10 ms·

On YouTube’s recommendation system

• throwawaysea 5y ago
  > 3. Do recommendations drive viewers to increasingly extreme content? > As I’ve explained, we actively demote low-quality information in recommendations. But we also take the additional step of showing viewers authoritative videos about topics that may interest them. Say I watch a video about the COVID-19 vaccine. In my Up Next panel, I’ll see videos from reputable sources like Vox and Bloomberg Quicktake and won’t see videos that contain misleading information about vaccines (to the extent that our system can detect them). What is Google/YouTube's full list of "reputable sources". Is it even reasonable to maintain such a list given how often sources treated as authoritative can be wrong? Doesn't this amount to artificially converging users' information exposure towards either the reigning authority or towards whatever Google/YouTube favor? Generalizing my concerns further, I am not comfortable with having a narrow set of monopolistic tech giants serve as king maker in our information landscape. Perhaps what we need first and foremost is a renewed set of anti-trust laws to break up companies with giant market caps and to address the reduced competition faced by widely used platforms built on network effects.
• timeimp 5y ago
  Oh cool. Their algorithm is why I’m now a big fan of Beluga. Thanks Algorithm™
• hammock 5y ago
  >Recommendations drive a significant amount of the overall viewership on YouTube, even more than channel subscriptions or search. Chicken/egg. Above is true is because they flood the sidebar with algorithmic recos instead of your subscriptions, and have tuned their notifications to not give you as many, even if you are subscribed and even if you click the notification bell.
• lordentropy 5y ago
  For me, it seems like youtube's recommendation system mostly gets stuck in the local optimum. Once you watch a video from a particular channel, it'll keep on recommending the videos from the same channel for months. Soon, the recommendation just consists of stuff from the channels that have you already viewed. You rarely see new types of recommendations.
  • JohnFen 5y ago
    That mirrors my experience, too. In fact, I rarely find YouTube's recommendations to be useful. Occasionally, yes, but typically I just get that "more of the same" problem. However, that may be explained by how I use YouTube. The article is pretty vague and hand-wavy about how the recommendations really work, but it's possible that the fact that I don't drive my YouTube viewing from the recommended videos list makes the video recommendations worse for me.
    • laurent92 5y ago
      I often search for “scientific documentary” or “variety” but the algo clearly doesn’t want me to discover new things, and doesn’t seem to include those searches to build the suggestions. It keeps repeating the 8 usual channels I’m bored of watching.
  • merth 5y ago
    I made a mistake of trying some jazz 5 years ago, now my feed cursed. 99% of suggested videos are not clicked yet youtube insist of showing same stuff for years.
    • jimmaswell 5y ago
      Have you tried clicking "not interested" on the videos?
      • merth 5y ago
        yeah, didn't make a dent. cant click thousands videos one by one. you show a video 5 times and if I never click, youtube should get the hint.
        • jimmaswell 5y ago
          that's weird, it's always worked ok for me. I'd file a bug report at this point.
  • 5y ago
• pg_bot 5y ago
  Can we get a button to stop recommending videos that have already been watched? On the front page out of 12 videos listed, I've already seen 7 of them and have no need to watch them again.
  • bergesenha 5y ago
    I second this. I also wish the algorithm would throw a real curveball once in a while too, something completely different to what I have been caught in.
    • imglorp 5y ago
      While we're at it, how about just let us call an API and use our own recommender? They probably hate this idea but who knows, that might even increase vid views.
  • sbierwagen 5y ago
    If you're logged in, hover over the video, click the three dot menu, then select "Not Interested". If you are not logged in you can't do this, for obvious algo manipulation reasons.
    • function_seven 5y ago
      Yeah, but then Youtube thinks, "He hates that channel!", rather than, "He doesn't want to rewatch old videos." I keep getting old furniture restoration videos in my feed. I've seen them already. How about different channels on the same topic with new videos posted?
      • risho 5y ago
        you can tell youtube you've already seen it. you hit "not interested" and then click "tell us why" and then hit "i've already seen it".
        • function_seven 5y ago
• hammock 5y ago
  This article started out talking about what good signals are to drive a recommendation algo, but it ended up concluding with all the different ways YouTube goes against those signals to censor videos or otherwise manually tune your feed instead. The meaning of "recommendation" seems to have shifted from "what we think you want" to "what we want for you." It's not a wrong use of the word, just different from what you might expect.
  • seneca 5y ago
    > The meaning of "recommendation" seems to have shifted from "what we think you want" to "what we want for you." I think this is a pretty fantastic summary of what has gone wrong with a lot of big tech. Facebook, Twitter, youtube, Google search, iOS, Android, and Windows all have moved toward taking away user control and trying to move you toward more of what they want you to want. If it's not recommendations, it's forced updates, device scanning, or "influencers". We badly need some of that disruption these same companies used to preach about. The current cohort is becoming ossified and user hostile, just like the companies they replaced.
• swalsh 5y ago
  The reccomendation system is absolutely dangerous. Just this summer, I watched one video on peppers out of curiousity. By the end of summer I've got multiple different varieties growing, and all the accessories to support them. I'm really enjoying my garden, but it's very unlikely I would have started one without the youtube algorithm. Similarly my doctor reccomended I exercise more, so I started running. Then I googled how to improve, and soon I'm purchasing gear, and trying supplements. The amount of economic activity driven directly from Youtube has to be HUGE.
  • SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    Read it as “video on preppers” and everything still worked for the most part, but you didn’t mention freeze dried food or holsters so figured I read something wrong.
    • a1369209993 5y ago
      Same here, though I caught on at "multiple different varieties [of preppers?] growing" (WTF?).
  • marderfarker2 5y ago
    Huh, not YouTube but the companies paying content creators to make videos featuring their product.
  • jeffwask 5y ago
    It's sad because I remember being able to find new and interesting creators passively. Now the main page is all corporate BS and the algorithm locks you in. We played a bit of WOW Classic last year and all of a sudden I was just flooded with Asmongold videos and videos of people clipping and replaying Asmongold. It took a day of "never show this again" to make it stop.
