this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023

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[Rumor] Youtube is A/B testing disabling "Do not recommend this channel" on me (feddit.de)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hi lemmy,

youtube served me this survey today (english translation): "Which of the following issues have you encountered on the YouTube homepage today?

*The page is confusing
*I want to remove a video, but I don't know how to do it
*I couldn't find a particular livestream
*The "Do not recommend videos from this channel" menu option does not work
*Other problem
*None of them / not sure"

Which is funny, because I noticed when I blocked a "right wing propaganda" channel the other day in the YT shorts section it just skipped the video and played another one from the same channel.

Disclaimer: All anecdotal evidence, I can't prove a thing, but even just the idea of me not being able to stop shitty recommendations pains me.

WTF Youtube. Stop that shit.

Edit: Minor Format tweak.

top 40 comments

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Removing the do not recommend channel option would be the quickest way to get me to actually just stop using YouTube. Half the people I watch are on nebula anyway and the rest of the time saved well my wife wants me to read more anyway. Ive been a paying google play music/YouTube red/premium subscriber for 10 years but that'll do it for me.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

Yep I've been watching more nebula lately just out of principle frankly ... I've also been subscribed for a while.

As I see it, it's the model the really needs to come to the foreground (even here on the fedi in some ways).

Even beyond that, once a technology and platform has been "innovated" and established by big tech or whatever, there should be an immediate push to democratise it as a public good and take it out of big-corp monopolistic hands as all they'll do is sit on their gold mine extracting as much as they can for as long as they can.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

What are some cool people on nebula? I know a good chunk of urban planning content creaters are on there, which is greatly appealing to me.

I have been thinking about moving there, just wish they can store my watch history local only and ideally open-source their app, just like newpipe.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I'm very grateful that their app loads 1080p content on rooted devices tbh.

Big fan of urban planner content creators on there too, just wish more would make the jump

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I think Jacob Geller is the best video essayist out there, he posts a nebula exclusive for all of his videos too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I personally am a fan of jet-lagged, the game. Sam, Ben, and Adam from wendover productions/Half as interesting compete in various travel-based games across the world.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

I find it strange Nebula is both the cheapest streaming sub I have as well as the one I get the most use out of. I will say I'm slowly getting tired of it though, it's getting to the point it needs a block creator button. Getting rid of clickbait was a selling point but it's starting to creep in hard, there are stupid red arrows pointing at random things and obviously poor titles all over the recent videos page. It wasn't like this a year ago.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

So you have zero evidence that this is actually happening?

If it gives you video from the same channel instantly after blocking, that means nothing, these changes take a while to propagate, YouTube is a distributed system. Give it a few minutes to rebuild the feed and then try.

How are people upvoting this crap?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Given how much YouTube tries to push right wing propaganda down everyone's feed, I'm not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Why doesn't it put right wing propaganda on my feed? Am I somehow special?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

So you're more inclined to believe any online misinformation that happens to agree with your priors?

I.e. the exact same problem you're indirectly complaining about?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I’ve never seen right wing anything in my home feed on YouTube. Not sure what you’re on about.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Yeah YouTube uses a database with eventual consistency. It isn't immediately going to reflect changes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I don't have evidence. That's why I added the rumor in the title and mentioned it on the end of the post. It just never happend before in the youtube app like this. Could be pure coincidence. The only thing that concerns me is the language they use. It's very suggestive they've done this in person. At least it sounds this way in German.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago (3 children)

YouTube is getting worse real fast.

They even deleted the "sort by old videos" button to force people to watch new videos. Sometimes I just want to watch old videos and have to scroll for minutes to find old videos because you know, they don't load unless you scroll past the newer videos.

And why can't I drag the timeline of shorts?

Insanity.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

I use Youtube-shorts block -add-on. It rewrites the url for shorts and shows them as normal videos (because they are). IDK why they had to make a new purposefully shitty player for them.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

I have the exact opposite problem, YouTube keeps me recommending old videos that I've already watched - sometimes because the tracking is broken and it doesn't save the watch time, and sometimes because it was too long ago and it fell out of the watched "playlist".

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The "sort by old" option has returned. Not sure when, but I started noticing it came back about a week ago.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I used it probably a month ago, too.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Been getting right wing content in my recommended in the past week too, haven’t seen any of that since maybe 2017 when “sjw owned” videos were getting boosted like crazy by the algorithm, today I got recommended a video that looked like straight up fascist apologia. It’s really weird because I’ve pretty much only used youtube to watch explicitly left wing content or view content that has a largely left wing audience (music, visual art etc.) for the past 4 or so years, and whenever I do see right wing content I always click don’t recommend. I really hope it’s just my feed being fucky and that we won’t see another alt right pipeline sort of situation

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Getting people angry drives engagement, YouTube probably thinks you’re going hate-watch it and make them more tasty, tasty ad impressions that way.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

This is the right answer.

I don't watch neither "right" nor "left" videos, I watch science, tech, and ponies. It keeps recommending science, pseudo-science, tech, and ponies (apparently they don't have categories for anti-tech or anti-ponies).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

oh for sure, it’s just on other platforms that usually only happens for content that I engage with or have engaged with in the past, which isn’t the case for what I’ve been seeing on youtube. there’s no reason for the algorithm to push content that I engage with less than all other types of content

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Mine is doing it too, and I never voluntarily watch any right-wing-related content (not even anti-right-wing). It's usually anti-trans rhetoric it tries to push on me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

My feed's been doing the same

Honestly I thought it was because I clicked on another Warhammer 40k lore video‡

The mini videos don't seem to do it but with some of the smaller lore channels it seems to do it, it's pretty frustrating

Edit: ‡ I enjoy the lore videos and mini painting videos, it's been years since I've actually played Warhammer though

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I have no idea what videos you’re all watching to get stuff like this in your home feed because I’ve never seen any right wing anything on YouTube.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

i literally just listen to jungle and watch the occasional vid on sociology i’m just as confused as u are

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago

Which is funny, because I noticed when I blocked a “right wing propaganda” channel the other day in the YT shorts section it just skipped the video and played another one from the same channel.

I'm pretty sure this is because YT loads what it wants you to see on Shorts in big blocks of them. So instead of loading a new one every time you scroll down, the next one should already be loaded. That means if you block one it won't block the next one because the next one is already there.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

Enshittification marches ever onward

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Would you kindly watch what we want you to?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Please watch the needful!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You have to reload the page. The next video is otherwise just being cached already and the block is not applied on that. The survey has nothing to do with it. This is just you making assumptions based on your ignorance of how YT works.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This happend on the app. Seems a bit odd, that I have to completely restart it when blocking a video. Whats next, logging in and out after every comment?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Doesn't matter whether it is the app or a browser. You have to reload the feed to apply the filters as they aren't applied retroactively.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

I've give up on the Youtube homepage long time ago. Only the Subscriptions view (with shorts filtered using a userscript) and search results are usable for me.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

What? Did Elon Musk buy YouTube? This sounds an awful lot like removing block functionality…

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Honestly, what would the benefit be to removing this feature for them? Wouldnt that reduce viewers if you have no control over your videos?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I find the fourth option somewhat amusing, as if they know the feature doesn't work (I don't think I've had to use it so I have no experience)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I've had to use it a lot

Often times on the same channels

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

They’re not showing me recommendations anymore so whatever. That change was probably the first good thing I’ve seen on YouTube in the last decade