3 ms·

I think you're missing the point. According to TFA, the YouTube algorithm likes content that breaks their policies very much: Recommended videos were 40% t

by d3nj4l 5y ago

I think you're missing the point. According to TFA, the YouTube algorithm likes content that breaks their policies very much: Recommended videos were 40% times more likely to be regretted than videos searched for. In 43.6% of cases where Mozilla had data about videos a volunteer watched before a regret, the recommendation was completely unrelated to the previous videos that the volunteer watched. YouTube Regrets tend to perform extremely well on the platform, with reported videos acquiring 70% more views per day than other videos watched by volunteers. So it's not that the algorithm is just "blind" to content that breaks their policies, it seems to prefer them over other content.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
Reading the report, this wasn't actually a random sampling of typical users. They used opt-in reporting from a self-selected group of volunteers who were interested in reporting "regrettable" YouTube recommendations. If some of these users were deliberately scouring YouTube for objectionable content, it follows that their recommendations would start matching similarly objectionable content for them. After reading the report, I don't see how any of this is representative of a typical user's YouTube experience. It certainly doesn't resemble my own experience at all.
randallsquared 5y ago
> it seems to prefer them over other content. Isn't it likely that it prefers them because they're more likely to be fully watched/upvoted/commented on/otherwise engaging? Presumably, that fact together with objections to the content are the reason to have a policy...
philwelch 5y ago
There are some pretty obvious explanations to all of these points: * People don't search for content they don't want to watch. * Videos that a specific person doesn't want to watch are often unrelated to videos that the same person does want to watch. * If a video receives a high number of views, that is probably a signal to the algorithm that the video is popular enough to recommend more often. If anything, those numbers are lower than what I would expect.

by d3nj4l 5y ago

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

Reading the report, this wasn't actually a random sampling of typical users. They used opt-in reporting from a self-selected group of volunteers who were interested in reporting "regrettable" YouTube recommendations. If some of these users were deliberately scouring YouTube for objectionable content, it follows that their recommendations would start matching similarly objectionable content for them. After reading the report, I don't see how any of this is representative of a typical user's YouTube experience. It certainly doesn't resemble my own experience at all.

randallsquared 5y ago

> it seems to prefer them over other content. Isn't it likely that it prefers them because they're more likely to be fully watched/upvoted/commented on/otherwise engaging? Presumably, that fact together with objections to the content are the reason to have a policy...

philwelch 5y ago

There are some pretty obvious explanations to all of these points: * People don't search for content they don't want to watch. * Videos that a specific person doesn't want to watch are often unrelated to videos that the same person does want to watch. * If a video receives a high number of views, that is probably a signal to the algorithm that the video is popular enough to recommend more often. If anything, those numbers are lower than what I would expect.