    • steveklabnik 5y ago
      As someone who had a bit of a YouTube hobby and is trying to get back into it, I've generally found that the algorithm brings me a larger audience than I would have otherwise. I've published three videos in the last 28 days, and my analytics says I've gotten 5200 views across all my content in that time. I have about a hundred subscribers. Search is still king, but 15% of those views have come from suggested. I've got a 7.8% CTR so it's suggesting it to quite a few people.
• encryptluks2 5y ago
  And as I got on YouTube just now, the recommendations are just utter junk. It is a bunch of clickbait on things I don't even like and find annoying and repulsive. This is why I use things like youtube-dl, NewPipe, etc.
  • BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
    I use uBlock Origin to hide every video on the recommendations panel except for what is about to be played next. It is surprisingly great.
    • kikokikokiko 5y ago
      I use uBlock on a slightly different way. I set filters for specific channels or "channel networks", for instance if I don't want to see any Vice related video show up in my recomendations, i.e. "Vice Fightland", "Vice bla bla bla" etc, I set a rule such as: www.youtube.com###dismissible:has-text(/Vice/) This way, any channel that has the word Vice in it will never show up to me in recommendations, be it on the main page or the sidebar. This "has-text" regex is really useful, not just on Youtube. I use it a lot, all over the internet.
  • foofoo4u 5y ago
    Do you know if https://freetubeapp.io/ https://freetubeapp.io/ is any better? I do most of my viewing on desktop.
    • encryptluks2 5y ago
      I don't know but Minitube is an open source app similar to NewPipe for desktop.
  • spiderice 5y ago
    > This is why I use things like youtube-dl, NewPipe, etc. Perhaps this is the reason the recommendations are junk? How can Youtube recommend you videos if you hide what you like from Youtube? I watch a lot of Youtube, signed in, on Youtube.com, and my recommendations are great.
• LarryDarrell 5y ago
  > 3. Do recommendations drive viewers to increasingly extreme content? > As I’ve explained, we actively demote low-quality information in recommendations. But we also take the additional step of showing viewers authoritative videos about topics that may interest them. Say I watch a video about the COVID-19 vaccine. In my Up Next panel, I’ll see videos from reputable sources like Vox and Bloomberg Quicktake and won’t see videos that contain misleading information about vaccines (to the extent that our system can detect them). When my parents watch 30 consecutive videos that mention that you can't trust the mainstream media, what good is suggesting to them a Bloomberg video? My parents aren't on FB or any other social media. But over the last 10 years they have gone off the deep end after watching more and more insane videos on Youtube. It started with hours of Ron Paul videos. Then Alex Jones videos. Who knows what cretins it offered up after that. They've stopped talking to me recently. It's because I've gotten the "Kill Shot" after they've explicitly told me not to. I'm apparently going to die from the covid vaccine within the next 6 months to 3 years... On my last phone call, they've told me that 300 old money families (who are all also insane environmentalists) have hatched and are executing a plan to depopulate the planet to 500 million... as told on the "Georgia Guide Stones". The US Government also has mind-control devices that are convincing people to get the shot. They told me the mind control devices were first used during the Iraq War, because it convinced so much of the Iraqi Army to surrender en masse. Also, all of our technology comes from the wreckage of crashed UFOs, most famously the Roswell UFO. My Dad thinks I'm naive for not believing this. Both my parents have college degrees. My Dad has a masters in an engineering field. They were once relatively un-political and rode out the Great Recession without any harm. Maybe they just didn't handle retirement well. But I have a decade of nearly daily emails from them... "Watch this! [youtube link]". When they are gone, I'll have documentation of their decent into madness, with hyperlinks all going to 1 domain. I'm sure YouTube is doing all they can.
  • dr_dshiv 5y ago
    You have my sympathy. I have a similar if less extreme experience. For me, it happened when my mother moved to Florida.
  • jeffwask 5y ago
    Once you start watching Alex Jones videos, the algorithm starts to bubble up some nasty stuff.
• dilap 5y ago
  I've found some good stuff from YouTube recommendations, but the reccs are mostly pretty dumb -- tons of repeats, tons of "hey, here's something EXACTLY LIKE what you just watched." It's nowhere close to as good as the recommendations for TikTok (which seem to read your mind and your subconscious). Would love to see TikTok make a YouTube competitor.
  • DiggyJohnson 5y ago
    Genuinely curious, would you actually want that product to exist? I'm at a point where I don't want better recommendations to tell me what to think. I'm already having enough of a challenge keeping my focus with the status quo.
    • spiderice 5y ago
      I would. Not because I necessarily even want to use it. But at this point, I consider any competition to Youtube to be a good thing. It's been over a decade without Youtube having a single viable alternative, and I want that to end.
    • dilap 5y ago
      I feel you on the focus challenge -- my heroin is twitter, which I struggle to not read compulsively. (Right now I'm in a "delete my account" phase, but I know I'll go back.) But for whatever reason, YouTube and TikTok are both very easy for me to consume in small amounts, deliberately. Perhaps the thing I love most on YouTube is music. I've discovered so much great stuff there. But I'm sure there's more, if I only knew about it! Beyond music, tons of other weird and/or life-enriching stuffL An old documentary on spanish gypsies. How to make an omlette. Programming live streams. Surreal russian war movies. Old Hunter Thompson interviews. Etc. etc. etc. But mostly the new stuff I find these days doesn't come from YouTube reccs (which tend to just repeat the same things over and over, or show mainstream fluff, more akin to advertising than a personalized recommendation), but off-site sources, like blogs or twitter links. Which is a shame! (Sort of tangentially, if I had to restart civilization from scratch and got to pick one single source of information to use, I'd pick YouTube for sure. I just wish Google were a better steward of that rather remarkable collection. (They really seem to be on a vendetta against the "You" part of YouTube...))
• schleck8 5y ago
  How did Google get the .youtube and .google TLDs?
  • dragonwriter 5y ago
    > How did Google get the .youtube and .google TLDs while barely using them? They got it by paying money and meeting the other new-gTLD compliance requirements during the new gTLD gold rush. None of those requirements involved current use or a forward commitment to heavy use, so the “while barely using it” is irrelevant.
