8 ms·

Click the three dots and then either "Not interested" or "Don't recommend channel". Seems to work reasonably well for me.

by eCa 5y ago

Ticklee 5y ago
I wish someone would make an extension that makes this a simple hover+keypress instead of multiple clicks. As it stands right now it is too much of a hassle to manually click 2 times per video. But if you do not then youtube will continue to plaster that video on your homescreen for weeks.
alpaca128 5y ago
What if it's from a channel I like but don't want to watch that one video...will clicking on this reduce suggestions from this channel, will it do nothing, will it unsubscribe me from that channel(as has happened in the past), ...? Nobody knows, I only know I don't want to play this game.
- smichel17 5y ago
  Use Firefox multi-account containers and the temporary containers add-on. Now your YouTube starts fresh with every new tab. It's actually nice, it means you get to build a new set of recommendations each time you open a tab, and because YT doesn't have that much data on you yet, the recommendations are directly linked to the thing you're currently watching, similar to how it used to be before the whole tracking extravaganza.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
    More or less. Sadly, they still suggest a ton of stuff based on geolocation.
    - asddubs 5y ago
      I'm in germany so i always get asinine videos recommended about what americans think about germany and what germans think about what americans think about germany
  - atatatat 5y ago
    Or use different folders of portable Chromium so you have any semblance of sandboxing + security.
    - medstrom 5y ago
      Temporary Containers is a pretty amazing sandbox already, as it uses a builtin Firefox feature.
    - dudus 5y ago
      You can just have multiple profiles on chrome. One logged in and one logged out.
      - srg0 5y ago
        How Chrome and Chrome-based browsers work with profiles, and push the user to log in, I have a feeling they never fully log out and there's some kind of a supercookie hanging around. Trust issue.
- Mordisquitos 5y ago
  The best way of not playing this game is to, well... not play it. Why should you pay any attention to what YouTube "suggests" you should watch? I just treat YouTube as a service that hosts videos, with a mediocre search feature, and I have no interest in what it thinks I should watch. If a real human mentions a video that piques my interest, I may watch it. If I'm interested in finding a video on a particular topic, or a specific scene from this-or-that film or TV show, I will search for it myself. If am interested enough in a certain producer's content, I may "subscribe" to them, but I will be the judge if I want to watch the latest video they uploaded.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
    > Why should you pay any attention to what YouTube "suggests" you should watch? There is one advantage: some obscure music videos. There are some rare pearls with the comments section almost exclusively thanking YT algorithm for taking them there. Happened to me so many times that I have a separate browser instance and a Google account for YT and I'm very careful what I click when I use it.
    - Mordisquitos 5y ago
      True, you do have a point there. I'll admit I have discovered a few bands/musicians by just leaving YouTube on autoplay, after having searched for specific artists I already knew to concentrate while working (before lo-fi hip hop was trending!).
    - mannykannot 5y ago
      This brings us right back to square one: are the benefits of the recommending algorithms worth the downside? We can make that choice.
    - mythrwy 5y ago
      Yes 100%. I have to plug this channel that came up like that a few months ago. It has a lot of obscure rock and a lot of it is really good! https://www.youtube.com/c/TerminalPassage/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/TerminalPassage/videos I didn't even know there was a Jazz/Fusion rock scene in Japan in the 70's for instance. I never would have heard of this band without YouTube suggestions but really enjoying their work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20eVtt1VJyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20eVtt1VJyg
aulin 5y ago
really annoying if you mostly watch youtube from a tv (unless there's way to do that from the youtube app in e.g. amazon firetv)
solarkraft 5y ago
I’ve been trying it for a few months. I dutifully clicked away every preposterously stupid clickbait title or thumbnail and topic I didn’t care about. It had no noticeable effect.
Measter 5y ago
It doesn't in my experience. I've been telling it I don't want to see: news, politics, music, or reaction videos for months. It still puts them there. Last week it decided that I wanted to see rap videos and filled my feed with them. I don't listen to rap. I've never watched a rap video. I've told it I'm not interested in every single video, but it still puts them there.
- makomk 5y ago
  Not sure it'll do much about news videos - Google seems to force the same presumably hand-picked selection of news videos onto everyone's front page, generally covering the kind of political topics tech workers think everyone should hear about.
- ripply 5y ago
  Try going through your watch history/liked videos and deleting things if it’s really bothering you, I watched a bunch of political videos a few years ago and got burnt out so I deleted every one (took a few hours) and my recommendations instantly changed
vitorgrs 5y ago
Doesn't work well at all. There's a popular garbage news channel here in Brazil. Every week I have to do that, it never works. I never click on the videos, so no idea why they think I'm interested.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  You can block individual channels from recommendations ("Don't recommend channel").

