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Not only Youtube, I've noticed a huge disparity between Duck Duck Go results and Google results when writing queries that could be thought of as containing a co

Not only Youtube, I've noticed a huge disparity between Duck Duck Go results and Google results when writing queries that could be thought of as containing a controversial/politically/racially/etc charged topic. Youtube recommendations and search/ranking suppress searches as it is, even if they were to leave the content on there, most of it will never be surfaced through organic means without a direct link or a search with a direct title match.

cft 7y ago
For anything not technical, I use DDG or Bing (If I need recency). Google results omit anything politically controversial.
- crummy 7y ago
  Can you give some examples of politically controversial results google might be censoring?
  - mynameishere 7y ago
    I have no idea what Google is censoring in the search results, but compare the "search suggestions" for almost anything even slightly controversial. For example type "is stephen miller" (a Trump advisor) in Google and Bing and you can see how Google just removes stuff. I suspect they are partly worried about results being gamed there...but everything is gamed. Maybe the main search results should be empty too.
    - crummy 7y ago
      I opened an incognito window and tried it. Google suggestions for "is stephen miller": * is stephen miller married? Bing suggestions for "is stephen miller": * is stephen miller gay? * is steven miles married? Maybe there's location stuff going on, or maybe they're guessing at what you're searching for based on previous searches or something.
corndoge 7y ago
In fact, exact title searches will usually not turn up videos with that title unless you use quotes. YouTube will return clickbait and Jimmy Kimmel, entirely unrelated to the search, for exact title searches of videos with only a few tens of views.
- corodra 7y ago
  Heaven forbid I ever accidentally click on or get interested in some random talk show video, video roughly about video games or a big media news video. All of my normal engineering, business, programming, guns, history, and mechanics recommendations go right the fuck out the window. For the next week, half my recommendations are just filled with dogshit because of one accidental video. I stopped watching movie trailers because of this too. For some reason if I ever choose to watch a movie trailer, youtube thinks I want to watch makeup tutorials by teenagers. Drives me insane. YouTube is better off with meta tag recommendations instead of their fancy little AI.
  - CommieBobDole 7y ago
    I think that's a problem on every platform; on Apple News, if I read an article that's actual news that involves a celebrity somehow ("Tom Hanks murders 12, dies in hail of gunfire") I get a deluge of celebrity gossip ("OMG you won't believe what Kylie Jenner's cousin's brother's hairstylist said")articles for weeks. I sort of feel like their recommendation AI is a bunch of if-then statements designed to funnel you into more heavily-monetized content if they think you display any interest at all.
    - corporateslave5 7y ago
      Yeah these aren’t content recommendation engines, they’re ad engines
      - corodra 7y ago
        I somewhat do agree with the ad engine... but it's a crappy one. I'm a guy in my 30s. Nothing in my view history ever says, "Hey, this guy is progressive enough to wear makeup." At that, I watch english, polish, and french videos. Ads I get, Spanish. I dont know spanish. I'd accept general language learning ads. But tostitos and I think one was health or house insurance... in spanish. It's like the ad bot is some redneck that thinks there are two languages, American and not-American. The recommendation bot and ad bot are just terrible. The moment theres a half way decent competitor to youtube, my ass is jumping ship.
LeftHandPath 7y ago
The number of times I've taken a google search that gave me useless results, copied-and-pasted it into duck-duck-go, and immediately found what I'm looking for, is astounding. I do think that they are starting to lose the power-user userbase when it comes to browsers and search engines. But their email, docs/sheets/whatever, drive, and now their DNS registrar services are all cemented into business flow. It makes sense. They don't need the power users - they need the most users. As long as they have the most users, businesses (where the power-users are working) are going to use ancillary services like Google MyBusiness, Google Analytics, and embrace google-backed (and ranking-factor) tech like SSL certificates and progressive web apps.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > The number of times I've taken a google search that gave me useless results, copied-and-pasted it into duck-duck-go, and immediately found what I'm looking for, is astounding. I'll bet it's dwarfed by the number of times I get useful results from Google and total garbage from DDG. Earlier today I searched for "CADT syndrome" to figure out what another HN comment meant by it. Both engines automatically correct that to "cast syndrome" if you search without quotes. But only Google provided a relevant result after being corrected "no, I really meant CADT syndrome". DDG gamely provided the "cast syndrome" results after correcting the query.
  - rubatuga 7y ago
    You should use verbose mode
    - frittig 7y ago
      are quotes around the search term not the command for verbose mode?
      - mkl 7y ago
        Not anymore. Google has a verbatim mode under Tools > All results.
watwut 7y ago
I am getting racially and politically charged content suggested on youtube and don't have any interest on it. Maybe there is some more extreme content I could not find, but this stuff is going to me without me wanting it.

