4 ms·

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 befo

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

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