
YouTube Regrets - edwinjm
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/campaigns/youtube-regrets/
======
somada141
I gotta say this is terrifying. Not because Mozilla is trying to hold YouTube
responsible for not doing a better job fine-tuning their addiction-machine
(who hasn't found themselves sucked into the one-more-video vortex) but
because we're now happy to blame some algorithm for our shortcomings and take
no personal responsibility for our actions.

I personally went through a 3-month journey starting from travel videos to
getting sucked into the "look how awesome mirrorless cameras are and all the
beautiful content I can create with them" and ended up spending about 15k on
camera gear (body, lenses, gimbals, lights, etc). I eventually managed to
reign myself in but I didn't think I can now turn around and blame Google or
some algorithm for spending far more than I should have. Shouldn't I be
accountable for my own actions and lack of impulse control instead of
expecting a corporation with an ad-revenue business-model to do it for me?

~~~
fortran77
YouTube does have problems, but I'm not sure what Mozilla tries to accomplish
by hosting this once-sided set of gripes. The first one I saw was from a
father concerned that his daughter would watch dance videos and would want to
become more physically fit. A healthy response would be to say "Great! Now
let's find a gym or studio where you can do this safely, effectively, and work
toward your goals."

For my young children, I hand select videos for them. Videos I've watched or
know about. Just like parents have done for kids for the past 30 years or
more.

~~~
Swizec
We were raised by TV. Come home after school and watch re-runs of 90's
American sitcoms, Discovery Channel, History Channel, some Cartoon Network.
Watch TV, do your homework, snack around, then your parents come home 3 or 4
hours later and your freedom stops.[1]

Today kids are raised by YouTube.

The crucial difference is that when I was a kid there was common consensus
that hey maybe we shouldn't play the goriest and sexiest things on TV between
2pm and 7pm when kids are watching.

YouTube doesn't have that. Yet. I'm sure eventually it will have to.

[1] I learned more than I care to admit about human interaction, personal
relationships, and how the world works from American TV shows. But I also
learned so much English that people often confuse me for a native speaker.

~~~
dathinab
The problem is that YouTube tries to have that and fails.

For once kids I had been spoken with (~12y) where aware that there are thinks
they don't want to see.

But then we have that problem that it's no longer obvious what is "bad" and
what isn't. For once youtube removes/age locks videos which are obvious not
teen safe (gore, porn). But this mainly gives a illusion of safety.

The problems are normally not the obvious "bad" videos but such which seem to
be fine. Except that they aren't because they either change their
stile/content midway or are bad in a more subtile way.

EDIT: Just to be clear old TV also had manipulative content, but this was
normally only about advertisements and politics due to curation. YT has
manipulative content of cults of all kind, often with noticeable risks to
mental and/or physical health. And the politically motivated manipulative
content seems to have become much more wild/dangerous as it's practically way
less restricted.

------
deft
Some of these are incredibly dehumanizing. "my dad believes weird things now
its all youtubes fault!" Your dad was and still is allowed to believe whatever
he wants regardless of whether someone told him it was true. The next one, a
guy is upset his EX is paranoid. Why are people no longer allowed to believe
what they want regardless of how others feel about it? You only liked him as
your dad when he agreed with you.

I honestly find this whole thing disgusting, it's one thing to be upset that
you got deceived but to assume someone else has been and to demand the freedom
(to be deceived, to choose what you believe) be removed from another is
insane. Youtube is full of plenty of shit, if someone wants to believe it or
if someone accidentally "falls for it" that's their problem and theirs alone.

