It's crazy to think that clicking on the "not interested in videos from this channel" button previously did not remove videos from that channel in recommendations. I used to press it up to 5 times on the same video and it still did nothing.
I thought for a moment they were going to turn off recommendations. For users not signed in, they are on by default.<p>Instead this is like asking users to click thumbs up or down in response to an ad, "Don't show me this ad again" or fill out a survey about the ads.<p>The issue is not that the user is annoyed by a specific toxic video. That is only the effect, not the cause. The issue is that Google's recommendation system is, as they say, "broken". Either fix it to stop promoting "popular" garbage (which is "popular" because it is auto-recommended and <i>auto-played</i>), or turn if off by default.<p>This is another example of an "opt-out" that most users cannot be bothered with. Instead of sane defaults: recommendations off, auto-play off.<p>If Google must force users to interact with a particular video and click something so they can collect another data point, then a more sensible approach would be "opt-in". Let users decide whether they want some recommendations based on a particular video they manually select. "Show me recommendation based on this video"<p>Just more dark patterns. If a choice was one users wanted (recommendations on, auto-play on), then the way to test that is to make them choose it. Instead, Google makes the default choices that benefit Google and requires users to change settings. Often forcing them to sign-in and be tracked in order to change a default setting.
This doesn’t really solve some of the more concerning things about recommendations, which is the gradual ease into more extreme content. i.e., “super Mario speedrun” to “Top 10 speedrunning fails” to “Super Mario speedrunner gets owned” to “Why women shouldn’t be allowed to play video games” or other such hogwash.
To be honest, this looks like a CYA feature to get out, not like something that is actually intended to be used.<p>They took pains to give the "follow the recommendation" action the most frictionless path possible in the UI - just wait and do nothing. In contrast, this new feature to dial back recommendations is a buried in an obscure menu only reachable by clicking a button labeled "..." in a counterintuitive location. I can think of few ways how you could increase the friction any more.
On Firefox I just use 'Remove Youtube's Suggestions' addon:<p><a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-youtube-s-suggestions/reviews/" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-youtub...</a><p>I'm perfectly capable of finding wanted content on my own, thanks, Youtube! :)
Is there a way to hide particular channels from search results? There are a handful of channels that post videos I have absolutely no interest in, but they do really well in YouTube's search algorithm.
The main thing I want them to do is not to keep repeatedly showing me the same videos I've already watched. They have little bars under them that show I've watched them all the way through, it shouldn't be that hard.
YouTube recommendations are terrible.<p>Is there some service somewhere that does a better job <i>with</i> YouTube videos?<p>Google has historically been unfriendly towards third party API use, but here's hoping.
We still get recommended extremist videos on YouTube with no way to opt out, unless we create a Google account. Casual visitors will continue to be exposed to that type of content.
There is no way that "3 hours of planes taking off" or "3 hours of rain" are getting 10's of millions of views without getting recommended widely, including myself. 18 hours of "ambient sounds" has 130 million views so that's some heavy promotion, not just some occasional insomniac using search.
>Users will now be able to tell YouTube to stop suggesting videos from a particular channel by tapping the three-dot menu next to a video on the homepage or Up Next, then choosing “Don’t recommend channel.”<p>By "now" do they mean `eventually`, because I just tried looking for said option with no success.
As someone with a phobia for snakes I don't appreciate seeing such recommendations in my feed. I have clicked on not interested so many times but another snake video inevitably finds its way into my feed.<p>BTW, how about STOP SHOWING ME GRAMMERLY ADS!!!
> While YouTube is introducing the feature now, this kind of tool is pretty common place on other digital services. Spotify Technology SA has a version for artists people don’t want to hear from.<p>Where!? I've been missing this Spotify feature for <i>ages</i>. I do not like Mastodon. I do not want Spotify to ever automatically put on Mastodon. It keeps putting on Mastodon.
These recommendation engines suck<p>During election month I watched lot of news videos<p>Then my feed was just news<p>Then I unfollowed and said "I want to not see channel x" for every 25 such channels<p>And then I watched standup comedy<p>And now my entire feed is comedy bits<p>I've moved back to watching tv shows/reading books and occasionally watching a specific video on YouTube
I do some random walks from time to time to uncover hidden content: <a href="https://youglish.com/" rel="nofollow">https://youglish.com/</a>
One of the things I hate about the current algo is that I get suggestions from freebooters who upload pirated content. Say for example, John Oliver airs at 9pm, by 9:32 his opening monologue is already pirated and at the top of my feed.<p>No matter how much I dislike, report, or ignore these videos, they always pop to the top. I don't view them, and never give them clicks, but because I watch every official John Oliver video, they get recommend to me.
Does YouTube have a "muted words" feature like Twitter does? I'd love to be able to block "Ben Shapiro", "Jordan Peterson" and "destroys".