mins longer to get to the same judgement which begs the questi…

The problem with the dislike button seems to be that nobody agrees on what it should be used for. In previous HN discussions, it's become apparent that some people use it to say "I am not interested in this video". That is of zero use to other users. The video isn't necessarily bad, it's just on a topic you don't care about. If you are instead using it to mean "this video is factually wrong" or "this video is obnoxio…

It’s not of zero use, even if it’s imperfect. The perspective shared in the comment you’re replying to is a great example of this, unless you deny the validity of their reasoning or experience.

Re: YouTube’s ‘dislike’ barely works according to new study on recommendations

#190

Post by sircastor » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 3:09 AM UTC

jiggawatts wrote: post #117

What a lot of people are missing is that when watching YouTube, they're the product, not the consumer. I know this has been said many times before, but ignoring this reality is like trying to understand life without considering evolution, or understanding chemistry while ignoring the periodic table. Google's incentives are to tailor customers to advertisers , not customers to content! They don't care if you see what…

How does this fit if I pay for YouTube Premium? I don’t see the ads, and I guess they still get the data. Why are they trying to drive me to particular content if they can’t show me the ads they want to?