~~~
jeron
the same feeling I got after reading the page, maybe not disgusting but rather
a little silly for blaming youtube for it when it's clear some of these people
are either mentally ill on their own or just way too gullible.

~~~
deft
It's disgusting because they're trying to force others to conform with their
beliefs and assuming things are wrong simply because they've been told so. The
teacher is upset because there's "anti-American propaganda" on youtube. Is
everyone the world over supposed to love america and is dissent no longer
allowed? It's disgusting because despite essentially claiming to be standing
against what one would call brainwashing, they're actually calling for MORE of
it, as long as it's the right kind.

------
rgovostes
I know an older couple, good people who are the kindest, most thoughtful
neighbors one could ask for. I've been called over to help with various
technical issues, and when I see their YouTube recommendations my heart sinks.

The entire feed is conspiracy theory videos which have led them to believe
some really awful things. Virtually any tragedy in the news has some
conspiratorial take; the victims are actors, it was a false flag operation,
the school doesn't exist. Over time the viewer builds up the impression that
every news story is meant to deceive them, and then completely loses their
ability to judge truthfulness or apply skepticism.

I've even heard them talk about leaving their idyllic home because of
misplaced fears. For the rest of their lives they will believe the awful lies
that YouTube has served them.

~~~
zzzcpan
_> The entire feed is conspiracy theory videos which have led them to believe
some really awful things. _

_> the victims are actors, it was a false flag operation_

You don't know what led them to believe what. And false flag operations are
common, so is staging photos, videos for war propaganda. Those are not
conspiracy theories, but our terrifying reality. Truth doesn't exist in wars.

One big problem with your story though, just like with every story on this
Mozilla page, is that it's impossible to verify. And when it's impossible to
verify things are often made up. Furthermore, emotional propaganda of such
stories is pushing people to take some rumors, change them and claim them as
their own, creating this "me too" movement of fake stories.

Another problem, is that the stories are so poor, that there is no
perspective, baseline or any room to make any conclusions of supposed negative
effects on people. Just fallacies. Do some strange things get recommended to
some people? Of course they do. Do they even have enough reach to even
theoretically be able to affect people? Certainly not nearly as much as a
family friendly content of a girl living in a van with a snake.

~~~
rgovostes
Are you suggesting that these stories of my friends’ and others’ corruption
through conspiracy videos are themselves part of a conspiracy? I don’t even
know what to say to that.

------
baxtr
Meh. Pretty lame. Feels like someone is generally not happy with a large share
of videos on YouTube. There is also not solution proposed. Censorship is one
that comes to mind, and which of course won’t work well. I think it is
important to realize that YouTube is merely a mirror of our societies.

~~~
fortran77
That's exactly what they want! I expected to scroll down and see a new
alternative YouTube being launched. I was puzzled when I didn't see it. What's
their point? That they don't like one of their competitor's products?

~~~
rasz
I expected someone at Mozilla discovering a tracker blocking trick making YT
not notice you watched particular video.

------
have_faith
The first example about the guy looking for "fail videos where people get a
little hurt" is a strange anecdote to open with for this campaign.

> Let’s send a message to YouTube that they need to recommend responsibly...

I don't think there's such a thing as responsible recommendation at the scale
YouTube operates at. At least not in the way people think by responsible
anyway.

~~~
spion
We need a radical change in the way recommendation systems work. They should
always be designed in a way so that they are controllable, trainable and
customizeable by consumer (or responsible guardian) input. We need to be able
to interface with that aspect of the web instead of having a black box shove
stuff into our throats.

~~~
UnFleshedOne
Even a simple way to blacklist channels, videos and keywords would be great.
There is a "not interested" item in context menu, but it doesn't seem to work
very well...

------
crazypyro
A lot of these stories read as overly dramatic and it often feels like the
author is begging for sympathy in situations that don't seem to be very
regrettable...

------
parsimo2010
Some of these complaints are because many people don’t realize that their
YouTube watch history is separate from your browser history (watch history is
stored on their servers, associated with your Google account). If you want to
fully reset your recommendations you need to use Google’s privacy tools to
clear your watch history and also unsubscribe to all channels. Google/YouTube
could be more clear about this but it’s not a totally broken system.

If you realize that you are getting weird recs due to a particular video you
watched, you can delete that singular video from your history. I’m not
particularly concerned about this aspect of Google/YouTube’s behavior.

Finally, if you’re upset about your dad watching conspiracy videos, consider
that maybe he’s always been a nut job and you are just now realizing it.
People don’t keep watching videos that they don’t like, they started down the
rabbit hole by clicking on videos that looked interesting (maybe the rabbit
hole got deeper because they feel asleep, but they did start it on their own).

~~~
rasz
You can Not disable recommendation learning algorithm despite whatever Google
claims in their documentation. Deleting/disabling watch history does nothing.

~~~
parsimo2010
It most certainly does something. I do it on a regular basis whenever I feel
that the recommendations are getting too "fine tuned" and I want to have more
broad recommendations.

If you are not seeing fully refreshed recommendations it's probably because
you are still subscribed to channels or have liked videos or the other pieces
of information that goes into recommendations.

------
readams
You can clear your watch history:

[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/95725?co=GENIE.Pla...](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/95725?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en)

You can also configure it to automatically clear anything older than 3 or 18
months.

Or follow this link to go straight there:
[https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols/youtube](https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols/youtube)

~~~
kayza
As far as I can tell, this doesn’t reset the algorithm for YT recommendations
for your account.

------
lone_haxx0r
I understand that some people are more sensitive than me, and they want to
feel protected from the things that trigger them. But sometimes they ask
things without taking into consideration how their demands would affect those
that aren't like them.

In the same way that each one of your (positive) rights is just someone else's
obligation, every case of censorship is someone else's lack of freedom. While
YouTube is not a state institution (hence they're not morally obligated to
cater to anyone's needs, or be a platform for any kind of video), they want to
make money, and if their best way to make money is through automatic
recommendations, then I'm afraid that YouTube is not for people that don't
like automatic recommendations.

------
diegof79
I'm not sure what Mozilla Foundation is trying to accomplish with this page.
Maybe make people more conscious about Internet content consumption habits.
Maybe sparking discussions like this in online forums and other media. It's a
little bit odd that they choose YouTube ignoring other social networks with
the same addictive effect (it's ironic to have Twitter and Facebook share
buttons at the side).

On the YouTube topic. As a product designer, I think that YouTube product
managers and designers have a lot of responsibility. Video recommendations are
designed to be addictive. They don't stop, and while there are options to turn
auto-play off they are not the default. It's not a problem of the "uninformed
user". It's by design. People in the comments mention creating playlists and
curating content. But there are many design gaps there too. For example, YT
Kids has some time controls, but the content curation options are minimal.

“Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral” - Melvin Kranzberg

------
kristoff_it
YouTube has far bigger issues in how it handles copyright claims. Right now a
firm can unilaterally shutdown any channel and abuse of the system is a daily
occurrence.

Another issue is in how they're now demonetizing any piece of content that
mentions anything remotely controversial, making it even less profitable to do
any kind of journalism. Want to talk about the Kurds in Syria? Be prepared for
having the video be immediately demonetized.

The recommender system comes far third in this list, in my opinion.

------
phs318u
I do believe that “something needs to be done”, about the various internet
dis-info machines [0]. However, while the link shows a bunch of relatable
stories, all it offers in response is a “sign up to Mozilla” button. That’s
it. A newsletter. A bit disappointing and anti-climactic.

[0]. I have no idea what.

EDIT: I signed up to the newsletter.

~~~
fl0wenol
I like the conclusions they come to in their letter to social media, where
they are requesting allowing researchers more insight and control, essentially
enabling them to sample/simulate the recommendation engine and get more
insight into how it clusters or relates contents. Furthermore they want to
reduce limits on API keys so that more comprehensive academic research can be
performed.

They know the issue isn't so much the algorithm as those that are gaming it to
empty extraction of peoples attention (== money), extreme, or harmful ends. In
doing so we might better understand the problem and then provide tools or
recommendation to social media and the public on the topic.

~~~
hootbootscoot
interesting!

------
XCSme
You can click "Not interested" on each of the videos recommended to you and
you will get fewer videos of that kind or from that channel. Half of those
stories are about helpless people or people having mental health issues, in
which case unrestricted internet access will always be a problem. I personally
don't get the point or suggested solution of the article, could anyone explain
what their suggested solution is?

~~~
eqdw
I don't know what OP's suggested solution is, but if I had my way, I'd just
eliminate recommendations entirely, in favour of perhaps some kind of
category- or tag-based search (eg "give me more cute puppy videos").
Especially since so many people seem to have so many problems with
recommendations, it's clearly not bringing value to life, so just get rid of
it.

Of course Google won't, because it would dramatically reduce watch time and
their advertisers wouldn't like that. But a man can dream

~~~
cheald
> in favour of perhaps some kind of category- or tag-based search

Because the people looking for visibility on their conspiracy video would
_never_ tag their video with high-visibility keywords like "cute" and
"puppies"!

