
YouTube Lets Users Override Recommendations After Criticism - gilad
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-26/youtube-lets-users-override-recommendations-after-criticism
======
izzydata
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.

~~~
dredds
I click on "not interested" when it shows videos i've watched the day before,
but then assuming i don't want to see videos of a similar type would be a
mistake, yet that's how broken the system is. Any attempt to "train" the algo
is wasted effort based on past experience. You could say we users have been
"trained" by the algo not to even bother anymore.

~~~
PopeDotNinja
My approach is to vote on videos I've watched, and just skip it if I've
already seen it. It works for me. I'm concerned that I'd see less relevant
content if I start saying I'm not interested in previously watching
interesting videos.

~~~
maest
> I'm concerned that I'd see less relevant content

I used to have that concern as well, but then I realised I didn't actually get
that much value from yt recommendations. The stuff I want to see comes from
channels I'm subscribed to and only very rarely have I discovered something
good from recommendations - most of the discovery comes from the right-hand
side video column.

~~~
brownbat
> I didn't actually get that much value from yt recommendations.

The last rec engine I got much value out of was early Netflix, around the
first public competition to improve their engine.

My nightmare is that corporations suddenly realized that recommendation
engines don't actually help them sell content. Maybe it's easier to persuade
tons of people to watch something they'll all think is "good enough" rather
than to identify or develop content some tiny subgroup of people will think is
sublime.

------
3xblah
I thought for a moment they were going to turn off recommendations. For users
not signed in, they are on by default.

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.

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 _auto-played_
), or turn if off by default.

This is another example of an "opt-out" that most users cannot be bothered
with. Instead of sane defaults: recommendations off, auto-play off.

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"

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.

~~~
cameronbrown
> Either fix it to stop promoting "popular" garbage (which is "popular"
> because it is auto-recommended and auto-played), or turn if off by default.

Or maybe people like content that you don't? People aren't drones who watch
something because it was shovelled into their watch next. Chances are it was
decent content. For them.

If you consider this a dark pattern then you probably need to get a better
perspective. There are far worse actors online.

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
This is a reasonable thought, but how do you explain the new meme comment
along the lines of "What the hell was this doing in my recommended?"

~~~
golergka
Easy: survivor bias. A lot of people are using youtube, and people who get
good recommendations don't have any fuel to do memes. So, even if the amount
of people who get bad recommendations is minimal, the meme would still exist.

------
buzzert
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.

~~~
taneq
Was just talking to a family member recently about this. Her daughter is into
horses and so is watching a lot of showjumping videos. Apparently the
algorithm keeps trying to lead her off towards increasingly bad showjumping
accident videos and from there basically into /r/watchpeopleandhorsesdie

~~~
anfilt
While I can understanding wanting to not watch such videos because how the
events are covered in such videos. Mainly to gawk at grevious
injuries/incidents.

I do not like the idea filtering reality. A video could instead be if you do
stupid thing X this happens. Then again it also depends on the age and
maturity of the kid/teen. You dont want to terrify them or scare them wanting
to try or learn new things. However learning from others mistakes is better
than finding out first hand yourself. Like I said most videos on youtube are
not an analysis of mistakes that lead up to an event.

Then you just have unfortunate accidents/events which don’t really tell you
more than sometimes life can be brutal.

Although, I think youtube filters violent stuff unless your account says your
over 18, and removes really disturbing stuff outright.

Then again automated filters are not perfect.

~~~
jobigoud
But it is filtered. Just the other way around. The most horrible content gets
morbid curiosity clicks and the normal stuff is under-represented, filtered
out.

------
xg15
To be honest, this looks like a CYA feature to get out, not like something
that is actually intended to be used.

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.

~~~
lopmotr
Are you proposing that they don't autoplay anything that you haven't
explicitly opted in to? Discovering new creators is pretty important to both
Youtube and its users. Or do you want it to autoplay something that's not
based on any personalized recommendation? That would reduce the value of
Youtube over TV in that it caters to niche interests.

~~~
xg15
Actually yes, I would propose that you opt-in to Autoplay as a whole. Make it
a separate function that people can activate if they want to binge watch or
whatever, but keep it off by default.

I have seen a good number of people who struggled with the Autoplay mode in
presentations, either could not stop it in time or forgot about it and then
had their presentation derailed by the next video. I've seen exactly zero
people who actually _wanted_ to use it.

Of course this is wishful thinking when the CEO's performance metric is to
keep their users glued to the screen as long as possible.

> _The move comes after Susan Wojcicki and other YouTube executives were
> criticized for being either unable or unwilling to act on internal warnings
> about extreme and misleading videos because they were too focused on
> increasing viewing time and other measures of engagement._

------
smileypete
On Firefox I just use 'Remove Youtube's Suggestions' addon:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-
youtub...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-youtube-s-
suggestions/reviews/)

I'm perfectly capable of finding wanted content on my own, thanks, Youtube! :)

------
creaghpatr
Next thing you know, Twitter will let you view tweets in the order they were
tweeted.

