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To add on to your point: Given my understanding of how the recommendation engine works, if you watch a video slightly related to a topic, then another video sl

by Zarath 8y ago

To add on to your point: Given my understanding of how the recommendation engine works, if you watch a video slightly related to a topic, then another video slightly related to that topic, there is a reinforcing effect whereby the engine believes you to be more interested in that topic. E.g. if I watch a video on vegetarianism, then another one, it may strengthen the confidence that I am interested in vegetarianism, and conclude that they should be recommending me more content about vegetarianism and perhaps even content about veganism. Apply this to something like conservatism and you'll be getting recommended alt-right content in no time. Slightly off topic: I have a theory about this which is that there are certain recommendation loops or "attractors" that you basically cannot escape without manually flagging videos as "not interested", disliking, manually choosing an entirely different topic, or taking many days off of the platform. I also am curious to know what percentage of content literally never gets recommended. I've been down the rabbit hole, so to speak, on certain youtube topics and I get the sense that at a certain point, there are many videos on the topic that youtube simply isn't recommending. E.g. if I'm watching a video about the Philosophy of Derrida, I feel like my recommendations never show lower view count videos related to the topic, they are much much more likely to recommend higher visibility channels full of slightly related content.

ekianjo 8y ago
> if I watch a video on vegetarianism, then another one, it may strengthen the confidence that I am interested in vegetarianism, and conclude that they should be recommending me more content about vegetarianism Recommendation algorithms don't "conclude" anything though, they are merely statistical tools to ensure you get somewhat relevant content, but they are never perfect because there is a lot of noise in what everyone watches.
- watwut 8y ago
  Not perfect is understatement They are horrible. Not just because of what the article is about, but because their recommendations are ridiculous avwn outside political content. And youtube rules also motivate providers to churn out a lot of content regularly (leading to quick to produce crap) and punish those who take their time to think or research before they talk.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    >Not perfect is understatement They are horrible. They would be much less horrible if every time one watched videos, they would rate them in a way, instead of assuming that "watching"="interest". > And youtube rules also motivate providers to churn out a lot of content regularly (leading to quick to produce crap) and punish those who take their time to think or research before they talk. That's not just Youtube: about all media is driven by what's "new" and "hyped" rather than what is deep and well thought about.
    - everdrive 8y ago
      Watching does = interest if you continue to stay on the topic. Interest certainly does not mean approval, and it often can mean "I find this content extreme and outrageous."
      - watwut 8y ago
        I am interested in topic of WWII including seeing Nazi movies. I am not interested in nazi stormtrooper adjacent alternative history channels youtube recommends to me as a result. I am interested in scientist or writer etc youtube channel about her topic. Not so much in confident-Johnny-cranked-out crap on the same topic.
  - meowface 8y ago
    It becomes much less horrible when you consistently train the algorithm with the "I'm not interested" button. You can even choose if you're not interested because you already saw the video, dislike the theme, or dislike the channel. My YouTube home page is pretty good now, after doing this about 20 times. Any time I watch something vaguely conservative and start getting "SJW CUCK OWNED!!!" everywhere, one button press is usually enough to instantly revert back. The problem is probably 1% or less of users ever click it.
- joe_the_user 8y ago
  Recommendation algorithms don't "conclude" anything though, they are merely statistical tools to ensure you get somewhat relevant content, but they are never perfect because there is a lot of noise in what everyone watches. A. Jeesh, there's no problem with informal anthropomorophizing in this situations. When humans have a goal and feedback towards reaching a goal. When a human gets positive feedback that X gets them towards the goal, human choose X. The combined system Google-corp+developer+algorithm is also goal seeking and making choices so anthropomorphizing the system is appropriate. B. The problem we're talking about isn't "noise" but "feedback" - a goal-seeking-system that muddies it's final result with it's initial state. Essentially, bias, a situation that's quite common in statical systems.
joe_the_user 8y ago
I have a theory about this which is that there are certain recommendation loops or "attractors" that you basically cannot escape without manually flagging videos as "not interested", disliking, manually choosing an entirely different topic, or taking many days off of the platform. I'm pretty sure this is true. However, there is one more effective around this. You have to go back and delete your history. I have one youtube identity I maintain for exactly one interest (call "interest X"). I have to essentially scrub everything not related to that from it's history or more and more unrelated crap will appear reliably. Basically, even watch 10% of something means recommendations jump up to 50% of other things even though I have a looooong history of just being interested in interest X.

by Zarath 8y ago

ekianjo 8y ago

> if I watch a video on vegetarianism, then another one, it may strengthen the confidence that I am interested in vegetarianism, and conclude that they should be recommending me more content about vegetarianism Recommendation algorithms don't "conclude" anything though, they are merely statistical tools to ensure you get somewhat relevant content, but they are never perfect because there is a lot of noise in what everyone watches.

watwut 8y ago
Not perfect is understatement They are horrible. Not just because of what the article is about, but because their recommendations are ridiculous avwn outside political content. And youtube rules also motivate providers to churn out a lot of content regularly (leading to quick to produce crap) and punish those who take their time to think or research before they talk.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  >Not perfect is understatement They are horrible. They would be much less horrible if every time one watched videos, they would rate them in a way, instead of assuming that "watching"="interest". > And youtube rules also motivate providers to churn out a lot of content regularly (leading to quick to produce crap) and punish those who take their time to think or research before they talk. That's not just Youtube: about all media is driven by what's "new" and "hyped" rather than what is deep and well thought about.
  - everdrive 8y ago
    Watching does = interest if you continue to stay on the topic. Interest certainly does not mean approval, and it often can mean "I find this content extreme and outrageous."
    - watwut 8y ago
      I am interested in topic of WWII including seeing Nazi movies. I am not interested in nazi stormtrooper adjacent alternative history channels youtube recommends to me as a result. I am interested in scientist or writer etc youtube channel about her topic. Not so much in confident-Johnny-cranked-out crap on the same topic.
- meowface 8y ago
  It becomes much less horrible when you consistently train the algorithm with the "I'm not interested" button. You can even choose if you're not interested because you already saw the video, dislike the theme, or dislike the channel. My YouTube home page is pretty good now, after doing this about 20 times. Any time I watch something vaguely conservative and start getting "SJW CUCK OWNED!!!" everywhere, one button press is usually enough to instantly revert back. The problem is probably 1% or less of users ever click it.
joe_the_user 8y ago
Recommendation algorithms don't "conclude" anything though, they are merely statistical tools to ensure you get somewhat relevant content, but they are never perfect because there is a lot of noise in what everyone watches. A. Jeesh, there's no problem with informal anthropomorophizing in this situations. When humans have a goal and feedback towards reaching a goal. When a human gets positive feedback that X gets them towards the goal, human choose X. The combined system Google-corp+developer+algorithm is also goal seeking and making choices so anthropomorphizing the system is appropriate. B. The problem we're talking about isn't "noise" but "feedback" - a goal-seeking-system that muddies it's final result with it's initial state. Essentially, bias, a situation that's quite common in statical systems.

joe_the_user 8y ago

I have a theory about this which is that there are certain recommendation loops or "attractors" that you basically cannot escape without manually flagging videos as "not interested", disliking, manually choosing an entirely different topic, or taking many days off of the platform. I'm pretty sure this is true. However, there is one more effective around this. You have to go back and delete your history. I have one youtube identity I maintain for exactly one interest (call "interest X"). I have to essentially scrub everything not related to that from it's history or more and more unrelated crap will appear reliably. Basically, even watch 10% of something means recommendations jump up to 50% of other things even though I have a looooong history of just being interested in interest X.