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YouTube recommendations are tailored to what you watch. I end up being recommended car repair videos, security/hacking/surveillance videos, repairing old vintag

YouTube recommendations are tailored to what you watch. I end up being recommended car repair videos, security/hacking/surveillance videos, repairing old vintage computers and some like comedy and music stuff I like. The stuff that you mention. You can literally say "Not Interested" on the video and it will show you less of content. I see none of it.

Nextgrid 11mo ago
Recommendations are mostly tailored to your history, except with a couple hardcoded slots populated with some general-purpose "engaging" trash from your locale/geographical location, pretty much always political content. And if you click on one, by mistake or curiosity, now you've sent a signal that you like it and will get much more of it in the next batch of recommendations.
- rkomorn 11mo ago
  Never fails to amaze me how shortsighted the algorithms can be. "Oh you didn't skip this video on a topic you usually don't watch? How about we make that topic 50% of your next however many videos?!"
  - Nextgrid 11mo ago
    They're not short-sighted; there's science behind it. The science of getting people to waste as much time as possible generating "engagement". All of this is A/B tested to hell and people's careers live and die by it.
    - rkomorn 11mo ago
      Yes, maybe shortsighted is not the right word, but regardless, they misunderstand signal constantly. I go out of my way to block accounts that post stuff I don't want in my feed and pretty much all of them see that as an invitation to give me more of the same content. Likely because I "interact" longer with the content since it takes clicks to block the account.
- floundy 11mo ago
  This is an important caveat. I get recommended what the parent commenter you replied to stated, mostly videos on home repair, tech, and technological skepticism because those are what I watch. I also get Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, and other alt-right pipeline dorks in my recommendations solely because of my gender and age. I never engage with political content on YouTube and I’ve cleared my watch history multiple times, these still show up. I actually ended up disabling watch history all together and I’ve installed an extension (Unhook) that hides the sidebar recommendations, Shorts, and other useless features.
  - FlameRobot 11mo ago
    > I also get Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, and other alt-right pipeline dorks in my recommendations solely because of my gender and age. I never engage with political content on YouTube and I’ve cleared my watch history multiple times, these still show up. That doesn't happen. Firstly you literally click on the video and say "don't recommend channel" and you will never see a JRE episode again. Also, just by how you phrased that whole paragraph. I don't believe you are telling the truth. None of those characters are "alt-right". "alt-right" essentially means White Nationalist. You cannot tell me that Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro are White Nationalists because of their support for Israel and one of them is Jewish. White nationalists really don't like Israel and Jewish people. They however were labelled as "alt right" to smear them, by other political commentators and publications who are typically on the left and American. You would only use that framing if you were listening to those commentators and/or publications that used similar phrasing. Also Jordan Peterson actually talked about addiction on a Joe Rogan podcast and it was one of the things that put me on the road to dealing with my drinking issues. I stopped listening to Joe Rogan about episode 1000 after they stopped being live and were prerecorded. I have plenty of criticisms of them now. But I Jordan Peterson did help me at least indirectly. I don't watch either of them anymore and haven't watched them for quite a number of years at this point.