  • schoen 5y ago
    https://icannwiki.org/.youtube https://icannwiki.org/.youtube https://icannwiki.org/Brand_TLD https://icannwiki.org/Brand_TLD It's pretty strange to me that ICANN allowed the "brand TLD" concept. I remember being impressed that the Aga Khan has his own TLD under this program: https://icannwiki.org/.agakhan https://icannwiki.org/.agakhan
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • micromacrofoot 5y ago
    lots of money
• id5j1ynz 5y ago
  > For my oldest daughter, it was finding laughter and community with the Vlogbrothers. And for my oldest son, recommendations brought about a better understanding of linear algebra through animated explainers by 3Blue1Brown—with breaks to watch KSI videos. My first thought reading this was about reinforcing a stereotype as the son learning hard sciences and the daughter watching fun shows about people things. Did anyone else notice or think about that that?
  • mpalmer 5y ago
    Seems more like it's reinforcing what the kids themselves already choose to watch.
  • kikokikokiko 5y ago
    Or maybe it's just what HAPPENS in real life when you have a son and a daughter, and it's effects can be seem on a societal level through, for instance, the number of male vs female hard science college applicants for instance. Different genders have different interests on AVERAGE. The fact that nature doesn't conform to a idealized view of an equal world does not make it "wrong".
    • smegger001 5y ago
      equality of outcome vs equality of opportunity. you are never going to get the first because psychology and biology you can only provide for the second.
  • exolymph 5y ago
    Stereotypes don't come from nowhere. Example: https://www.bates.edu/news/2010/12/21/chimp-doll-play/ https://www.bates.edu/news/2010/12/21/chimp-doll-play/
    • foofoo4u 5y ago
      Here's an even better resource backed by an extensive body of research: https://bigthink.com/the-present/gender-stereotyped-toys/ https://bigthink.com/the-present/gender-stereotyped-toys/, which is based on https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-021-01989-8 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-021-01989-8
• dr_dshiv 5y ago
  Why don't they let me tell them the interests that they are trying to infer? I'd be really happy to review sets of recommendations and indicate the kind of videos i like and the kind i don't.
  • kikokikokiko 5y ago
    Because this way YOU would have the power to decide what you see, and why, I ask, would the biggest corporation in the world not use this power themselves? They can literally change minds and public opinion using it. Imagine the implications in terms of public police, elections, even the general zeitgeist of the population about the company itself. Google will NEVER allow it's users to decide for themselves what they want to see.
    • foofoo4u 5y ago
      The latest Facebook [leaks](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039) by the WSJ has made it clear that these large social platforms have the intent and actively do shape public opinion. YouTube is no different. It's clear that they have political/ideological leanings and intend to use the platform to bend the world to their views.
  • oehpr 5y ago
    In some vein they kind of do this by letting you like or dislike videos. The problem is almost all of them see this as an opportunity to signal others. Which means that your likes and dislikes are also value judgements, that you may or may not be comfortable making. They have at least have "not interested" but it's a clunky system. TikTok is having more luck because they're getting this data by watching WHEN you stop watching a video. Video's automatically play, so the default signal when you swipe past something is "no".
    • rhizome 5y ago
      Huh, I'd assume they are all storing start, stop, and skips.
• jeffwask 5y ago
  I hate how it has now started slipping Hollywood movies into my recommendation feed. All of a sudden i'm seeing the credits on a 2 hour movie after watching a 15 minute UrbanX video. NO YOUTUBE, BAD. If I wanted to watch shitty movies I wouldn't be on YouTube.
  • foofoo4u 5y ago
    In general I hate how YouTube is now filled with videos from high production studios. And most of these aren't even full-length episodes, but rather ~2 minute excerpts. I miss the old YouTube when most content was produced by individuals.
    • wincy 5y ago
      I’ve started getting sub-1minute videos popping up constantly on YouTube. If I wanted that I’d use Tiktok (I don’t). On mobile you can hide a video but it doesn’t prompt you to stop the channel entirely. So I just keep getting these dumb recommendations.
    • DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      > I miss the old YouTube when most content was produced by individuals. “Old YouTube” was mostly full Simpsons episodes before they got taken down
      • smegger001 5y ago
        >> I miss the old YouTube when most content was produced by individuals. >“Old YouTube” was mostly full Simpsons episodes before they got taken down I'm not sure I see the problem there.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • throwaway192874 5y ago
    it recommended me (to rent) what I thought was a science documentary about space and the cosmos once and i just trusted it wouldn't recommend me some crazy conspiracy theory and rented it... NOPE. It was about how ancient aliens mined out the moon and control us or some other crazy pills kind of idea My actual normal video recommendations are quite good and shift alongside my interests over time quite well without prolific use of "not interested" or incognito shrugs. Rented movies seems bad though, especially since I'm already a paying premium user!
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• ahurmazda 5y ago
  Personally, I carefully guard my youtube feed (same as twitter). I vigorously cull (`dont recommend/not interested`) dull videos whenever they pop up. Once a month, I will go over my history and remove items that I didn't particularly care for in retrospect. Youtube's recommendation has gotten really useful for me overtime. It keeps my curiosity well-satisfied.
• JoshTriplett 5y ago
  I use, bookmark, and recommend https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions , which is just a reverse chronological feed of videos from channels you subscribe to.
  • kikokikokiko 5y ago
    I did not know about this feed. It's a HUGE improvement over the algo, really what many of us wanted all along, a feed of the most recent videos published by our subscribed channels. Tx
  • foofoo4u 5y ago
    Wow, this is way better. Thanks. It makes me feel like I have restored a bit more control.
  • djent 5y ago
    This link is displayed on the homepage from the button labeled "Subscriptions" and is part of the main site-wide hamburger menu. How is it people miss this feature? I have always used it as my main YouTube home page
• LeoPanthera 5y ago
  A lot of comments here seem to not know: 1. If you don't have your YouTube activity history enabled, the algorithm doesn't remember what you've watched and you'll probably get clickbaity/junky recommendations. 2. If you have set your history to expire after some amount of time, it will start re-recommending videos you've already seen once it has forgotten you have watched them. You can set both options here: https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols/youtube https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols/youtube
  • dvdkon 5y ago
    I have viewing history tracking disabled and 90% of videos I see are new/popular videos from channels I subscribe to. It's not so bad, definitely less clickbait.
