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

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

#201

Post by crispyambulance »

Andrex wrote: post #185
pimlottc wrote: post #158

Earlier 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…

> 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:/…

I think we need more than a reset button. We need, at a minimum, a "blacklist" feature.

I would love to be NOT have any video recommended to me that contains certain keywords in it's metadata. I simply don't care what I would miss out on if all videos with the word "Trump" anywhere in their metadata, for example, would simply never be served up for my perusal.

Even better would be some type of "whitelist" feature which only shows me stuff from my subscribed channels and their associated channels.

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

#202

Post by wintermutestwin »

nbzso wrote: post #15

Educate your non tech friends to use adblockers, vpn and cleaning browser data after each session. Actually YouTube has decent search with filters. Don’t use any suggested video search an build a profile ( if you wish).

YT has terrible search. It totally fails to use the + operator.

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

#203

Post by Andrex »

crispyambulance wrote: post #201
Andrex wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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:/…

I think we need more than a reset button. We need, at a minimum, a "blacklist" feature. I would love to be NOT have any video recommended to me that contains certain keywords in it's metadata. I simply don't care what I would miss out on if all videos with the word "Trump" anywhere in their metadata, for example, would simply never be served up for my perusal. Even better would be some type of "whitelist" feature whi…

I think a blocklist is prudent for sure, and more likely for YouTube to implement. An allowlist like you propose is already similar to the pure Subscriptions view, and restricting it to only channels related to your subscriptions would kill most of the reason behind recommendations in the first place (virality.) Not saying that's good or right, just that YouTube is less inclined to implement such a feature.

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

#204

Post by amadeuspagel »

I discovered so many wonderful documentaries thanks to youtube, some about things I had never heard of before. "It’s in YouTube’s interest to keep us watching for as long as possible", and the way youtube keeps me watching as long as possible is to recommend stuff that I want to watch. I don't understand the problem with this metric. Is it that some people watch things they don't really want to see, like a trainwreck? But why do these people who compulsively watch things that they don't really want to watch keep checking youtube at all? Why don't they hit the dislike button? Wouldn't that adjust the algorithm?

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

#205

Post by hnarn »

Can we call this the Oppenheimer Syndrome? I see so many opinion pieces from software engineers lamenting how they've created this "horrible thing" by working on social media recommendation algorithm X, and it all fits neatly into this painfully predictable trope of how we should all live in a camper and use a Nokia from the 90s.

Yeah, I'm jaded and of course there's merit at the bottom of all this, but I really can't be arsed to read another high and mighty essay about how one person in the course of their duty led the entirety of humanity astray by recommending what people are engaged by online.

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

#206

Post by Merman_Mike »

hnarn wrote: post #205

Can we call this the Oppenheimer Syndrome? I see so many opinion pieces from software engineers lamenting how they've created this "horrible thing" by working on social media recommendation algorithm X, and it all fits neatly into this painfully predictable trope of how we should all live in a camper and use a Nokia from the 90s. Yeah, I'm jaded and of course there's merit at the bottom of all this, but I really can'…

These pieces also bother me. We're supposed to praise these people for coming forward or something?

This guy spent years of his life making the world a worse place to live in, while taking home a fat salary, and now has somehow found his moral compass and wants to let us know. Yeah, no thanks.

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

#207

Post by jessriedel »

_0ffh wrote: post #105
scrollaway wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same experience here. I have to actively curate them by removing some one-off dumb videos from my watch history, but my YouTube recommendations are by far extremely high quality. Youtube is the only service I know of that has actually achieved working content recommendations for me. My Watch Later has hundreds of hours of content from things that I definitely want to watch but I'm either not yet in the mood for or to…

I don't use the "watch later" feature anymore. It's always a bit irritating when you want to catch up on the list only to find that a video has been removed in the mean time. So I switched to archiving using youtube-dl. Also nice to have a few backup videos in case of an internet outage.

This is conceivable to me, bit I've never had this happen. What sort of videos would be removed that you actually wanted to watch?

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

#209

Post by [deleted] »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #174
galuggus wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe trending is hand curated by youtube

I looked at trending once. Never again. There is great content on YouTube, but what I consider great is completely different from the next person, which is why trending makes no sense...

[deleted]

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

#210

Post by troebr »

qwerty1234599 wrote: post #157

If 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.

It wasn't that bad. Some influencer videos, music, prank videos, sports, a couple niche youtubers, some video games. I saw a couple educational videos in there too.

Sure the influencer stuff is pretty stupid, but whatever, it's not harmful.

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