    - m0llusk 11mo ago
      There are some subtleties here. One of my friends and I are both interested in camping and outdoor gear. This keeps causing YouTube to recommend videos on prepping and guns. Go ahead and block channels and select less of this and it sort of works for a while But then it comes back with more. There are lots of prepping and guns channels. Maybe a pepper who talks about gardens gets highlighted or a gun thing that has a manufacturing complication or business hook comes up. There are many such channels, lots of content, and the connections are very strong, at least with YouTube recommendations.
- FlameRobot 11mo ago
  > Recommendations are mostly tailored to your history, except with a couple hardcoded slots populated with some general-purpose "engaging" trash from your locale/geographical location, pretty much always political content. I don't see that at all. I use YouTube most evenings (I watch YouTube instead of TV). I do have like traditional news media sometimes on the third or fourth row and you can dismiss that quickly. > And if you click on one, by mistake or curiosity, now you've sent a signal that you like it and will get much more of it in the next batch of recommendations. You fix that by simply pressing "Not Interested" a few times. It can be annoying. It isn't the end of the world.
- jeffbee 11mo ago
  This is not true. I have never seen that at all. I rarely use the YouTube main feed, but looking at it right now, it's 100% bicycle repair and cooking. The idea that YouTube pushes a political point of view is itself a falsehood pushed by people holding a particular point of view.
  - xboxnolifes 11mo ago
    I don't know about pushing a certain political point of view, but my 3rd or 4th row of recommendations frequently becomes a labelled "news" section if something big happens either federally or in my state. Separate from normal recommendations.
  - Nextgrid 11mo ago
    I am talking about recommendations in the right sidebar of a video.
iammjm 11mo ago
yeah but then they sometime just emerge some random stuff in your feed, and if you give in to it once and click on it, they will assume this is all you want from now on.
- FlameRobot 11mo ago
  No. You just click "Not Interested" a few times and it they go away.
slumberlust 11mo ago
I've found the opposite to be true. If I engage with a video in any way shape or form, even to say I don't want it, they consider that engagement I can't get it to stop recommending a video I've already watched...it thinks I want to watch it again I guess. Now you get baited with Member Only videos too. I'm already paying you $30 a month...
- FlameRobot 11mo ago
  > I've found the opposite to be true. If I engage with a video in any way shape or form, even to say I don't want it, they consider that engagement I don't think that is the case. If I click Not Interested. Similar video don't show. > Now you get baited with Member Only videos too. I'm already paying you $30 a month.. To members? Or to YouTube to remove ads? If it is the former, you have shown YouTube that you are willing to pay for memberships, so they going to recommend them.
- whatevertrevor 11mo ago
  Remove the offending videos from your history, it helps.
Ezhik 11mo ago
YouTube recommendations are always so rage-baity for me to the point where I blocked them entirely. Can't look up a movie or a gadget without getting a thumbnail with big red letters saying that the thing sucks, this despite me avoiding review/reaction content like the plague.
- skinnymuch 11mo ago
  “This changes everything”. That title of every third YouTube video has never been true
Anomalocaris 11mo ago
Or you can try disabling watch histories, assuming that's an issue for you of course

