Hacker News Reader

I wonder if the algorithm has not detected that somehow people watching Jordan Peterson were spending more time watching Youtube, and so it is gently nudging you into that direction.

View on HN

That's for sure what's happening. On a personal level it's extremely annoying because a machine is trying to manipulate my behavior for its own benefit.

It is what it is. That same recommendation engine does wonders for music.

For controversial stuff etc, it's better to watch it in incognito. And really any topic that you're not actually interested in. I watched a few minecraft videos to figure out a redstone thing I was working on, and my recommendations were flooded with garbage minecraft videos.

I think it is likely an attempt to beat the echo chamber. If your interests are niche, the only ways to avoid showing content that is, well, cliched is to latch on to the one offs and show a small percentage of those, or show truly random content. The former likely gets much better results.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com