this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Technology

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148
[Rumor] Youtube is A/B testing disabling "Do not recommend this channel" on me (feddit.de)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Tschuuuls@feddit.de to c/technology@beehaw.org
36 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hi lemmy,

youtube served me this survey today (english translation): "Which of the following issues have you encountered on the YouTube homepage today?

*The page is confusing
*I want to remove a video, but I don't know how to do it
*I couldn't find a particular livestream
*The "Do not recommend videos from this channel" menu option does not work
*Other problem
*None of them / not sure"

Which is funny, because I noticed when I blocked a "right wing propaganda" channel the other day in the YT shorts section it just skipped the video and played another one from the same channel.

Disclaimer: All anecdotal evidence, I can't prove a thing, but even just the idea of me not being able to stop shitty recommendations pains me.

WTF Youtube. Stop that shit.

Edit: Minor Format tweak.

all 40 comments
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[–] eric5949@lemmy.cloudaf.site 43 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Removing the do not recommend channel option would be the quickest way to get me to actually just stop using YouTube. Half the people I watch are on nebula anyway and the rest of the time saved well my wife wants me to read more anyway. Ive been a paying google play music/YouTube red/premium subscriber for 10 years but that'll do it for me.

[–] maegul@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago

Yep I've been watching more nebula lately just out of principle frankly ... I've also been subscribed for a while.

As I see it, it's the model the really needs to come to the foreground (even here on the fedi in some ways).

Even beyond that, once a technology and platform has been "innovated" and established by big tech or whatever, there should be an immediate push to democratise it as a public good and take it out of big-corp monopolistic hands as all they'll do is sit on their gold mine extracting as much as they can for as long as they can.

[–] chameleon@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

I find it strange Nebula is both the cheapest streaming sub I have as well as the one I get the most use out of. I will say I'm slowly getting tired of it though, it's getting to the point it needs a block creator button. Getting rid of clickbait was a selling point but it's starting to creep in hard, there are stupid red arrows pointing at random things and obviously poor titles all over the recent videos page. It wasn't like this a year ago.

[–] baseless_discourse@mander.xyz 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

What are some cool people on nebula? I know a good chunk of urban planning content creaters are on there, which is greatly appealing to me.

I have been thinking about moving there, just wish they can store my watch history local only and ideally open-source their app, just like newpipe.

[–] lemann@lemmy.one 4 points 1 year ago

I'm very grateful that their app loads 1080p content on rooted devices tbh.

Big fan of urban planner content creators on there too, just wish more would make the jump

[–] jcrm@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

I think Jacob Geller is the best video essayist out there, he posts a nebula exclusive for all of his videos too.

[–] Mmagnusson@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

I personally am a fan of jet-lagged, the game. Sam, Ben, and Adam from wendover productions/Half as interesting compete in various travel-based games across the world.

[–] realharo@lemm.ee 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

So you have zero evidence that this is actually happening?

If it gives you video from the same channel instantly after blocking, that means nothing, these changes take a while to propagate, YouTube is a distributed system. Give it a few minutes to rebuild the feed and then try.

How are people upvoting this crap?

[–] Banzai51@midwest.social 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Given how much YouTube tries to push right wing propaganda down everyone's feed, I'm not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago

Why doesn't it put right wing propaganda on my feed? Am I somehow special?

[–] realharo@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So you're more inclined to believe any online misinformation that happens to agree with your priors?

I.e. the exact same problem you're indirectly complaining about?

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah YouTube uses a database with eventual consistency. It isn't immediately going to reflect changes.

[–] Tschuuuls@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't have evidence. That's why I added the rumor in the title and mentioned it on the end of the post. It just never happend before in the youtube app like this. Could be pure coincidence. The only thing that concerns me is the language they use. It's very suggestive they've done this on purpose. At least it sounds this way in German.

[–] sculd@beehaw.org 29 points 1 year ago (3 children)

YouTube is getting worse real fast.

They even deleted the "sort by old videos" button to force people to watch new videos. Sometimes I just want to watch old videos and have to scroll for minutes to find old videos because you know, they don't load unless you scroll past the newer videos.

And why can't I drag the timeline of shorts?

Insanity.

[–] sacredbirdman@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

I use Youtube-shorts block -add-on. It rewrites the url for shorts and shows them as normal videos (because they are). IDK why they had to make a new purposefully shitty player for them.

[–] amju_wolf@pawb.social 11 points 1 year ago

I have the exact opposite problem, YouTube keeps me recommending old videos that I've already watched - sometimes because the tracking is broken and it doesn't save the watch time, and sometimes because it was too long ago and it fell out of the watched "playlist".

[–] strepto@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The "sort by old" option has returned. Not sure when, but I started noticing it came back about a week ago.

[–] exscape@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I used it probably a month ago, too.

[–] bermuda@beehaw.org 19 points 1 year ago

Which is funny, because I noticed when I blocked a “right wing propaganda” channel the other day in the YT shorts section it just skipped the video and played another one from the same channel.

I'm pretty sure this is because YT loads what it wants you to see on Shorts in big blocks of them. So instead of loading a new one every time you scroll down, the next one should already be loaded. That means if you block one it won't block the next one because the next one is already there.

[–] Rayspekt@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Would you kindly watch what we want you to?

[–] Thalestr@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago

Enshittification marches ever onward

[–] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You have to reload the page. The next video is otherwise just being cached already and the block is not applied on that. The survey has nothing to do with it. This is just you making assumptions based on your ignorance of how YT works.

[–] Tschuuuls@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This happend on the app. Seems a bit odd, that I have to completely restart it when blocking a video. Whats next, logging in and out after every comment?

[–] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Doesn't matter whether it is the app or a browser. You have to reload the feed to apply the filters as they aren't applied retroactively.

[–] donio@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

I've give up on the Youtube homepage long time ago. Only the Subscriptions view (with shorts filtered using a userscript) and search results are usable for me.

[–] hddsx@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago

What? Did Elon Musk buy YouTube? This sounds an awful lot like removing block functionality…

[–] storksforlegs@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Honestly, what would the benefit be to removing this feature for them? Wouldnt that reduce viewers if you have no control over your videos?

[–] UntouchedWagons@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I find the fourth option somewhat amusing, as if they know the feature doesn't work (I don't think I've had to use it so I have no experience)

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 year ago

I've had to use it a lot

Often times on the same channels

[–] TheFerrango@lemmy.basedcount.com 3 points 1 year ago

They’re not showing me recommendations anymore so whatever. That change was probably the first good thing I’ve seen on YouTube in the last decade