cft 7y ago

For anything not technical, I use DDG or Bing (If I need recency). Google results omit anything politically controversial.

crummy 7y ago
Can you give some examples of politically controversial results google might be censoring?
- mynameishere 7y ago
  I have no idea what Google is censoring in the search results, but compare the "search suggestions" for almost anything even slightly controversial. For example type "is stephen miller" (a Trump advisor) in Google and Bing and you can see how Google just removes stuff. I suspect they are partly worried about results being gamed there...but everything is gamed. Maybe the main search results should be empty too.
  - crummy 7y ago
    I opened an incognito window and tried it. Google suggestions for "is stephen miller": * is stephen miller married? Bing suggestions for "is stephen miller": * is stephen miller gay? * is steven miles married? Maybe there's location stuff going on, or maybe they're guessing at what you're searching for based on previous searches or something.

corndoge 7y ago

In fact, exact title searches will usually not turn up videos with that title unless you use quotes. YouTube will return clickbait and Jimmy Kimmel, entirely unrelated to the search, for exact title searches of videos with only a few tens of views.

corodra 7y ago
Heaven forbid I ever accidentally click on or get interested in some random talk show video, video roughly about video games or a big media news video. All of my normal engineering, business, programming, guns, history, and mechanics recommendations go right the fuck out the window. For the next week, half my recommendations are just filled with dogshit because of one accidental video. I stopped watching movie trailers because of this too. For some reason if I ever choose to watch a movie trailer, youtube thinks I want to watch makeup tutorials by teenagers. Drives me insane. YouTube is better off with meta tag recommendations instead of their fancy little AI.
- CommieBobDole 7y ago
  I think that's a problem on every platform; on Apple News, if I read an article that's actual news that involves a celebrity somehow ("Tom Hanks murders 12, dies in hail of gunfire") I get a deluge of celebrity gossip ("OMG you won't believe what Kylie Jenner's cousin's brother's hairstylist said")articles for weeks. I sort of feel like their recommendation AI is a bunch of if-then statements designed to funnel you into more heavily-monetized content if they think you display any interest at all.
  - corporateslave5 7y ago
    Yeah these aren’t content recommendation engines, they’re ad engines
    - corodra 7y ago
      I somewhat do agree with the ad engine... but it's a crappy one. I'm a guy in my 30s. Nothing in my view history ever says, "Hey, this guy is progressive enough to wear makeup." At that, I watch english, polish, and french videos. Ads I get, Spanish. I dont know spanish. I'd accept general language learning ads. But tostitos and I think one was health or house insurance... in spanish. It's like the ad bot is some redneck that thinks there are two languages, American and not-American. The recommendation bot and ad bot are just terrible. The moment theres a half way decent competitor to youtube, my ass is jumping ship.

LeftHandPath 7y ago

The number of times I've taken a google search that gave me useless results, copied-and-pasted it into duck-duck-go, and immediately found what I'm looking for, is astounding. I do think that they are starting to lose the power-user userbase when it comes to browsers and search engines. But their email, docs/sheets/whatever, drive, and now their DNS registrar services are all cemented into business flow. It makes sense. They don't need the power users - they need the most users. As long as they have the most users, businesses (where the power-users are working) are going to use ancillary services like Google MyBusiness, Google Analytics, and embrace google-backed (and ranking-factor) tech like SSL certificates and progressive web apps.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
> The number of times I've taken a google search that gave me useless results, copied-and-pasted it into duck-duck-go, and immediately found what I'm looking for, is astounding. I'll bet it's dwarfed by the number of times I get useful results from Google and total garbage from DDG. Earlier today I searched for "CADT syndrome" to figure out what another HN comment meant by it. Both engines automatically correct that to "cast syndrome" if you search without quotes. But only Google provided a relevant result after being corrected "no, I really meant CADT syndrome". DDG gamely provided the "cast syndrome" results after correcting the query.
- rubatuga 7y ago
  You should use verbose mode
  - frittig 7y ago
    are quotes around the search term not the command for verbose mode?
    - mkl 7y ago
      Not anymore. Google has a verbatim mode under Tools > All results.

watwut 7y ago

I am getting racially and politically charged content suggested on youtube and don't have any interest on it. Maybe there is some more extreme content I could not find, but this stuff is going to me without me wanting it.