I am a fairly radical leftist and a pacifist and you wouldn’t believe the amount of hoo-ra military, toxic masculinity, explosions and people dying, gun-lover bullshit the YouTube algorithm has attempted to force down my throat in the past year. I block every single channel that they recommend yet I am still inundated.
Now, with shorts, it’s like they reset their whole algorithm entirely and put it into sensationalist overdrive to compete with TikTok.
Same here. I’ve never watched anything like that, yet my recommendations are filled with far-right grifters, interspersed with tech and cooking videos that are more my jam.
YouTube seems to think I love Farage, US gun nuts, US free speech (to be racist) people, anti-LGBT (especially T) channels.
I keep saying I’m not interested, yet they keep trying to convert me. Like fuck off YouTube, no I don’t want to see Jordan Peterson completely OWNS female liberal using FACTS and LOGIC
Don’t know about youtube, but I have a similar experience at twitter. I believe they probably see blocking, muting or reporting as “interaction” and show more of the same as a result.
On youtube on the other hand, I never blocked a channel and almost never see militaristic or right wing stuff (despite following some gun nerds, because I think they are funny).
I gave up and used an extension to remove video recommendations, blocked shorts and auto redirect me to my subscriptions list away from the home page. It’s a lot more pleasant to use now.
The algorithm is just garbage at this point. I ultimately just watch YouTube exclusively through Invidious at this point, can’t imagine going back at this stage.
Dunno what you watch but yt may thinks the videos are about similar topics (even if you think otherwise).
For myself I usually get recommended what I already watch: Tech, vtuber/anime, mechanical engineering, oddities (like Weird Explorer, Technology Connections).
I rarely get stuff outside of the bubble like gun videos (some creator recently modified a glock in the design of milwaukee tools), meme channels etc.
I highly suspect the videos you watch and interact heavily may feed back to yt in a different way than you think.
And remember: Negative feelings provoke interactions and increase the session time which is a plus for them.
I totally agree with you! I identify as a ‘progressive liberal’ and had to click on ‘Don’t show me ad by this advertiser’ multiple times yet I was pushed ads by the far right on YouTube and other websites (Google Ads) until the day of the election. A lot of those ads involved hate speech, blatant lies, and were just full of propaganda. It’s a shame that these companies are able to force things down our throats and we’re not able to do much about it. And I’m someone who wouldn’t mind paying for something like ‘YouTube Premium’ to get rid of those ads but don’t do that out of principle because the thought of supporting a company that’s propagating all this disgusting stuff just doesn’t sit right with me.
It’s atleast good that my YouTube algorithm otherwise is dialed in that I don’t get video recommendations of the same disgusting things. Just the ads. And while people here might like to reply that ads also follow their own algorithm - the far right political parties in question had way too much money to blow to target the entire population than just a particular demographic(the right leaning or neutrals out there). On clicking ‘Why am I seeing this advert’ I was always met with ‘Your Location’ as the reason.
I am a fairly radical leftist and a pacifist and you wouldn’t believe the amount of hoo-ra military, toxic masculinity, explosions and people dying, gun-lover bullshit the YouTube algorithm has attempted to force down my throat in the past year. I block every single channel that they recommend yet I am still inundated.
Now, with shorts, it’s like they reset their whole algorithm entirely and put it into sensationalist overdrive to compete with TikTok.
Same here. I’ve never watched anything like that, yet my recommendations are filled with far-right grifters, interspersed with tech and cooking videos that are more my jam.
YouTube seems to think I love Farage, US gun nuts, US free speech (to be racist) people, anti-LGBT (especially T) channels.
I keep saying I’m not interested, yet they keep trying to convert me. Like fuck off YouTube, no I don’t want to see Jordan Peterson completely OWNS female liberal using FACTS and LOGIC
Don’t know about youtube, but I have a similar experience at twitter. I believe they probably see blocking, muting or reporting as “interaction” and show more of the same as a result.
On youtube on the other hand, I never blocked a channel and almost never see militaristic or right wing stuff (despite following some gun nerds, because I think they are funny).
Sane here. I will just skip over them. At most I will block a video I actually already watched on another platform like Patreon.
That does nothing for what’s recommended.
‘Not Interested’ -> 'Tell us why -> ‘I don’t like the video’ is what works.
I gave up and used an extension to remove video recommendations, blocked shorts and auto redirect me to my subscriptions list away from the home page. It’s a lot more pleasant to use now.
The algorithm is just garbage at this point. I ultimately just watch YouTube exclusively through Invidious at this point, can’t imagine going back at this stage.
Same here. No matter how many you block, or mark not interested, it just doesn’t stop
Dunno what you watch but yt may thinks the videos are about similar topics (even if you think otherwise).
For myself I usually get recommended what I already watch: Tech, vtuber/anime, mechanical engineering, oddities (like Weird Explorer, Technology Connections).
I rarely get stuff outside of the bubble like gun videos (some creator recently modified a glock in the design of milwaukee tools), meme channels etc.
I highly suspect the videos you watch and interact heavily may feed back to yt in a different way than you think.
And remember: Negative feelings provoke interactions and increase the session time which is a plus for them.
I totally agree with you! I identify as a ‘progressive liberal’ and had to click on ‘Don’t show me ad by this advertiser’ multiple times yet I was pushed ads by the far right on YouTube and other websites (Google Ads) until the day of the election. A lot of those ads involved hate speech, blatant lies, and were just full of propaganda. It’s a shame that these companies are able to force things down our throats and we’re not able to do much about it. And I’m someone who wouldn’t mind paying for something like ‘YouTube Premium’ to get rid of those ads but don’t do that out of principle because the thought of supporting a company that’s propagating all this disgusting stuff just doesn’t sit right with me.
It’s atleast good that my YouTube algorithm otherwise is dialed in that I don’t get video recommendations of the same disgusting things. Just the ads. And while people here might like to reply that ads also follow their own algorithm - the far right political parties in question had way too much money to blow to target the entire population than just a particular demographic(the right leaning or neutrals out there). On clicking ‘Why am I seeing this advert’ I was always met with ‘Your Location’ as the reason.
Saw crazy YouTube recommendations: