Comment by mouse_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mouse_ | Hacker News Reader

I swear to God, I can't go three clicks on YouTube without seeing a recommended video like "BASED Trump OWNS woke moralist!"

Every time I see anything like that, I'm always clicking not interested, don't recommend channel, etc. But it doesn't help. I would think it's something to do with my searches, or someone in my household watching this sort of content behind my back, but if you look at the front page of YouTube before having searched anything (you can do this through third party services such as GrayJay; it was getting so bad that YouTube itself had to disable their front page when you're not logged in. Seriously, try opening YouTube in an incognito tab. I promise you they would not disable their front page without an extremely important reason to; front pages are prime space!) it's all the same kind of content. Youtube as it stands is worse than the most hyperbolic satirizations of Fox News. FAANG are the ones pushing the fascism. FAANG are the mouths of our owners.

Why even look at the recommendations? Just watch videos that you searched for or those from known accounts.

If you can't help yourself scrolling through the recommendations, there are browser extensions that will hide them.

Those extensions are ostrich hats

https://calisphere.org/clip/500x500/26157/0c7951eaf2251821c1...

They're very different. If everyone bought an ostrich hat, the problem in the cartoon would grow only bigger, more and more victims being claimed. If everyone used those extensions, the exact opposite would happen - the problem would be solved, there would be no more victims. Sure, it would become a cat and mouse game, but the premise still holds.

I suppose you're right.

Because recommendations can be useful for discovering new things?

I watch all kinds of great stuff on youtube that I enjoy, over a pretty broad range that starts with building drag racing cars and ends with videos of quietly walking through Japanese cities at night.

Somewhere in between those points lies more-technical presenters with a knack for cleanly delivering the best technical explanations they know how to make -- people like Geerling, Lovett, Wendell, Hillhouse, Jones, and Black.

I learn a ton from these people, and I was first introduced to their youtube channels by The Algorithm.

Meanwhile: I never, ever get weird MAGA spam or political hate on YouTube -- and I never have.

Through years of mostly very passive training, the algorithm treats me pretty well, actually.

A browse through my youtube recommendations mostly shows a bunch of engineering, machining, and car topics. Stuff that is replete with general pleasantness, and that is devoid of politics.

Even the clickbait is dialed down nearly to zero.

And maybe that makes sense, for me, since nobody but me has ever used my youtube account for anything -- and therefore, nobody has ever had an opportunity to piss in my well.

I never see anything like this and I would definitely notice. I use YouTube constantly and am very liberal. Worst I get is the occasional JRE I have to swat away.

I'm constantly being pushed hard left or hard right videos. I am subbed to nothing political and while I've watched a few before, no matter how much "Not interested" or "Dont recommend channel" I've done, I consistently get pushed these videos.

Personally drives me off the platform, but hard since my subs are so unique and great.

I have to say this tells us more about you than it says about Google. I never see such recommendations. The theories that I would look into if this were happening to me, which I reiterate it certainly is not, would be in the following order: perhaps you've installed an extension that is inserting content into your life; you are using anonymization techniques that mix your identity with that of other people who are interested in such content; you share a household with such people; you watch content that you do not realize is associated with right-wing content.

This is victim-blaming mentality to a T.

I don't understand the goal of your post. What is the solution you're proposing for those things? That they don't use anonymization techniques? They kick out the other people from their home?

The OP is saying they don't watch that kind of content and they mark the videos as "not interested" and Youtube is still pushing the content. The onus is on Youtube to stop. Presumably OP is logged in, or if they're not, then Youtube still uses browser fingerprinting techniques. It seems simple on Youtube's side to fix the problem. Blaming the OP here doesn't make sense.

It's not at all clear that the OP is logged in, or that YouTube is doing anything at all. This is HN, where it passes for rational thought that everyone installs rootkit "privacy" extensions in their browser and uses a VPN of no reputable provenance.

The goal of my post is to communicate that this does not resemble the mainstream experience of using YouTube.

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