  • marapuru 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure Youtube knows that people who did one of the things you mentioned get fed up with their crappy recommendations and enable the recommendations, just to be 'fed' with new content. Which in turn is great for their monetization strategy. It would be nice if Youtube offered a feature where the recommended lists are completely removed and youtube simple loads as a search bar. Where you find what you are looking for without distractions. I've done this myself by adding the following rules to ublockorigin: www.youtube.com##ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer.style-scope.ytd-watch-flexy www.youtube.com###comments.ytd-watch-flexy.style-scope www.youtube.com##ytd-browse.ytd-page-manager.style-scope[page-subtype="home"] www.youtube.com##ytd-guide-renderer www.youtube.com##ytd-vertical-channel-section-renderer
    • freyr 5y ago
      Or you’re underestimating the difference between what appeals to you and what appeals to the average visitor. It wouldn’t make sense for them to show objectively “crappy” content to every new visitor, just to get OP to turn on their recommendations. What we consider crappy is what other people consider entertaining.
  • MMS21 5y ago
• atum47 5y ago
  I always wonder if those big platforms commercialize recommendations. I'm pretty sure it happens one way or another with the music app. The auto generated playlist always have some artists that I really dislike and would never listen, but are pretty popular.
• hwers 5y ago
  Best decision I ever made was installing an extension to get rid of the recommendations (they're such crap - I wish they would actually try to recommend me things with a high likelihood of me enjoying rather than whatever propaganda youtube wants me to see).
  • htrp 5y ago
    You can't say things like this without telling us what extension this is
    • hwers 5y ago
      This one https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unhook-remove-youtube-rec/khncfooichmfjbepaaaebmommgaepoid?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unhook-remove-yout... I also remove comments and 'similar videos'.
      • throwaway192874 5y ago
        Why would you possibly want YouTube without the comments? They are one of the fun parts!
  • dredmorbius 5y ago
    You can accomplish this without a dedicated extension by using either uBlock Origin's element blocker, or if you're handy with CSS, the Stylus CSS manager. Using uBlock Origin, right-click the part of the page you want removed, select the "remove element" option, confirm it's got the right bits selected, and nuke. Using Stylus, you'll be opening up the element inspector and finding the relevant selectors. Fastest option is to apply a "display: none important!;" directive to that. Stylus is by far the more powerful and flexible of the two, and you can do far more with it if you care to. uBlock should be sufficient though.
• paulpauper 5y ago
  You youtube algo keeps showing me fox news. I have not once clicked but it keeps showing me them. Also, what is the deal with mrbeast and other video always being on default? Did they pay for that exposure or what.
  • spiderice 5y ago
    > Did they pay for that exposure or what Kind of. Mr. Beast videos make Youtube tons of money. Shouldn't be a surprise that Youtube pushes them harder than videos that don't make a ton of money.
    • paulpauper 5y ago
      Chicken, egg. I am sure finance videos with super expensive credit card ads would make more money for YouTube
• luhego 5y ago
  I personally like the Youtube recommendation system when listening to music. I was able to find and listen songs that match my taste.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• CoryAlexMartin 5y ago
  > With all that, why don’t we simply remove borderline content? Misinformation tends to shift and evolve rapidly, and unlike areas like terrorism or child safety, often lacks a clear consensus. Also, misinformation can vary depending on personal perspective and background. This is a weird way to say "ideas that we suppress for being misinformation are sometimes actually true."
  • judge2020 5y ago
    'sometimes true depending on who's watching, what their cultural background is, and whether or not the idea presented is proved with future research'.
    • lucb1e 5y ago
      I don't get this one. How can something be true for only some people? If you say "people shower every day on average" then that might be true in hot sweaty climates more than in temperate ones where people might shower every other day instead, but that's not really what's meant with misinformation. So I'm not understanding how the things that one means when talking about misinformation -- e.g. that lemon juice cures cancer or that homeopathic medicine works better than placebo pills, those kinds of things is what we're talking about right? Isn't that universally false (or true, if something is not actually misinformation but only labeled as such because people don't like the facts)?
  • jedimastert 5y ago
    I mean, context really is important. "Ivermectin won a Nobel prize" is an objectively true fact, but depending on who you are that either means basically nothing or go eat horse de-wormer
• notanzaiiswear 5y ago
  "videos from reputable sources like Vox" - yeah, right... I wonder who that article is addressed to? At first it may seem they want to reassure viewers that they will get shown the best content. But the longer the article goes on, the more it sounds like a reassurance that they will absolutely block out unwanted political views. Why do they feel the need to put out such an article? To stave of government regulation? Or for their own political activism? To reassure the leftist mob that they won't be part guilty of electing another Trump? I mean as a user, I'd like reassurance that the algorithm tries to show me videos I want to see, not videos that others want me to see. I am not afraid of being shown a flat-earther video, so I don't get the appeal of the promise to not show me certain things.
  • badmadrad 5y ago
    exactly, they are proud to tell you they block videos that are "problematic" from being recommended. But problematic to whom or what is not described. As this would surely reveal their bias in their algorithms. And also who our overlords are.
    • Pxtl 5y ago
      There's a pretty solid consensus that white supremacists, vaccine-deniers, and election deniers are "problematic" and YT isn't going out on a limb to make that call.
      • notanzaiiswear 5y ago
        I don't think white supremacists, vaccine-deniers and election deniers would agree with you. Also you are just picking the easy examples. And what is a "solid consensus"? Trump was elected in 2016, for example, presumably by a significant number of voters. Why does YT have to make any call at all? Why not let me see what I want to see?
• handelaar 5y ago
  That's a lot of text just to bury the question "why does Youtube never ever stop shoving literal Nazis onto my front page all the time?" a thousand words down and then... not answer it.
  • Applejinx 5y ago
    They pay to be seen. Several different entities have a reason to fund that.
• spywaregorilla 5y ago
  I find it pretty decent if you tell it you don't like certain videos. But it fails to identify obvious, literal sequels to your current video. And if you don't trim it, it will surely feed you clickbait garbage. On some level people love to click on things they expect to hate and downvote it. I suspect that increases the odds of showing them similar content, vs. say, spotify which explicitly says "sorry we will try to avoid things like this". Youtube should make it clear which strategy they're doing, and they should do the latter.
