Youtube recommendations. It’s bad enough the comment sections are eye-scorching shit pits. You can ignore that by not scrolling down. But due to the wide aspect ratio of most monitors, you will see the recommendations in the sidebar. And thanks to their fucking algorithms, if you watch almost anything it will recommend fascist propaganda. They’ve personally turned swaths of the youngest generations into a brigade of Hitler youth.
For my purposes, I just want ONE FUCKING THING from them. When I say I’m not interested in a channel, STOP FUCKING SHOWING ME THAT CHANNEL YOU GODDAMN FUCKHOLES. I’m not saying, “ooh, gosh, not interested at the mome, but maybe I’ll turn into a nazi in the next ten minutes, so feel free to show me that later.”
I’m saying nuke that shit. If I had the option to annihilate other people’s channels with a button, if I had a button that would force a nazi channel’s creator to be hauled out of their house, beaten and smothered in goose shit, I’d push that button too.
I want ONE basic courtesy out of the dominant video platform on the internet, run by a company that used to say “don’t be evil.” I want the ability to truly block literally genocidal literal fascists from my computer screen. If I had children, I’d want to shield them from the same, without having to install third party extensions.
Google, burn in hell you fucking shite.
-I should clarify, there’s a reason I don’t use browser extensions to block the sidebar altogether. If I didn’t, google would build a profile of me that says “anything goes,” which would gradually skew fascist no matter what I did. I have been able to tease the interface into giving me far fewer fascist videos than when I watched atheist shit, but some channels are just plagued.
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Maybe I’ve been lucky, but YT has never given me any Nazi recommendations. Kinda makes me wonder what sort of videos you’ve been watching…
Apple is just as bad. I like the news feed that comes with the iPhone, and theoretically, I thought it was supposed to be trainable to show you more of the stuff you like and less of the stuff you don’t like. So how come, after I have pressed the “dislike” button dozens and dozens of times for articles about astrology, it still continues to give me articles about astrology anyway? How come, I say?
It’s because of their algorithms that I watch less YouTube than I otherwise would and purposefully avoid any videos that might screw up my recommendations.
Things I watch on YouTube all fall in to one of three categories: music, old cartoons, and instructional videos (mostly sewing). I have precisely zero interest in talking heads of any kind. My recommendations are mostly OK.
Don – There’s a very strong correlation between gaming, comics, movies, basically any geek interest, science, skepticism, atheism, and hard right politics. It isn’t always nazism, sometimes it’s fascist pigs that happen to be jewish, like ben shapiro. It’s a pain in the ass to sign in and out of YT accounts on the smart tv, so it’s on mine by default, and someone in my house likes to follow a few progressive gamer sites. It doesn’t matter how cool those guys are, the recs end up a trash fire.
Bruce – Ya god damn right. If I had to guess at the why, it’s similar to how FB benefits from making everyone friends with everyone else. The more popular content people look at, the more variety of ads you can show ’em, the more possible it is to get a single click. Astrology’s popular on that platform, being a misogynist fascist shitbro is popular on youtube.
Tabby – Lots of the videos people share on this site get you bad recs, so mostly I don’t play them either. But does it affect your recs if the video loads, whether you press play or not? I’m not sure. What’s your experience?
Dunc – That’s nice. I have a feeling if I looked at old cartoons, I’d be getting “funny banned racist cartoons lol funny” in my sidebar. Cool that it’s worked out for you so far though.
For dog’s sake, clear your cookies occasionally. When I get around to it, I can quickly retrain the recommendations to what I like.
Cookies won’t be sufficient. Google keeps that shit on their side, web-based. And you can clear your google history, but then to whatever extent you’ve put feedback into it, does that also get erased? I’ve given it “I don’t like this video” and “i’m not interested in this channel” like a thousand times, it seems to have kinda worked for my main page at least, and would that go away if I cleared my history on there? I don’t know.
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Also, clearing cookies and histories and such still doesn’t change that google is fucked for allowing the situation to come down like this. Gameplay videos and the like are all hugely popular with small children. I have no doubt some jewish folks have sent a kid upstairs to watch youtube on a tablet and had ’em come downstairs talking about “international jewry.” A lot of grown people don’t know elementary file management, let alone how to customize account and browser settings on all the platforms out there. Not something kids should have to think about either.
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My guess as to why I keep getting astrology articles is that I ask for astronomy articles, and Apple can’t tell the difference, because they are idiots.
Solid theory, bruce.