Dumb metadata-based search and content recommendation is not the way forward.
Google's original contribution to the web was pulling us out of that tarpit -
SEO prior to PageRank was a wreck.

------
badrequest
I had many of these problems until I straight-up turned off viewing history.
Now my recommendations are trash because they're too generic, which is
precisely how I like them.

Not to say that for some folks a complete abolition of YouTube might be well
in order.

~~~
ignoramous
> Now my recommendations are trash because they're too generic, which is
> precisely how I like them.

Do one better: Consider NewPipe [0] instead, if you're on Android.

[0] [https://newpipe.schabi.org/](https://newpipe.schabi.org/)

~~~
badrequest
I am not an Android user, nor would I like to have [my Google account
suspended]([https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/issues/2723](https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/issues/2723)).

~~~
commoner
The user who created that issue refused to provide any evidence of their
Google account being suspended for using NewPipe.

------
Scoundreller
Was hoping Mozilla was working on a free video hosting alternative.

Would also love a free webmail alternative.

~~~
sp332
Free video hosting loses huge amounts of money.

~~~
minton
I don’t see how. Popular videos show ads what feels like every other minute. I
find myself zoning out staring at the bottom right where the Skip Ad button
shows up and I can’t even recall a single ad I’ve ever seen on YouTube.

------
bvinc
These are my uBlock filters that I use to block all of Youtube's
recommendations. I think it makes the site much cleaner.

##.ytp-pause-overlay ##.ytp-suggestion-set ##.ytp-endscreen-content
youtube.com###related

I personally try to hide all recommendations everywhere.

~~~
chimi
i did the same! I had to explicitly search for videos and click from there.

I also fixed the video in place so I could scroll through comments of howto
videos to see if any of the commenters had corrections or improvements to the
methodologies without losing the video content itself. It does that on mobile
by default, but not on a desktop.

------
whamlastxmas
>” I don’t know how I can undo the damage that’s been done to her
impressionable mind.

Here's an idea: Don't give your children unsupervised access to the internet.
Yeah she might still access this stuff at school, but when I was in middle and
highschool pre-2007 there's no way I'd ever get away with watching videos on a
school computer during class. It's hard to imagine teachers are somehow more
relaxed about this in 2019 and I'd be amazed if youtube wasn't blocked on
school networks anyway.

There's nothing a 10 year old NEEDS internet access for on private computer or
phone.

~~~
ygjb
> Don't give your children unsupervised access to the internet.

What phenomenally useless advice, and an utterly uninformed perspective.

Who and how do you propose offer this "supervised access" in a meaningful
fashion?

How do you adapt for the fact that children, when supervised, specifically
avoid play that might subject them to additional scrutiny (for example, not
using youtube, etc).

How do you address the lack of supervision in environments that aren't
specifically at home, or when one parent finds different content problematic
than another parent?

How do you ensure that two parents who are at odds (e.g. divorced couples,
etc) coordinate what is permitted or not in an environment where the child has
different rules in different environments?

Far from children not having internet access at school, the school my children
attends recognizes the need to teach children how to think critically about
online content, and both my 8 year old and 10 year old have had assignments to
use youtube and other media sites to learn more about specific topics.

Far better advice would be to periodically review content your children view,
and then have meaningful discussions about the content they are consuming,
what makes it "good" or "bad", and encourage children to make better choices,
and to discuss what they are seeing and learning.

As awful as Youtube is, it's not possible to block it out of kids lives, any
more than porn magazines and other objectionable content could be kept out of
the hands of children 30 years ago.

~~~
true_religion
Blocking YouTube access doesn’t have to be perfectly implement to be useful.

As you say in your last sentence, it’s impossible to keep porn magazines out
of the hands of children, but yet we as a society are determined to at least
try.

It’s all that’s suggested here, try to limit access, make it clear that some
things aren’t to be watched at a young age.

Can you image what society would be like if people just had given up on
restricting porn and said they could sell it to 10 year olds and play it in
elementary school libraries?

~~~
ygjb
Unfortunately if you limit access to content, children who are curious will
simply bypass those limits. For some children they will do it through social
means, for others (puts up hand) they will learn how to bypass technical
controls, but in general, if they are curious about it, then parents have a
choice: teach them about it, or let someone else is. Most parents hope that
it's school that teaches stuff they don't want to, but it might be a friend,
or someone worse.

I am not arguing for wholesale abandoning of parental controls, but there are
relatively innocuous parental controls (for example, my kids tablets don't let
them do anything between 10:00 pm and 9:00 am; they don't need it after bed
time or before school, and if they do, then I can override it). On the other
hand, there is invasive surveillance that copies off all traffic so that
parents can review it, keystroke loggers, and other "spouseware" that makes
sure that parents can intrude into every interaction. There are no doubt a
subset of children who merit this kind of surviellance - children with health
issues that need supervision so they don't harm others or themselves. For
those edge cases, those tools make sense, but for most children, a more
effective strategy is to listen to your children, respect their feelings,
agree on boundaries, and have consistent and reasonable consequences for
breaking those rules.

Anything else says to children that you don't trust them, and that will lead
to them developing a habit of keeping secrets and hiding things from parents,
and that is a pathway to children not talking to parents when there are unsafe
interactions because they are afraid of the consequences of asking for help
and admitting that they broke the rules.

------
ajxs
This was a terrible article. The fact that Mozilla endorses this content is
extremely disappointing.

~~~
whamlastxmas
Agreed - this isn't a Youtube problem. It's a people problem. If you don't
want to watch this stuff and have it recommended to you, put down your phone
and do something else. Or use the limitless other streaming video services out
there. Youtube doesn't owe us anything and relying on them to do anything
other than maximize use is a waste of time.

~~~
everythingswan
There's shared responsibility with any product/consumer relationship so I
think the point is that YouTube is not owning up to theirs. IMO, pretty fair
argument to make when you think about people who are not in tech.

We hold cigarette companies responsible for letting us know their products may
cause harm. We hold food and beverage companies responsible for what they put
on their labels. We label coffee cups with a "Hot!" warning.

I hear you on personal responsibility, however, I think that comes from a
place where you have or had time and space to educate yourself on this
(apologies: using "you" very generally here and don't mean to imply you
specifically). Most readers here have deep experience with YouTube and the
consumer web--I've been on the web since Compuserve in the mid 90s and a
hundred people who read this thread can one-up me. Think about how many people
are coming onto the web for the first time. YouTube is a source of truth to
them. They're told that Facebook has a "News" feed--and that's what they think
is in their feed: literal and true news.

I'm trying to consider it from that perspective. My first reaction is to say:
if you don't like it, just ignore it. If you don't want to get addicted to
something, don't try it. It's up to you, as an individual, to own your life. I
still feel that to be true, however...

I'm still considering how I feel but I think it's more complex than that my
gut reaction indicates. We're not making decisions just for the informed 10%
and I do think there is ground to be given up by the platforms.

------
chance_state
The stories highlighted seem to be split between "content I don't like exists
on YouTube" and "content I don't like is recommended to me."

I think adding tools to help users address the latter is worthwhile, but I
don't think the former is actually a problem.

~~~
duskwuff
> "content I don't like exists on YouTube"

"... and YouTube irresponsibly recommends that content to people who are
likely to be negatively affected by it".

~~~
chance_state
I think there's a big difference between YouTube actively recommending things
vs. people searching for things and not liking the results they get.

The latter is what I meant by "content I don't like exists on YouTube".

From the article:

>I started searching for “fail videos” where people fall or get a little hurt.

>My 10-year-old sweet daughter innocently searched for “tap dance videos”[...]

~~~
duskwuff
In both of those cases, the videos that showed up from the search weren't the
problem. The problem was the videos which were recommended based on a history
of having viewed the videos in the search results.