• markus_zhang 5y ago
  One thing I don't like the recommendation system is that it offers videos I already watched and even bookmarked. It also offered videos from people I subscribed but this is OK-ish because some accounts have hundreds or even thousands of videos. Basically, all recommendation system are based on one hypothesis: I know more about your preference than yourself. I can't say I agree with it.
• keb_ 5y ago
  I use a bit of CSS to remove the sections of the page that show recommendations while watching a video, and turn off autoplay. I then only ever navigate to my subscriptions page. In general, I try to avoid YouTube recommendations at all costs.
• skytreader 5y ago
  For a less serious take, I've been playing a game with Youtube's recommendation system that I want to share. It works like the Wikipedia link game[1][2] but more stochastic, I'd like to think. To play the game: 1. Have a specific video in mind. It mostly comes to me from memory of recommendations past. For example, "Hey I remember Crash Course Film History had an episode on 2001: A Space Odyssey." 2. Now the fun part: NEVER use search to find the video (external search engines too!) directly or indirectly. Rather try to bias the recommendation algorithm until it recommends that video to you again. You can only try to influence the algorithm by watching other recommended videos, liking, or disliking. Recommendations come from the homepage or from the sidebar when you watch other videos; this means you can't start your search by visiting their channel In this example, maybe I'll try watching more content from Crash Course. I've been watching STEM Crash Course lately so maybe I'll click on the first Crash Course Humanities content that gets recommended. To bias towards movies maybe I'll watch myself some Nerdwriter. Again, note that searching for Crash Course Humanities content is considered cheating. It has to be recommended to you. It's a race against yourself to get to the video you want. Obviously, I don't have anything better to do with my time ;). Once I was looking for a video I was extremely sure Tom Scott made. After what's basically a nonsequential brute force search through his channel (again, only through recommendations!), I still couldn't find it. I gave up but I still didn't search, rather I emailed Tom. He replied only to say he's never made such video. This is when I used search; it turned out to be from Vox. I just wanted to "stick it to Google": if they are going to profile me and my interests, I won't make it too easy. With this game, I'm hoping my interests appear broader than they are to Google. Have fun. [1] https://www.thewikigame.com/ https://www.thewikigame.com/ [2] https://degreesofwikipedia.com/ https://degreesofwikipedia.com/
• bryanthompson 5y ago
  The whole system is infuriating. I stay pretty well in one lane for what I want to watch, and if I _accidentally_ click on ONE music video, the whole feed is wrecked for months.
• foolinaround 5y ago
  'low quality' content is ostensibly demoted by this system, which was built on the biases of the developers themselves. At the very least, YT should recognize that this metric is quite subjective, and given the vast scale of information out there, they simply cannot be the experts. Sometimes I just dont want any magic, just give it to me. If I like seeing 'flat earth' videos, then recommend the next best 'flat earth' video, just keep it simple?
• mupuff1234 5y ago
  Just please give me some options! I want to be able to select exploration/discovery vs sticking with familiar grounds. It boggles my mind that there are zero explicit user settings and the only option is somehow game the recommendation system.
• skizm 5y ago
  When I open youtube, 10 of the 12 videos displayed are ones I've already watched. 1 is a live steam, and one is from a channel I subscribe to. The non-viewed video is recommended to me frequently, but I've never had any interest in clicking on it. What possible "system" could they be using to come up with this being the best 12 videos to show me? FWIW: I pay for youtube music, which comes with youtube premium included so I don't get ads, but the recommendation system is pretty much useless.
• htrp 5y ago
  > This means each borderline video watched is a lost opportunity to monetize, leading to real lost revenue to YouTube. The only thing you need to read from that post
• beckman466 5y ago
  This is all horseshit. YouTube should be a utility, democratically owned and governed. When are we going to stop pretending this profit-seeking ad platform isn’t dangerous, and start hosting videos according to other metrics than ‘monetizability’ instead.
  • jackson1442 5y ago
    I think you're about ten steps ahead of where we are now - remember that _the Internet_ is not considered a utility, at least not in the US. How could we consider a capitalistically created internet property a utility when not even our publicly-funded Internet infrastructure is considered a utility?
    • beckman466 5y ago
      > I think you're about ten steps ahead of where we are now Nah I am a socialist and believe these things should have been democratically owned and controlled from the start. Where you think or hope the steps you mentioned might lead to sounds to me a lot like technological determinism: i.e. 'trickle down innovation' [1], and that's not where I would want us to go. In other words: we're behind, not ahead. [1] https://venturecommune.substack.com/p/go-where-workers-are-and-organize https://venturecommune.substack.com/p/go-where-workers-are-a... (section 'Against technological determinism')
• moogly 5y ago
  I only use the Subscriptions page. The frontpage is a cesspool of imbecility.
• jerrygoyal 5y ago
  is nobody going to talk about the trending tab? It's full of cringe atleast in India region. they seriously need to work on it.
• haolez 5y ago
  Sometimes, I want to watch a random video that was recommended, but I get anxious about clicking on it and start getting recommendations for that video's theme forever and ever. Once, I've clicked on a video about Tetris' World Championship Finals (I was curious!), and I was plagued with Tetris recommendations for some months.
  • skybrian 5y ago
    I guess that means you've learned to care a lot about YouTube's recommendations? Another approach is to ignore them.
    • paganel 5y ago
      That's what I personally do, I treat the side-bar as basically an ad-bar and my peripheral view just ignores it. It wasn't always like this, about 7-8 years ago I used to discover lots of interesting music after watching some indie music video, but not anymore, at some point their algorithm just broke (it looks like it's searching for a local maximum and once it finds it it gets stuck in there, as someone else mentioned above).
      • JohnFen 5y ago
        > I treat the side-bar as basically an ad-bar and my peripheral view just ignores it. I just now realized that I do this too. So much that I've never actually paid any attention to the contents of the sidebar at all. My brain just automatically filters it out.
• betwixthewires 5y ago
  > Our recommendation system is built on the simple principle of helping people find the videos they want to watch and that will give them value Well it doesn't live up to the principle, not even close. > It’s constantly evolving, learning every day from over 80 billion pieces of information we call signals. This is probably why. It's a positive feedback loop mechanism for noise. Another reason why is probably that it's metric for "give them value" is engagement. Its a dishonest metric, because "gives them value" is less important than "give us value", so even if you found that it doesnt give them value, you've got a perverse incentive to continue doing it and pretending it is in their best interest.