~~~
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
It actually does. The desktop website has a permanent setting. Mobile website
has the setting, too, but occasionally resets it to Twitter’s “Top tweets”
sorting.

~~~
apricot13
this has never worked for me - might try it again. my solution was just to
unfollow 90% of people and put the rest in lists

------
crb
I'd be happy if it would stop recommending I watch videos I have already
watched all the way through.

~~~
izzydata
I'd also appreciate if it went back to recommending videos similar to the
current video I was on instead of having the same recommendations on every
video now.

~~~
cronix
No kidding. You can hit refresh as much as you want and it keeps showing the
exact same recommendations. Very annoying, but not nearly as bad as all of the
censorship going on, imho.

------
wl
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.

~~~
numbsafari
This is what I really want ... the ability to blanket block certain channels.
I have zero interest in Joe f’ing Rogan... but apparently everyone else in my
marketing profile does nothing but watch his videos. No matter what I look
for, or what I’m watching, there’s some goddamn Joe Rogan video in my search
results or recs.

------
microcolonel
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.

~~~
bvm
I'm really confused as to _why_ they do this: there must be hundreds of people
and hundreds of millions of $s working on the YouTube algo. I'm seemingly in
the minority that thinks it's largely brilliant, it regularly uncovers things
that are related to stuff that I'm interested in but new takes on them, and
sometimes throws up some absolute genius recommendation from nowhere. However,
like you, my "Up Next" selection is plagued by videos I've previously watched!
It's horrible UX.

~~~
michaelt
I have two behaviours; TV-program-style videos I'll watch once, and music-
style videos I'll watch repeatedly.

My theory is they have difficulty telling the difference, so they think the
fact I've watched "80s-90s Hip Hop & R&B Playlist" repeatedly indicates I'd
also like to watch "Plumbing bottle air vent teardown" repeatedly.

------
serf
YouTube recommendations are terrible.

Is there some service somewhere that does a better job _with_ YouTube videos?

Google has historically been unfriendly towards third party API use, but
here's hoping.

~~~
jillesvangurp
Agreed, I click through them once in a while when I'm bored and it consists
mostly of stuff I've already watched mixed with stuff I have chosen not to
watch from channels I follow combined with random crap. The most annoying
thing is that it just fills your feed with stuff similar to whatever you
recently did. This is made worse by the fact that they only show a handful of
recommendations. The only way to get new recommendations is to either wait
hours/days for the stupid stuff to go away or to engage with their fiddly
"this recommendation was BS" system for getting rid of recommendations. Google
news has the same "more of the same shit" masquerading as machine learning
style algorithms.

On a positive note, I like what e.g. Spotify is doing in some places and I
think Youtube can learn from that. They provide some great content discovery
mechanisms. Curated playlists, users that listen to artist X also listen to
artist Y, these are the top tracks for this artist (based on play statistics),
etc. Very useful. Very low tech. Very easy to implement.

If only they'd stop confusing geo location with my interests. E.g. their
release radar is full of German crap because I happen to live in Germany (I'm
actually Dutch). Youtube does the same "you are in Germany! Here's some random
German crap!" style promoted content on their front page. Most of it is very
obviously not even remotely close to anything I watch. Location seems to drown
out recommendation signals and all forms of common sense. It is used to push
locally promoted content regardless of the not so subtle hints that I don't
ever engage with that (my German sucks; why would I?).

There are hundreds of millions of migrants world wide, many of them have
spending power and they are ignored and under served by most big tech
companies (Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, Apple, Google, etc.). This is surprising
because they actually employ a lot of these migrants: they should know better.
Getting content in the right language vs. the local language, localizing
promoted content to the local language instead of what the user actually
speaks and consumes on their service, etc. It's not hard and it's not because
the content isn't there but because the algorithms are optimizing for the
local lowest common denominator and most of these companies shoot.

~~~
Faark
I kind of disagree on what you try to accomplish in your second half. If you
want to live here, you should be exposed to local culture and language, and
have a somewhat hard time retreating into your own, separate filter bubble.
Sure, Youtube could find more effective ways to achieve that, maybe by more
gradually introducing you to it (especially language). But with their current
capabilities, I'd vote for them pushing location based crap over not doing
anything.

ps: So angenehm wieder nen Tag mit halbwegs überlebbarem Wetter zu haben.

~~~
jillesvangurp
Why should I be denied access to content I might be reasonably assumed to
enjoy? What kind of weird argument is that? From my point of view it's just a
good example of broken assumptions in what is obviously a not very
sophisticated way to promote and recommend content.

~~~
Faark
I am not sure where you've seen anyone advocate you to "denied access to
content". We are talking about a recommendation system. Those are pushing
content, and as such include believes, values, etc. This makes companies have
a responsibility on what they advocate for and what effect that will have on
our societies. If you're talking about opportunity cost: Well, an imaginary
flat earth'er or science denier would say the same about getting recommended
stuff beyond his bubble.