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I certainly agree that Goggle is evil, but then so is just about any company worth more than a million bucks or so. Anyway, their tracking of me is so bad that goggle maps thinks that my location is 500 miles away because I looked at the map there a few times after cookie clearance. And they can’t really influence me cos I don’t own a smart phone and all my browsing is done with double ad blockers installed. I worry about other less self assured people though, you can drown in their crap if you don’t keep your wits about you.
So… There are a couple ways to look at this and some info to consider.
1. Wait, you’re complaining that Google doesn’t know enough about you? Have you considered maybe that’s a good thing?
2. There are two basic ways google tracks you: by cookie and by login. I rarely login but they may have a means available to clear history. It should tell you what it clears. If not, Google your specific question.
3. This sort of matching matches issues, not stances in issues. The code isn’t nearly smart enough to sort out whether you support or condemn the racist drek it’s recommending.
4. Suggestions are not a judgement. There is no person involved in any if it so no need to worry about some conscious entity deciding you care about some random swamp pit on the internet.
5. These are all advertisements. Treat them like it.
6. None of this addresses the child issue. But that’s not saying much. I personally don’t think there are any solutions that allow an adult to both watch over children and not watch over them at the same time. There are only solutions that allow children to demonstrate varying degrees of cleverness while overcoming barriers. This sort of thing is about having a relationship with your kid. As with any relationship when you foist responsibility offnon someone not in that relationship that lack of respect is apparent and it becomes your core problem.
lofty – OK, corporations are evil, but google rather specifically said their mission was to not be evil. It just makes the hypocrisy that much worse. And while corporations that traffic in material goods like t-shirts and coffee try to get away with slavery and civil rights abuses whenever possible, the association of far right politics and anything geek on youtube has been going on for years and may well be a giant factor in the rise of the alt right, and their open racism has literal babies in concentration camps. Not sure which is worse, as evil goes, but nothing to shrug about. Not that I think you’re saying that, just that I’m constitutionally incapable of chill sometimes. Ooga booga.
lanir
1 – I just don’t like it. I’m not triggered in the sense of PTSD, but I get hella mad, and I don’t need that.
2 – I’m logged in. It makes it easier to do lots of things quickly, makes it so my *main page recs* are less obnoxious (the ones I’m complaining about here are sidebar recs). I can clear history, but when it remembers me I see links to prince music videos and gentle humor stuff and soothing nature scenes. When not signed in, it’s medical and diet woo and ad channels and pewdiepie and 500 “reaction videos” per square inch. And as I said in the comments, I don’t know what I lose when I clear history. Will it lose every time I’ve told it “no” on a shit vid? Because while it isn’t as good as I want it to be, it has *some* effect I don’t want to see disappear.
3 – I’ve noticed. That’s why I usually avoid social justice videos, but some channels I like to visit are a mixed bag.
4 – Still. For everyone it thinks “this guy likes nazi shit,” it increases the extent to which they recommend nazi shit. I become part of those numbers.
5 – I know the hate channels of YT make some loot for their owners, but they’re not corporations, are they? Seems different, having Dr. Oz Diet Shite advertised to me, vs. Joe Nazi Sitting in a Bathtub’s Channel.
6 – I can’t process that right now, like the literal meaning of the words, but I’m sure it’s smart and sensible. Going through this point by point, I don’t disagree with you so much as feel differently about the thing in question. Like, it’s opinions. You’re right about everything, for you & no doubt most other people. I’m a bit of a hothead.
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My complaint with YT recommendations is saturation, why do i get a load of pimple popping recs after watching 1! pimple pop video? Its that way with several subjects, Family Guy, Outdoor/survival, and a dz others. Eventually I click Not Interested on a bunch and it goes away.
Some of what I wrote was opinion. Definitely the last point was. Other parts were me just trying to point out that you guys that have issues with this seem to act like someone is judging you. Like there was a person behind the scenes whispering to people you know that you like X when you actually hate X. That… didn’t seem to help much. Sorry. I think that is really the core difference in how we view it and why it’s just a nuisance to me.
The potentially useful part that isn’t opinion and may help you is the bit about clearing the history. As I pointed out, you can probably look for and find the information about what is deleted. Use the link below to read their info.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6342839?hl=en
Short version: it looks like they store the “not interested” stuff separately. They also store your search so you don’t even have to watch a video for it to keep being recommended. Youtube just has to think it’s relevant to a search you’ve done.
I’m not really worried about anyone judging my YT habits. But I hate getting the “You might be interested in” links for right-wing idiots like Ben Shapiro. I resent the placement of those sites in my recommendations just for the increase in the chance that I might inadvertently click on one of their videos. If I want to see a particular incoherent rant, I’m fully capable of searching for it myself.
On a related note, I utterly despise having CRTV adverts play before every video I watch.