• rubicon33 5y ago
  Be careful with YouTube. For years people have talked about social media's effect on mental health, but personally, I've found the biggest hit to be YouTube. Their recommendation system is really the heart of the beast. It's essentially a dopamine reward system, not too dissimilar from a slot machine at a casino. Pull the lever (refresh the page) and get random results! It sucks you in to a cycle of refreshing, finding videos you're interested in, clicking, rinse, repeat. Personally I found myself losing hours per day to this behavior and gaining very little from it. Far more productive, is going to YouTube for something SPECIFIC. Use the search function to find what you're looking for, and watch those videos, but never use the homepage or sidebar recommendations. There are actually google chrome plugins which will totally remove the recommended section: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unhook-remove-youtube-rec/khncfooichmfjbepaaaebmommgaepoid?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unhook-remove-yout...
  • raman162 5y ago
    I had the same problem as well. The unhook extension works great. I also uninstalled the YouTube app on my mobile and only use the browser.
  • dabfiend19 5y ago
    lol bruh have you ever used tiktok
    • seneca 5y ago
      > lol bruh have you ever used tiktok Please don't make low effort posts like this here.
      • throwaway192874 5y ago
        oh i forgot we aren't allowed to joke here
  • jedimastert 5y ago
    > Far more productive, is going to YouTube for something SPECIFIC. Use the search function to find what you're looking for, and watch those videos, but never use the homepage or sidebar recommendations I've found myself doing this more recently, but I also like exploring. I think my goal is to not start from recommendations, but a specific curiosity, and roll from there. Then again, there are plenty of creators that will bring me things I never even thought to consider. 3blue1brown was mentioned in the article, and I have notifications turned on for them because I know for a fact I will watch the entire video.
• jlos 5y ago
  So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I actually enjoy YouTube's recommendation algorithm, though I do make an effort to point it in the right direction. One example is guitar players: I'm an active guitarist, I've been for years, but as I got older the discovery phase of music dropped off. However I found YouTube constantly recommends amazing, phenomenal guitar players who almost immediately move into my list favorites. But some of these guitars only have a few thousand subscribers , there's very little chance I would have ever found them without youtube, and almost certainly no chance they would ever have an audience without this recommendation algorithm
• shaicoleman 5y ago
  The best recommendation system for me is none at all. I recommend using an extension called 'Improve YouTube!' [1], which allows to collapse/hide recommendations/comments/ads/related videos/autoplay etc. There's also YouTube Vanced [2], which allows some of these things on Android. 1. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/improve-youtube-video-you/bnomihfieiccainjcjblhegjgglakjdd?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/improve-youtube-vi... 2. https://vancedapp.com/ https://vancedapp.com/
• bobcostas55 5y ago
  The Orwellian language in this piece is absolutely ridiculous.
• mrkramer 5y ago
  Recommendation on YouTube is somewhat good but search sucks. When you search for something it throws at you random garbage on top of the thing you are actually looking for, think AltaVista vs Google yes Google you own the YouTube. There is no ability to search for videos in playlists and there is no ability to search videos' comments. Also they say >borderline content—that is content that comes close to, but doesn’t quite violate our Community Guidelines. TOS can not treat anything as "borderline"; borderline is akin to robbing a bank and then telling a judge your crime was "borderline" because you were out of money and you needed to get your financial situation straight by robbing a bank. My point is TOS and Law are binary either something is allowed or forbidden there is no middle ground.
  • jedimastert 5y ago
    > TOS can not treat anything as "borderline" They addressed this, I think, later in the article > With all that, why don’t we simply remove borderline content? Misinformation tends to shift and evolve rapidly, and unlike areas like terrorism or child safety, often lacks a clear consensus. Also, misinformation can vary depending on personal perspective and background. We recognize that sometimes, this means leaving up controversial or even offensive content. So we continue to heavily focus on building responsible recommendations and take meaningful steps to prevent our system from widely recommending this content. So much, in terms of moderation, what is acceptable, etc. is a constantly moving target. Even if there is an exactly right answer today, it might become an important conversation to have tomorrow
    • mrkramer 5y ago
      >So much, in terms of moderation, what is acceptable, etc. is a constantly moving target. Even if there is an exactly right answer today, it might become an important conversation to have tomorrow That's wrong you can not make ad hoc decisions without any forethought only in order to please someone or something within or outside the company(organization). I will again refer to the law; law is built on concepts and premises that have foundation in morale for example look at the US constitution or any constitution in the world. 5 years ago I use to watch WW2 documentaries on YT and I regularly stumbled upon neo-Nazi content, nowadays I can barely see any but together with neo-Nazi content being removed they removed legitimate WW2 documentaries that were meant for education purposes only I suppose because some of them used Nazi symbols and/or Nazi speech footage. So 5 years ago neo-Nazi content was acceptable but today it is not?! It doesn't make sense to me. They want to be politically correct that's why they change their community guidelines and TOS non-stop.
• mjsweet 5y ago
  I fell into a massive YouTube recommendation vortex two 1/2 years ago when my barista basically insisted I take all his Cafe's coffee grounds home and compost them. I had no idea how to compost (he was sick of telling customers it was going into landfill. every. single. day). I now have over 20kg's of worms spread over 30+ worm bins and I'm taking organic residue from all over the district and turning it into valuable soil amendments. I never thought 5 years ago I would now be on the cusp of leaving digital marketing and going into manufacturing soil amendments. Profoundly life changing experience.
  • mrtksn 5y ago
    Why did you leave? Money or fulfillment?
    • mjsweet 5y ago
      Fulfilment definitely... hopefully the money will follow. I think it will.
  • cmrdporcupine 5y ago
    Any tips on getting organic material like this? We have a small market garden, and before COVID I was able to bring home buckets from the cafe at my office (Google Waterloo), but with the whole WFH situation I don't have that line anymore. I found that a 50/50 mix of composted coffee grinds + pure sand made a great growing medium for potted peppers.