Click the three dots and then either "Not interested" or "Don't recommend channel". Seems to work reasonably well for me.

by eCa 5y ago

Click the three dots and then either "Not interested" or "Don't recommend channel". Seems to work reasonably well for me.

Ticklee 5y ago

I wish someone would make an extension that makes this a simple hover+keypress instead of multiple clicks. As it stands right now it is too much of a hassle to manually click 2 times per video. But if you do not then youtube will continue to plaster that video on your homescreen for weeks.

alpaca128 5y ago

What if it's from a channel I like but don't want to watch that one video...will clicking on this reduce suggestions from this channel, will it do nothing, will it unsubscribe me from that channel(as has happened in the past), ...? Nobody knows, I only know I don't want to play this game.

smichel17 5y ago
Use Firefox multi-account containers and the temporary containers add-on. Now your YouTube starts fresh with every new tab. It's actually nice, it means you get to build a new set of recommendations each time you open a tab, and because YT doesn't have that much data on you yet, the recommendations are directly linked to the thing you're currently watching, similar to how it used to be before the whole tracking extravaganza.
- dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
  More or less. Sadly, they still suggest a ton of stuff based on geolocation.
  - asddubs 5y ago
    I'm in germany so i always get asinine videos recommended about what americans think about germany and what germans think about what americans think about germany
- atatatat 5y ago
  Or use different folders of portable Chromium so you have any semblance of sandboxing + security.
  - medstrom 5y ago
    Temporary Containers is a pretty amazing sandbox already, as it uses a builtin Firefox feature.
  - dudus 5y ago
    You can just have multiple profiles on chrome. One logged in and one logged out.
    - srg0 5y ago
      How Chrome and Chrome-based browsers work with profiles, and push the user to log in, I have a feeling they never fully log out and there's some kind of a supercookie hanging around. Trust issue.
Mordisquitos 5y ago
The best way of not playing this game is to, well... not play it. Why should you pay any attention to what YouTube "suggests" you should watch? I just treat YouTube as a service that hosts videos, with a mediocre search feature, and I have no interest in what it thinks I should watch. If a real human mentions a video that piques my interest, I may watch it. If I'm interested in finding a video on a particular topic, or a specific scene from this-or-that film or TV show, I will search for it myself. If am interested enough in a certain producer's content, I may "subscribe" to them, but I will be the judge if I want to watch the latest video they uploaded.
- dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
  > Why should you pay any attention to what YouTube "suggests" you should watch? There is one advantage: some obscure music videos. There are some rare pearls with the comments section almost exclusively thanking YT algorithm for taking them there. Happened to me so many times that I have a separate browser instance and a Google account for YT and I'm very careful what I click when I use it.
  - Mordisquitos 5y ago
    True, you do have a point there. I'll admit I have discovered a few bands/musicians by just leaving YouTube on autoplay, after having searched for specific artists I already knew to concentrate while working (before lo-fi hip hop was trending!).
  - mannykannot 5y ago
    This brings us right back to square one: are the benefits of the recommending algorithms worth the downside? We can make that choice.
  - mythrwy 5y ago
    Yes 100%. I have to plug this channel that came up like that a few months ago. It has a lot of obscure rock and a lot of it is really good! https://www.youtube.com/c/TerminalPassage/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/TerminalPassage/videos I didn't even know there was a Jazz/Fusion rock scene in Japan in the 70's for instance. I never would have heard of this band without YouTube suggestions but really enjoying their work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20eVtt1VJyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20eVtt1VJyg

aulin 5y ago

really annoying if you mostly watch youtube from a tv (unless there's way to do that from the youtube app in e.g. amazon firetv)

solarkraft 5y ago

I’ve been trying it for a few months. I dutifully clicked away every preposterously stupid clickbait title or thumbnail and topic I didn’t care about. It had no noticeable effect.

Measter 5y ago

It doesn't in my experience. I've been telling it I don't want to see: news, politics, music, or reaction videos for months. It still puts them there. Last week it decided that I wanted to see rap videos and filled my feed with them. I don't listen to rap. I've never watched a rap video. I've told it I'm not interested in every single video, but it still puts them there.

makomk 5y ago
Not sure it'll do much about news videos - Google seems to force the same presumably hand-picked selection of news videos onto everyone's front page, generally covering the kind of political topics tech workers think everyone should hear about.
ripply 5y ago
Try going through your watch history/liked videos and deleting things if it’s really bothering you, I watched a bunch of political videos a few years ago and got burnt out so I deleted every one (took a few hours) and my recommendations instantly changed

vitorgrs 5y ago

Doesn't work well at all. There's a popular garbage news channel here in Brazil. Every week I have to do that, it never works. I never click on the videos, so no idea why they think I'm interested.

frosted-flakes 5y ago
You can block individual channels from recommendations ("Don't recommend channel").