------
makosdv
I just flat out stopped using their recommendations a while ago. I only look
at my subscriptions feed.

~~~
switchbak
Maybe I notice it because I use it more now, but it's shocking how bad it's
become. I often get a heavy stream of suggestions for: ancient videos, and
videos I've already watched. Throw in some clickbait and outrage focused
content.

Then it seems to try to make me more extreme in some way (flat earther,
hardcore gamer, etc) based on perhaps one partial watch of a semi-related
video.

Surely there's some folks at Google who can see the raging dumpster fire this
has become? I realize it's hard given all the competing interests (esp.
advertisers), but this is horrendous.

As bad as it is, Netflix's suggestions are almost worse. I think these
companies are optimizing on metrics that (ostensibly) show an improved
experience while in reality they're destroying almost all user enjoyment.

Is it really a good thing that I "engage" longer with Netflix/YouTube trying
to find something to watch with their terrible suggestions? (vs quickly
navigating to a better video?)

~~~
swebs
>I think these companies are optimizing on metrics that (ostensibly) show an
improved experience

They're optimizing for highest profits. For Netflix, that means showing you
videos with the lowest licensing fees. For Youtube, that means showing videos
where the uploader has paid to boost it.

~~~
cma
I think the uploader doesn't even have to be the one paying now. If I remember
right, Coke can pay for someone's positive Coke related video to be shown more
and it bypasses the sponsorship disclosure requirements.

------
dessant
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.

~~~
lopmotr
Everything is extremism to somebody. Just because you class what you saw as
extremism doesn't mean it's wrong for casual visitors to see it. YouTube
already has its own (however capricious) standard for what to hide from
recommendations or remove completely.

------
dredds
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.

~~~
yellowapple
> "3 hours of planes taking off"

Now _that 's_ a video idea. I currently live right under the flight path for
planes flying out of SFO; I should set up a camera and just record the sky,
since they fly pretty close overhead.

~~~
r00fus
It's great. Some folks really could watch that _all day_.

~~~
strawberryfan
I dunno. For me it's _Jimmy Barnes screaming for 10 hours_.

Pure catharsis.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfkts0u-m6w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfkts0u-m6w)

------
arielweisberg
I just want to stop seeing an ad that drives my spouse absolutely insane.
Nope. No option to not see it anymore.

~~~
lopmotr
I'd always assumed you could block specific ads or advertisers since there's a
button on each ad with a menu for that (on the circled i button). But when I
just tried it, it refused because it said personalized ads were turned off,
even though there were turned on. So I guess that's just another weirdly
broken pretend-feature.

~~~
sp332
Is that because you opted-out of ad personalization on
[https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated?hl=en](https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated?hl=en)
?

~~~
lopmotr
No. That's where ad personalization was turned on.

------
bertil
I’ve been able to do that for a while. Are they advertising the outcome of an
AB test? I’d love to be able to explain why, like I can per video.

~~~
Izkata
Likewise here, for a good year or so, and it has always worked for me.

------
Lerc
>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.”

By "now" do they mean `eventually`, because I just tried looking for said
option with no success.

------
graphicsRat
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.

BTW, how about STOP SHOWING ME GRAMMERLY ADS!!!

------
swebs
So they'll finally stop recommending me Asmongold clips? Hallelujah!

~~~
rgoulter
I bet there are dozens of channels which show up in everyone's
recommendations. (E.g. "expert reacts to movie" seems to do well on the
algorithm).

------
yakshaving_jgt
> 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.

Where!? I've been missing this Spotify feature for _ages_. I do not like
Mastodon. I do not want Spotify to ever automatically put on Mastodon. It
keeps putting on Mastodon.

------
thewhitetulip
These recommendation engines suck

During election month I watched lot of news videos

Then my feed was just news

Then I unfollowed and said "I want to not see channel x" for every 25 such
channels

And then I watched standup comedy

And now my entire feed is comedy bits

I've moved back to watching tv shows/reading books and occasionally watching a
specific video on YouTube

~~~
Faark
I have a hard time understanding how youtube can screw this up so badly.

Spotify does it nicely. They clearly recognized the few different tastes I
have. And then offer separate discovery-queues for each of them and let me
decide depending on what mood/situation i'm in.

But that might be the main difference... they signal back their knowledge to
the user. Steam kind does the same with "Is this game relevant to you?" info.
More clearly telling me what youtube thinks about me would be the first step
towards correcting it...

~~~
thewhitetulip
Youtube screws it badly because they think they know better than users.

------
buzhidao
I do some random walks from time to time to uncover hidden content:
[https://youglish.com/](https://youglish.com/)

------
whywhywhywhy
Always found it completely insane that the block function doesn't entirely
hide the channel from you.

------
cush
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.

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.

~~~
cameronbrown
His videos are region locked so re-uploads are popular in places like my
country. Very unfair imo.

~~~
dredds
The official channel has recently been unblocked in my region, so those
pirates must be having the desired result.

~~~
raxxorrax
Good thing we have pirates then.

------
vernie
Does YouTube have a "muted words" feature like Twitter does? I'd love to be
able to block "Ben Shapiro", "Jordan Peterson" and "destroys".

~~~
tootahe45
I think it's called not consuming political content.

~~~
madrix999
Or they could stop recommending strawman alt-right content when watching
anything remotely leftist