    • mjsweet 5y ago
      I got into this because I can work from home with 3 small children. You can feed worms anything that once alive. You could ask your neighbours to leave a bucket of scraps out the front to pick up on a given day. Tree loppers always have to figure out where to take large amounts of wood chip, ask them to drop it off at yours if you can accommodate it. It's all about context. My context in Brisbane Australia (sub-topics and suburban) will be different to Phoenix or Ontario... all it takes is some phoning around and planning. BTW, carbon sources like wood chip are easier to manage than kitchen scraps. It takes some forethought to manage scraps because it can become smelly, fast. I have been using effective microbes (EM) to pickle scraps in poly barrels for later use with incredible success. I like your 50/50 mix idea, very intriguing. On that, anyone like yourself who has a curious mind, an optimisation mindset and a desire for continuous improvement will love the micro-composting space... so much scope for experimentation!
• ufo 5y ago
  This blog post doesn't seem yo answer the hard questions, such as why recommend Plastic Love by Mariya Takeuchi on every video.
• Pxtl 5y ago
  I assume the reason people find the YouTube's recommendation system less daring about jumping into very different content is a certain amount of caution described at the end of the article. Basically, when you've accidentally created a white nationalist movement, you tend to ratchet back your ambitions.
• jedimastert 5y ago
  Super interesting somewhat buried link on the guidelines for evaluators. I just assumed they were private so I never bothered to look them up; I wonder how easy they were to find before today https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterh...
• MMS21 5y ago
  Why must we click 3 buttons just so the algo doesn't recommend the same video, couldn't they use the like/ dislike system instead, seriously baffled how those buttons aren't factored in at all.
• godshatter 5y ago
  The YouTube recommendation system is okay in short bursts. I don't log in and I use a private window when I browse YT. The downside is that I need to choose which rabbit hole I want to go down with a search, but after that I actually get relatively good recommendations for a while, then it slowly starts to decline and it's time to open up another private window. So the system is relatively good starting from a clean slate for a short period of time when focused on a relatively narrow set of content. Other than that, I haven't found it to be very useful. Before doing this, I would rely on search and ignore most if not all of the recommendations that came my way.
• DantesKite 5y ago
  I've learned so much from YouTube. It's essentially a Gutenberg Revolution.
• dredmorbius 5y ago
  The best YouTube interface I've yet found is the commandline "mps-youtube" (mpsyt) utility (https://pypi.org/project/mps-youtube/ https://pypi.org/project/mps-youtube/) Unfortunately, it's been all but entirely crippled through API limits. When it did work, what it allowed was: - A terminal text-only interface. - The ability to search by keyword or publisher. - The ability to restrict to music, or all videos. - The ability to set playback preferences (audio only, video, preferred resolution) - The ability to create current or permanently saved playlists. These could be edited down from the search results. - Runs on Linux, MacOS, Android (under Termux via pip), and Windows (Cygwin or WSL). On Android, it permits backgrounding video or listening to audio only. - Accrues no user history. - Recommendations-free. And the killer feature: - The ability to play through a curated playlist from beginning to end. (It also suppresses advertising, which is a plus in my book.) You could also download directly from the utility (audio, video, or both). All state are retained locally, there's no need to have or use an account. For topics of interest, I would stack up 5, or 10 or 20, or 40 videos, and roll through them over an hour, day, or week. It was really marvelous. As noted, YouTube killed it through their application API control. mpv offers the ability to play back either a single video, a (separately maintained) playlist, or a channel or YouTube playlist, and is my usual go-to. It's also useful on other sites (mpv uses the youtube-dl utility which supports a whole slew of video and audio sites and platforms). Absent mpsyt, what I'll frequently do is use YouTube's site search or a third party (e.g., DDG video search) to grab a bunch of video URLs, and either play those from the commandline (mpv will take multiple arguments) or as a saved file (useful for restarting later). This gives an ad-free experience as well. But for YouTube itself, mpsyt was amazing.
• mef51 5y ago
  If you think of the Youtube recommendation system as a person, you would immediately understand how creepily this person is behaving by trying way too hard to get what it wants from you (ad clicks) under the guise of caring about you or your interests. Just because I click on a video and watch it entirely doesn't mean I want to see more like it, and it doesn't mean it was healthy for me to watch, it could have just been a distraction. But now this system will latch on to my need for distraction and keep nagging me with stuff in the long term that is ultimately harmful to me. I don't believe recommendation systems like this can ever really understand people well enough where a person can walk away and feel healthy about it. But they are great at generating money and that is why they exist. I can see and appreciate the amount of effort that is trying to make these systems better but they are fundamentally flawed and limited.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• b0bb1z3r0 5y ago
  I hate YouTube recommendations. You’re the guy responsible… I have some choice words for you, but I won’t say them here.. anyways, YouTube sucks a sick one. Recommendations are why I avoid YouTube. They are horrible, you track and one suggest what I’ve already watched/stuff I’ve saved. I can’t get away from recommendations without looking for specific videos. It’s so bad, it would take a while to list. Anyways YouTube sux and I and many others used to really like it. All good things must come to an end.
• b0bb1z3r0 5y ago
  I hope whoever submitted this sees how much ppl hate his teams work and how they should fire themselves, delete the entire recommendation algorithm and do anything else else…
• digitalsin 5y ago
  TL;DR - We'll let you know what's good for you.
• ekianjo 5y ago
  > Someone may report that they’re very satisfied by videos that claim “the Earth is flat,” but that doesn’t mean we want to recommend this type of low-quality content. OK, that's a very simple example they are throwing out there. But there are many cases where nothing is really settled and Youtube will arbitrarily decide what is fake or not - even though they have absolutely no right to make such kind of judgment. "Authoritative News" can routinely mean "facts" and "hoaxes". It's not like we have never seen those in recent history...
• alfor 5y ago
  It’s a lot of power in one corporation. They have the power to shape what we think, at scale. On the other hand, if they let youtube go without any ’fringe control’ the society might collapse into tribal war. All the previous information distribution channels had some form of control.
• owaislone 5y ago
  Without getting into all the moral and ethical issues, YouTube recommendation system is absolutely useless. I watched one Tesla model S plaid video and now 50% of my feed is about Tesla. I never discover anything new on YouTube anymore. It seems stuck in a very fast feedback loop and has zero discoverability for me. I remember when you could actually "surf" YouTube and discover so much interesting content.
• unbad505 5y ago
  When did youtube get its own TLD?
• soheil 5y ago
  For people who accidentally click on a video and find out their recommendations are all about that thing you can use this Chrome extension https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/channel-blocker/nfkmalbckemmklibjddenhnofgnfcdfp?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/channel-blocker/nf... You can block channels pretty easily and never see content from them again.
• jimmyed 5y ago
  I dislike the whole idea of recommendations as a consumer. Give me great search results when I search, but please don't tell me what to watch. Recommendations are just ads in that sense.
• fithisux 5y ago
  The article for me reads that the recommendation system carries the Bias of Youtube. So it is a recommender system that allows control from the owner. This means this recommendation system is not free but it may "train" the consumer on a specific content and act as an echo chamber. Is earth flat? Of course not but should we punish people for thinking this? Our society says verbally no but its choices say otherwise, they try to do it through undemocratic processes (aka Youtube???). If we provide better education to these people or even a better Health System accessible to everyone we can have better results. IMHO in the long run Youtube will just send these people to other more "hospitable" platforms and I have a feeling that it will help increase the number of flat earthers. So Youtube is in an interaction with its customers not only to maintain their echo chamber but possibly engineer the echoes. The decrease in variability of members is a way. Do we need armadillos when we eat chicken?
• gmathews 5y ago
  I use YouTube mostly for music. It recommends different versions of the same song I've searched for and am currently listening to. Then because I've watched a video about how to assemble my newly bought IKEA bed, it plays me ads for buying another bed because ...I must be in the market for more beds? Feels like it's not really trying.
• shmde 5y ago
  If you find yourself indulging in unhealthy amounts of time watching youtube videos on the recommendation page I seriously recommend "Distraction Free for youtube". Its available on chrome and firefox. I remember going to youtube just to watch a video explaining a compsci topic and came out watching a completely random topic. YouTube algorithm is dangerously addictive ( recommendation page ) and the browser extension I mentioned has saved me countless days to cautiously browse YouTube. Hope it helps.
• chaorace 5y ago
  Wanna know how to spot an HN user in the wild? Mention Youtube and wait to see if they launch into dramatics. Grown adults getting mad at a tool for doing its job. If you ask me, it's the same story with just about every single digital service; recommendations are never perfect, merely useful. What's more, the stakes are just so low, literally spare time. The level of vitriol feels, to me, disproportionate -- crowding out more interesting discussions.
• schindlabua 5y ago
  > Recommendations drive a significant amount of the overall viewership on YouTube, even more than channel subscriptions or search. I wish I could organize my youtube subscriptions better. Right now everything lands in a flat feed of videos and all the stuff I feel like watching now is buried deep within 50 music uploads. I got myself into this situation by subscribing to hundreds of channels but I also don't want to pick favourites and unsubscribe from the rest, simply being able to put channels into categories would be perfect.
• LordAtlas 5y ago
  All I want to know is why the damn home page keeps recommending videos I've already watched 100%. What is the point? E.g., https://i.imgur.com/nQHHVkO.jpg https://i.imgur.com/nQHHVkO.jpg
  • kennxfl 5y ago
    I have experienced the same. I think the AI is basically told to feed more of the same content. No distinction is made between viewed, new, or related content.
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  "Think about how hard it would be to navigate all of the books in a massive library without the help of librarians." According to the blog post, YouTube is just like a public library. Nevermind the absolute absurdity of comparing reading books belonging a large library to watching YouTube videos. Its strange because I never remember walking into a large library and being tracked every where I went and accosted by librarians trying to "recommend" books to me. I remember searching the catalog without any interference. I rememeber going to the stacks to retrieve books and then discovering other books nearby because the stacks were organised according to a public standard, not according to a secret algorithm. I remember checking out books so I could read them outside the library, wherever I want to read them, in private. (I download YouTube videos as opposed to using Google's Javascript "video player".) This blog author wants readers to believe going to a library and finding books is "hard". I dont remember it that way. Not every patron who visits a library asks a librarian for assistance. YouTube doesnt give anyone a choice to be left alone. Theres a "librarian" looking over your shoulder the entire time. The amount of telemetry and tracking while using the website is totally unnecessary.
• franky47 5y ago
  For Android users, I can't recommend enough (I know, the irony) NewPipe [1], an open-source alternative viewer to the YouTube app with much less clutter and incentive to maximize engagement. [1] https://newpipe.net https://newpipe.net
• cyberpsybin 5y ago
  YouTube algorithms went from being optimised for watch time to being tuned for ads. Just like any of Google's products it has become an ads service and nothing more.
• quijoteuniv 5y ago
  Unpredictable invisible society changes
• danbmil99 5y ago
  Is there a reason to keep showing me videos of already seen from beginning to end?
• polytely 5y ago
  If anyone from team youtube is reading this, by god, please let me hide youtube short recommendations in the android app. They all started filling with incredibly gross pimple popping videos with horrendous thumbnails which cannot be hidden.
• lrvick 5y ago
  I recommend Freetube for a neutral YouTube experience without the recommendation system, tracking, ads, or need for a Google account.
• asddubs 5y ago
  >While there are far more videos uploaded that say the Earth is flat than those that say it’s round, on average, flat earth videos get far fewer views. what a sentence
• worker_thread 5y ago
  A long Rant: I just came here to say why on earth YouTube keep showing me the same Casey Neistat video 1000 times even though in the past I have never chosen to click on it. Doesn't it make sense to just stop showing it then like after may be 10 times? Also, what's up with showing the video that I have watched already over and over again? I have just realized the Algorithm weighs quantity a lot over the quality, I have about 200 subscriptions containing multiple small time creators with niche content, but it is the same content creators again and again in my recommendations. I don't even see if any of my subscription posted a new video immediately. NRI here, I watch a lot of programming content on youtube, but I have never watched a single programming video in hindi, but my entire recommendation is fill up with programming in hindi, can we just ask the algorithm to stop boxing user profiles into racialized tendencies.
  • hwers 5y ago
    I bet the algorithm would be very different if it was actually penalized with 'false positives' as a scarce resource.
• maccolgan 5y ago
  Is the guy who wrote this Orwell reincarnated?