Nextgrid 11mo ago

Recommendations are mostly tailored to your history, except with a couple hardcoded slots populated with some general-purpose "engaging" trash from your locale/geographical location, pretty much always political content. And if you click on one, by mistake or curiosity, now you've sent a signal that you like it and will get much more of it in the next batch of recommendations.

rkomorn 11mo ago
Never fails to amaze me how shortsighted the algorithms can be. "Oh you didn't skip this video on a topic you usually don't watch? How about we make that topic 50% of your next however many videos?!"
- Nextgrid 11mo ago
  They're not short-sighted; there's science behind it. The science of getting people to waste as much time as possible generating "engagement". All of this is A/B tested to hell and people's careers live and die by it.
  - rkomorn 11mo ago
    Yes, maybe shortsighted is not the right word, but regardless, they misunderstand signal constantly. I go out of my way to block accounts that post stuff I don't want in my feed and pretty much all of them see that as an invitation to give me more of the same content. Likely because I "interact" longer with the content since it takes clicks to block the account.
floundy 11mo ago
This is an important caveat. I get recommended what the parent commenter you replied to stated, mostly videos on home repair, tech, and technological skepticism because those are what I watch. I also get Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, and other alt-right pipeline dorks in my recommendations solely because of my gender and age. I never engage with political content on YouTube and I’ve cleared my watch history multiple times, these still show up. I actually ended up disabling watch history all together and I’ve installed an extension (Unhook) that hides the sidebar recommendations, Shorts, and other useless features.
- FlameRobot 11mo ago
  > I also get Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, and other alt-right pipeline dorks in my recommendations solely because of my gender and age. I never engage with political content on YouTube and I’ve cleared my watch history multiple times, these still show up. That doesn't happen. Firstly you literally click on the video and say "don't recommend channel" and you will never see a JRE episode again. Also, just by how you phrased that whole paragraph. I don't believe you are telling the truth. None of those characters are "alt-right". "alt-right" essentially means White Nationalist. You cannot tell me that Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro are White Nationalists because of their support for Israel and one of them is Jewish. White nationalists really don't like Israel and Jewish people. They however were labelled as "alt right" to smear them, by other political commentators and publications who are typically on the left and American. You would only use that framing if you were listening to those commentators and/or publications that used similar phrasing. Also Jordan Peterson actually talked about addiction on a Joe Rogan podcast and it was one of the things that put me on the road to dealing with my drinking issues. I stopped listening to Joe Rogan about episode 1000 after they stopped being live and were prerecorded. I have plenty of criticisms of them now. But I Jordan Peterson did help me at least indirectly. I don't watch either of them anymore and haven't watched them for quite a number of years at this point.
  - m0llusk 11mo ago
    There are some subtleties here. One of my friends and I are both interested in camping and outdoor gear. This keeps causing YouTube to recommend videos on prepping and guns. Go ahead and block channels and select less of this and it sort of works for a while But then it comes back with more. There are lots of prepping and guns channels. Maybe a pepper who talks about gardens gets highlighted or a gun thing that has a manufacturing complication or business hook comes up. There are many such channels, lots of content, and the connections are very strong, at least with YouTube recommendations.
FlameRobot 11mo ago
> Recommendations are mostly tailored to your history, except with a couple hardcoded slots populated with some general-purpose "engaging" trash from your locale/geographical location, pretty much always political content. I don't see that at all. I use YouTube most evenings (I watch YouTube instead of TV). I do have like traditional news media sometimes on the third or fourth row and you can dismiss that quickly. > And if you click on one, by mistake or curiosity, now you've sent a signal that you like it and will get much more of it in the next batch of recommendations. You fix that by simply pressing "Not Interested" a few times. It can be annoying. It isn't the end of the world.
jeffbee 11mo ago
This is not true. I have never seen that at all. I rarely use the YouTube main feed, but looking at it right now, it's 100% bicycle repair and cooking. The idea that YouTube pushes a political point of view is itself a falsehood pushed by people holding a particular point of view.
- xboxnolifes 11mo ago
  I don't know about pushing a certain political point of view, but my 3rd or 4th row of recommendations frequently becomes a labelled "news" section if something big happens either federally or in my state. Separate from normal recommendations.
- Nextgrid 11mo ago
  I am talking about recommendations in the right sidebar of a video.

iammjm 11mo ago

yeah but then they sometime just emerge some random stuff in your feed, and if you give in to it once and click on it, they will assume this is all you want from now on.

FlameRobot 11mo ago
No. You just click "Not Interested" a few times and it they go away.

slumberlust 11mo ago

I've found the opposite to be true. If I engage with a video in any way shape or form, even to say I don't want it, they consider that engagement I can't get it to stop recommending a video I've already watched...it thinks I want to watch it again I guess. Now you get baited with Member Only videos too. I'm already paying you $30 a month...

FlameRobot 11mo ago
> I've found the opposite to be true. If I engage with a video in any way shape or form, even to say I don't want it, they consider that engagement I don't think that is the case. If I click Not Interested. Similar video don't show. > Now you get baited with Member Only videos too. I'm already paying you $30 a month.. To members? Or to YouTube to remove ads? If it is the former, you have shown YouTube that you are willing to pay for memberships, so they going to recommend them.
whatevertrevor 11mo ago
Remove the offending videos from your history, it helps.

Ezhik 11mo ago

YouTube recommendations are always so rage-baity for me to the point where I blocked them entirely. Can't look up a movie or a gadget without getting a thumbnail with big red letters saying that the thing sucks, this despite me avoiding review/reaction content like the plague.

skinnymuch 11mo ago
“This changes everything”. That title of every third YouTube video has never been true

Anomalocaris 11mo ago

Or you can try disabling watch histories, assuming that's an issue for you of course