The same pattern applies to many of the other stories in the article. (There's
more than just the ten on the first page. Click "load more stories" at the
bottom of the page.)

~~~
chance_state
Oh, I think you're right. I misread those.

Also didn't know there were more than the first 10 because I browse with js
off by default, which hides the "more" button.

------
shmageggy
I'm glad there's beginning to be a wider conversation about this. We are what
we consume, and it's incredibly easy to consume via the YouTube sidebar. I
think most of us derive some portion of our beliefs and values from things the
see and learn on the internet, whether it be here, reddit, YouTube, etc. When
you consider how many thoughts are shaped by that algorithm that has virtually
no human oversight, driven purely by engagement metrics, it's humbling and
frightening. I think entities like Google that have become so influential are
going to have to start taking more responsibility for the effects their
algorithms

------
dathinab
Just as a side note, YouTube removed the "Not Interested" functionality if you
are not logged in from mobile (web) and I can't find it either on the desktop
web version.

Sure it's still there if you are logged in, but if you aren't you can only
clear the browser (cookies) etc. To get ride of annoyances, but this isn't a
feature a less technical versed use is aware about, especially because they
are "annoyed about youtube not their browser, right?".

Well anyway the main problem doesn't lie with youtube specifically but the
idea that this kind of systems are a good idea.

\----

This kind of systems ==> in the sense of very complex, opaque interwinded
systems of targeted advertisement and recommendation system which are not
meant to give you the best experience but keep you as long as possible on the
platform. Which also through constant change of rules try their best to
prevent people from gaming the system but in the end only end up hurting
quality content providers through constant changing rules, and their
recommendation system _still_ gets hijack frequently by all kind of people
(from stupid annoying hidden advertisements, over *phobic hate propaganda,
subtle political propaganda to cults like thinks).

Anyway in the end this is not only a technical problem but also a social one
one more than one layer.

Also tbh. I would be more worried about many of the other modern user provided
multimedia platforms then youtube.

But well, one problem is that many people have the misconception that youtube
(and others) are safe. It isn't especially not for young kids, even if it
doesn't contain porn or other "obvious" adult stuff.

------
eqdw
I fundamentally do not understand people who watch recommended videos. They
are almost never relevant to me.

I watch videos on youtube either if they come from channels I have chosen to
subscribe to, or specific videos I have been linked to from outside (friends,
reddit, hn, etc). The idea that I would watch, say, anti-LGBT videos that were
auto-recommended after watching a drag queen's channel just seems silly. Why
would I just click into those hateful videos? I didn't want them! So I don't
watch them!

I'm sympathetic to the idea that borked recommendations algorithms can be
frustrating and obnoxious but at the end of the day, every video I watch is a
video I _chose_ to watch, and I just choose not to watch garbage. I don't
understand why other people seem to find making this choice to be so difficult

~~~
spion
There is a thing called auto-play and it's on by default.

------
graphememes
I really don't have "Youtube Regrets", I do have lack of content syndrome
though.

------
taauji
YouTube never forces you to watch the videos, True but Youtube and several
other companies have designed their algorithms to keep you engaged with it for
long duration of time. It is built by people who understand how the human
brain works and how to take advantages of the shortcomings of the human brain.
That is why so many people inspite of knowing that it is bad for you are still
unable to get rid of their habits.

Sure people can quit watching those recommended videos anytime they want, but
the feed is carefuly curated to make you keep watching and watching and
potentially also altering your beliefs. That is I believe YouTube crosses the
line. It has to remain responsible.

------
DoctorOetker
We think our temperature perception is strictly temperature, while a large
component of our temperature perception is not temperature but change of
temperature. (We have both really...)

Similarily our experience of sadness and happiness tends to be a comparative
assessment (compared to 5 seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks ... ago).

So if you are a platform that generates income from advertisement, and if
advertisements must be felt as positive, you optimize for negative background
(content) videos, such that the advertisements are relatively positive as a
result. Now is that a reflection of the consuming individual's character
flaws? I think not

------
jerome-jh
It is not a matter of free-speech vs individual responsibility as I read it in
most of the comments. It is a matter of big money vs the people.

Everybody knows deep pockets buy fake views to promote their content. Youtube
in turn favors them to promote virality, and people are exposed with
uninteresting or unwanted content, but still addictive. The more addictive,
the more profitable.

They do have a responsibility, unless you think a company can make money
selling weapons. Oh wait!

------
throwaway_bad
This is more or less an instance of the "paperclip maximizer" problem[1].
Complicated systems optimizing for simple goals often have unintended
consequences.

Surely the billions we threw at safe AI must be paying off anytime now right?

[1]
[https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer)

------
zelly
If people weren't doing this with YouTube/TikTok/Netflix, they'd be doing with
television. The difference is you actually get to choose what type of garbage
you are addicted to watching. I consider that a huge improvement.

------
aasasd
Well, until now YouTube had broken autogenerated subtitles in Firefox on
Android and no playback on thumbnails in FF on desktop (at least I don't think
my plugin setup is at fault). Gotta watch out for what will be broken
tomorrow.

------
kazinator
Another kind of YT regret is finding a great video that YT then removed, which
you will never see again. No chance of contacting the channel author
(deleted).

A YT user must develop the habit of downloading anything that appears
valuable.

------
wpq0
There's a similar effort tracking the bias in Youtube's recommendation
algorithmn: [https://algotransparency.org/](https://algotransparency.org/)

------
spion
Gotta wonder how a story that gained 100 points in 1 hour managed to fall off
the front page.

Hope that the irony of a story like this getting pushed away from the front
page by an algorithm isn't lost on people :)

------
haolez
I watch a lot of YouTube content and sometimes I refrain myself from watching
a video because I know that it's going to mess up my recommendations in a way
beyond repair :)

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bittercynic
Adding these lines to uBlock Origin filters helps me waste less time on
youtube:

    
    
      www.youtube.com##.html5-endscreen
      ##.ytp-pause-overlay
      www.youtube.com###secondary

------
someperson
I've started using a large number of separate web browser profiles (and a
different Google account) on a per-subject basis.

It's really nice having one account used purely for music (with all the
associated music recommendations), another for consuming news etc.

Bypassing soft paywalls becomes easier as they're different sessions (that
aren't incognito, so don't trigger incognito detection). Having a 'no.JS'
profile is the fastest way to skip soft paywalls.

------
situational87
One time I clicked on a silly animated music video about how Mussolini screwed
up invading Greece, and watching this whole 60 second clip flipped my entire
youtube into alt-right mode. It was like night and day and it happened
immediately.

I started getting suggested things like "Biggest Hillary Fails" and "Jordan
Peterson DESTROYS WHOEVER" over and over and over, and it got quickly got
darker with things about how problematic immigration was and weird fan
"documentaries" about senior SS leaders.

I'm way too suspicious (to a fault) of everything I take in, but I can imagine
other people going down real holes if they were served the same terrible
suggestions.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
Unfortunately watching any videos related to father's rights in custody
battles leads down the same path. I'm guessing it's not just a case of "people
who watch x also watch y" but rather "video y is sticky and increases total
daily watch time for those who watch video x".

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danmg
All I get are car repair videos and lawyers.

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gruez
Off topic: is the intro animation designed for trackpads or something? It's
advanced by you scrolling, and since I'm using my scrollwheel and it's a
stuttery mess. This design seems to be pretty widespread as well. Are all
these designers assuming that everyone uses touchpads for scrolling?

~~~
kps
Keyboard is even worse; advancing by page with Space, as I normally read,
skips half the text (perhaps a blessing in disguise).

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alibaba_x
Mozilla is just so consistently off the mark with every new product offering
they make. They have top-tier engineering talent but leadership seems
completely out of touch and irrelevant.

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ronilan
Dunno about regrets but this clearly shows that neither of those two
institutions aged well.

------
uses
I feel like a large part of where we are in the world now is because in 2015
or so, YouTube mindlessly and singlehandedly funneled millions of apolitical
young male gamers into gamergate extremism. It took forever for YouTube to
stop giving me personal recommendations for various alt-right content no how
many times I told it I wasn't interested.

