I’ve been using this a lot lately, and it’s been great after a bit of a learning curve. It even incorporates some of the functionality from the addons and userscripts that I needed for YouTube, like getting rid of clickbait titles/thumbnails and blocking specific channels. Since you never really have a tracking profile when using YouTube this way, it’s very obvious when YouTube is trying to shoe-horn in political channels and clickbait, and you can just continually keep blocking those channels in the recommended section until you get all of them. I’m still missing a way to boost the volume on certain videos that are too quiet for me, though. I use LibRedirect to auto-open YouTube links in FreeTube. FreeTube has occasionally broken because of YouTube API updates, which requires them to figure out the problem and push a new FreeTube release (which could take a day or more), but other than that I’m fairly happy with it.
I definitely notice the political ragebait suggestions too. I’ve had all kinds of blocking on the platform for a long time, so it’s scary to think (but not overly surprising) that that is what they’re trying to spoonfeed everyone.
It’s not that they want to spoonfeed political ragebait specifically, I think. They want eyes on their ads, because that generates revenue. It’s just that political ragebait keeps many people more engaged. More views = more ads seen = more money. Means to an end. It’s a very cynical worldview.
I disagree, conservatives reduce taxes on corporations and the rich. Alphabet has all the incentive to subtly (or not) nudge the narrative so more people vote conservative.
I’ve been using this a lot lately, and it’s been great after a bit of a learning curve. It even incorporates some of the functionality from the addons and userscripts that I needed for YouTube, like getting rid of clickbait titles/thumbnails and blocking specific channels. Since you never really have a tracking profile when using YouTube this way, it’s very obvious when YouTube is trying to shoe-horn in political channels and clickbait, and you can just continually keep blocking those channels in the recommended section until you get all of them. I’m still missing a way to boost the volume on certain videos that are too quiet for me, though. I use LibRedirect to auto-open YouTube links in FreeTube. FreeTube has occasionally broken because of YouTube API updates, which requires them to figure out the problem and push a new FreeTube release (which could take a day or more), but other than that I’m fairly happy with it.
I definitely notice the political ragebait suggestions too. I’ve had all kinds of blocking on the platform for a long time, so it’s scary to think (but not overly surprising) that that is what they’re trying to spoonfeed everyone.
It’s not that they want to spoonfeed political ragebait specifically, I think. They want eyes on their ads, because that generates revenue. It’s just that political ragebait keeps many people more engaged. More views = more ads seen = more money. Means to an end. It’s a very cynical worldview.
I disagree, conservatives reduce taxes on corporations and the rich. Alphabet has all the incentive to subtly (or not) nudge the narrative so more people vote conservative.
Hmm, you have a point there.