4 ms·

> I watch it daily, I have never listened to any hip hop, I don't watch sports nor trending topics, yet every single day it suggests football videos, MMA, the l

by johnfn 4y ago

> I watch it daily, I have never listened to any hip hop, I don't watch sports nor trending topics, yet every single day it suggests football videos, MMA, the latest hiphop hit, and celebrity crap (imagine the Kardashians) among my other interests. I don't have this experience at all. YouTube recommends me pretty much exactly what I've been recently watching. I watch a lot of long form interviews and tech videos, and my recommended feed is entirely filled with more of the same, which are of decent enough quality for me. I wonder if something is wrong with your account?

chillfox 4y ago
I used to have the same experience of YouTube recommending just more of whatever I just watched, and at most recommendations would stick around for 6 weeks before it forgot about a subject. That was until earlier this year when I watched some videos from MrBallen (camp fire stories based on real events), and ever since then I have gotten my recommendations filled with crazy conspiracy stuff. It stopped recommending his videos months ago, but lasting damage has been done to my profile or something like that because the conspiracy stuff sticks around and has crowded everything else out. The old behaviour of fixating on something I just watched for 6 weeks no longer happens. I suspect that certain types of videos/subjects are able to leave a massively oversized weighting for a category on your profile that everything else get's completely dwarfed by.
- johnfn 4y ago
  Out of curiosity, do you watch those videos? Is that what trains the algorithm to show more of them?
  - yccs27 4y ago
    Not parent but same experience. I watched MrBallen's videos as "creepypasta based on real events", and I guess that is a pretty similar vibe to conspiracy theories. Never watched any of the conspiracy content and still got it in my recommended videos for a long time.
  - chillfox 4y ago
    Nope, never watched any of the conspiracy videos. I did however watch quite a few of MrBallens videos, specifically all the cave/diving ones, they are just great stories.
- yccs27 4y ago
  Exactly the same experience here. I kinda like MrBallen's presentation and I know I can't take his stories at face value, but apparently it's so close to conspiracy stuff that it just overwhelmed my recommendations. I guess part of the problem is that conspiracy content has very high engagement among its audience, so youtube is biased towards it. Ultimately I had to go back and scrub his videos from my history and even then it still took a lot of effort saying "not interested" to conspiracy stuff until I no longer got those suggestions.
- scrollaway 4y ago
  If you want to fix it (and I agree it shouldn't be this painful, but you deal with what you got), you can go back in your history and remove the videos from MrBallen from your watch history. This should fix it for good, almost immediately.
  - chillfox 4y ago
    Thanks
sph 4y ago
> YouTube recommends me pretty much exactly what I've been recently watching. It depends. Maybe I wasn't clear, most of the recommendations are fine (not great, but still pertinent), but sections like "New to you", or "Just uploaded" or even the search suggestions are full of trending videos that I keep telling it I don't care about. Right now I just get recommended three categories of videos: - 90% relevant to my interests but often stuff I've already watched. Nothing that strays a little further than the channels I already know. Keeps recommending stuff I've watched and liked months or years ago. Video #42 of a series I've seen fully. - 9.9% useless trending bullshit. This month it's all about the "Why have we divorced" or "Meet our new baby" videos. I don't have children, I'm not even in a relationship. Google decided I would care about this. - 0.1% some genuinely new stuff that's relevant.
- snet0 4y ago
  If I remember what I did correctly, you can block most of the named sections using something like uBlock.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > sections like "New to you", or "Just uploaded" I actually expect those sections to completely ignore your preferences. They're just advertising sections, so they reflect what YouTube wants you to watch.
xani_ 4y ago
I got a lot of recommendations for stuff I ALREADY WATCHED, it even shows the red bar showing it KNOWS I watched it, still recommends
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  Youtube does that because people like me compulsively re-watch content. Youtube probably needs a few user-visible knobs like "I like to rewatch stuff vs I hate rewatching stuff"
JohnFen 4y ago
> I wonder if something is wrong with your account? If so, the same thing is wrong with my account, and that of my other friends who watch YouTube often.

by johnfn 4y ago

chillfox 4y ago

I used to have the same experience of YouTube recommending just more of whatever I just watched, and at most recommendations would stick around for 6 weeks before it forgot about a subject. That was until earlier this year when I watched some videos from MrBallen (camp fire stories based on real events), and ever since then I have gotten my recommendations filled with crazy conspiracy stuff. It stopped recommending his videos months ago, but lasting damage has been done to my profile or something like that because the conspiracy stuff sticks around and has crowded everything else out. The old behaviour of fixating on something I just watched for 6 weeks no longer happens. I suspect that certain types of videos/subjects are able to leave a massively oversized weighting for a category on your profile that everything else get's completely dwarfed by.

johnfn 4y ago
Out of curiosity, do you watch those videos? Is that what trains the algorithm to show more of them?
- yccs27 4y ago
  Not parent but same experience. I watched MrBallen's videos as "creepypasta based on real events", and I guess that is a pretty similar vibe to conspiracy theories. Never watched any of the conspiracy content and still got it in my recommended videos for a long time.
- chillfox 4y ago
  Nope, never watched any of the conspiracy videos. I did however watch quite a few of MrBallens videos, specifically all the cave/diving ones, they are just great stories.
yccs27 4y ago
Exactly the same experience here. I kinda like MrBallen's presentation and I know I can't take his stories at face value, but apparently it's so close to conspiracy stuff that it just overwhelmed my recommendations. I guess part of the problem is that conspiracy content has very high engagement among its audience, so youtube is biased towards it. Ultimately I had to go back and scrub his videos from my history and even then it still took a lot of effort saying "not interested" to conspiracy stuff until I no longer got those suggestions.
scrollaway 4y ago
If you want to fix it (and I agree it shouldn't be this painful, but you deal with what you got), you can go back in your history and remove the videos from MrBallen from your watch history. This should fix it for good, almost immediately.
- chillfox 4y ago
  Thanks

sph 4y ago

> YouTube recommends me pretty much exactly what I've been recently watching. It depends. Maybe I wasn't clear, most of the recommendations are fine (not great, but still pertinent), but sections like "New to you", or "Just uploaded" or even the search suggestions are full of trending videos that I keep telling it I don't care about. Right now I just get recommended three categories of videos: - 90% relevant to my interests but often stuff I've already watched. Nothing that strays a little further than the channels I already know. Keeps recommending stuff I've watched and liked months or years ago. Video #42 of a series I've seen fully. - 9.9% useless trending bullshit. This month it's all about the "Why have we divorced" or "Meet our new baby" videos. I don't have children, I'm not even in a relationship. Google decided I would care about this. - 0.1% some genuinely new stuff that's relevant.

snet0 4y ago
If I remember what I did correctly, you can block most of the named sections using something like uBlock.
JohnFen 4y ago
> sections like "New to you", or "Just uploaded" I actually expect those sections to completely ignore your preferences. They're just advertising sections, so they reflect what YouTube wants you to watch.

xani_ 4y ago

I got a lot of recommendations for stuff I ALREADY WATCHED, it even shows the red bar showing it KNOWS I watched it, still recommends

mrguyorama 4y ago
Youtube does that because people like me compulsively re-watch content. Youtube probably needs a few user-visible knobs like "I like to rewatch stuff vs I hate rewatching stuff"

JohnFen 4y ago

> I wonder if something is wrong with your account? If so, the same thing is wrong with my account, and that of my other friends who watch YouTube often.