3 ms·

It keeps recommending me far-right political videos for some reason. I think it's because I like watching Forgotten Weapons and InRangeTV, even though Forgotten

It keeps recommending me far-right political videos for some reason. I think it's because I like watching Forgotten Weapons and InRangeTV, even though Forgotten Weapons has essentially zero politics in it and InRangeTV is run by a left-libertarian. Even after doing the "never recommend me this channel" thing it keeps recommending me this Jordan Peterson-type shit about "leftist woke idiots getting owned". Plus, no matter how many times I tap "Not interested" on the Shorts section every week it's back.

lupusreal 3y ago
My guess is InRange is to blame in your case. In my experience, youtube has an "engages in political content" bucket they can put people in that doesn't discriminate between the flavor of politics; watch any sort of political content and it will start recommending any sort in turn, even political content from viewpoints you cannot stand and would never watch. I guess a lot of people rage-watch political content they dislike, so this sort of category makes practical sense for youtube. This happened to me a few times. Thankfully, clearing cookies is an easy fix for me since I don't use an account; people who do may have to spend some time sanitizing their view history. I now avoid all content that has even a whiff of content that might be automatically classified as political advocacy. I still watch occasional FW videos, although not the ones where I think he'll discuss firearm laws, and InRange is out because Karl too frequently discusses the law and political landscape w.r.t. online privacy/etc. Since reaching the above conclusion and making these changes, my front page has been clear of anything with even a suggestion of partisan politics. It's all machine and mechanism videos, the way I like it. (Except for the occasional grossout pimple video in the search results, but that's another story...)
ToucanLoucan 3y ago
I think part of that is just reactionary politics on both ends of the spectrum play really well in social media in general, which YouTube is (of course) slowly turning into because everything fucking is. Anywhere the attention economy is, there is always a market for loud, irritating people doing loud, irritating things because they attract audiences, both in the people who agree with them, and the people who think they're fucking jokes. I honestly wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if in the near future we have sociologists who pin the catastrophic political divides we now experience down to, at least in part, the fact that so many massive institutions in our society at this particular moment are finding the absolute most ridiculous people and giving them the largest megaphone in the history of our species to scream into because it makes them money.

lupusreal 3y ago

My guess is InRange is to blame in your case. In my experience, youtube has an "engages in political content" bucket they can put people in that doesn't discriminate between the flavor of politics; watch any sort of political content and it will start recommending any sort in turn, even political content from viewpoints you cannot stand and would never watch. I guess a lot of people rage-watch political content they dislike, so this sort of category makes practical sense for youtube. This happened to me a few times. Thankfully, clearing cookies is an easy fix for me since I don't use an account; people who do may have to spend some time sanitizing their view history. I now avoid all content that has even a whiff of content that might be automatically classified as political advocacy. I still watch occasional FW videos, although not the ones where I think he'll discuss firearm laws, and InRange is out because Karl too frequently discusses the law and political landscape w.r.t. online privacy/etc. Since reaching the above conclusion and making these changes, my front page has been clear of anything with even a suggestion of partisan politics. It's all machine and mechanism videos, the way I like it. (Except for the occasional grossout pimple video in the search results, but that's another story...)

ToucanLoucan 3y ago

I think part of that is just reactionary politics on both ends of the spectrum play really well in social media in general, which YouTube is (of course) slowly turning into because everything fucking is. Anywhere the attention economy is, there is always a market for loud, irritating people doing loud, irritating things because they attract audiences, both in the people who agree with them, and the people who think they're fucking jokes. I honestly wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if in the near future we have sociologists who pin the catastrophic political divides we now experience down to, at least in part, the fact that so many massive institutions in our society at this particular moment are finding the absolute most ridiculous people and giving them the largest megaphone in the history of our species to scream into because it makes them money.