Why is youtube recommending conservative "talking points" to me?

Hi, I am a guy in early thirties with a wife and two kids and whenever I go on youtube it always suggests conservative things like guys dunking on women, ben shapiro reacting to some bullshit, joe rogan, all the works. I almost never allow it to go to that type of video and when I do it is either by accident or by curiosity. My interest are gaming, standup comedy, memes, react videos, metalurgy, machining, blacksmithing, with occasional songs and videos about funny bullshit and I am not from america and I consider myself pretty liberal if I had to put it into terms used in america. But european liberal, so by american standards a socialist. Why does it recommend this shit to me, is this some kind of vector for radicalization of guys in my category? Do you have similar experience?

yoz,

This can’t be any more clearer

Android TV- install smartnexttube Android phone- Set private DNS to Nextdns and block all ads + install firefox w/ unlock origin Or if you want an app install - newpipe from fdroid app store

SeaJ,

Your interests have a strong correlation with people on the right aside from maybe react videos.

But even if your interested were not so strongly correlated with the right, you would probably still get right wing ads or videos suggested. They garner the highest engagement because it is often outrage porn. Google gets their money that way. My subscriptions are to let wing political channels, science, and solar channels but I still get a decent amount of PragerU and Matt Walsh ads. Reporting then does not stop them from popping up either.

cuppaconcrete,
@cuppaconcrete@aussie.zone avatar

Yeah big tech loves to throw dumb stuff your way to piss you off and keep you engaged, even if you’ve never shown an interest before.

skullgiver,
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

Both left wing and right wing people are vulnerable to bullshit and fake news, but extreme right wing media is easier according to troll farm content producers themselves. It’s easy to fall for hateful outrage, especially if you can find an “us versus them” narrative to build your hate upon. Whether it’s “capitalists versus socialists” or “gay people versus Christians”, if you can create the illusion of two (and only two) positions, you can easily attract attention.

The “I just want everyone to be happy together” crowd is a bit harder to put into two opposing camps, but as you can clearly see on Reddit, blaming “capitalists” or “employers” or “landlords” or billionaires or any other group that has shit you want to have is an easy way to build outrage for the “enlightened” mind. Neither “side” is immune to this crap, but conservative ideas just seem to catch more people. It’s quite sad, really, I would love people being converted into egalitarian progressives through algorithmic bullshit much more, even if it’s still unethical of course.

As for why Youtube would do this: if you can get dragged into an hour long Joe Rogan podcast, you make Youtube money. Attention = ads = advertiser income if you apply this at a scale large enough. Right wing outrage media just manages to trick more people into watching more stuff, and that’s why the algorithm defaults to it even on new, fresh IP addresses. Even Youtube’s own people don’t know entirely for sure why some topics or videos are featured, it’s all left to an automated AI that optimizes for certain tasks (watch time etc.) through any means it can.

If you don’t want this, you have options. If you have a Google account, either opt out of personal ads (yes you can actually do that) so you only get generic recommendations based on your IP address, or manually select your preferences in your account so you get ads and content that work for you. The stuff your partner or kids watch will influence the ads you see.

You can also try poisoning the algorithm. You have kids, so getting your account recommendations to focus on kid content shouldn’t be too hard. Two or three hours of skibidi toilet mashups in the background (mute the volume, but not through the browser, and make sure Youtube thinks it’s playing in the foreground) should mess up their recommendations. There are also websites and tools that will open up a ton of videos of certain stereotypical characters from time to time.

As a final note: I don’t know how old your kids are, but if they’re old enough it’s possible that someone in your household has fallen for the Tate bullshit. The “alpha male” bullshit is frighteningly common among teenage boys who are trying to figure out who they are/want to be/what they want to do with their life, and the struggles of wanting to fit in. It’s far from the only reason (I live alone and I get that crap in my feed sometimes) but it’s better to be on the lookout for this crap.

Rooty,

Two or three hours of skibidi toilet mashups

I hate the fact that I know exactly what you’re talking about.

Hikermick,

“The calls are coming from inside the house”~~__****

bobthened, (edited )

My interest are gaming, standup comedy, memes, react videos, metalurgy, machining, blacksmithing,

Because a lot of the type of guys who like seeing those stupid conservative videos also like many of the same things as you. Gaming^™ is well known to have a problem with the alt-right, react videos have a very similar structure to conservative “libs destroyed with fact and logic” types of videos, and finally a lot of conservatives like to think of themselves as an old fashioned man’s-man so they enjoy things like metalwork and other typical “manly” careers.

MooseBoys,

Pretty sure this is it - I see them as well but my interests are science education, gaming, and 3D printing.

Poob, (edited )

If I accidently watch a Linus Tech tips video, that will be all it recommends me for the next month.

I watched a Some More News video criticizing Jordan Peterson, and Google thought “did I hear Jordan Peterson? Well in that case, here’s 5 of his videos!”

Almost all content algorithms are hot garbage that are not interested in serving you what you want, just what makes money. It always ends up serving right wing nut jobs because that conspiracy theorists watch a lot of scam videos.

Edit: my little jab at Linus has nothing to do with politics. I have no idea what his views are. I only mentioned it to point out how YouTube will annihilate my recommendations if I watch a single one of his videos.

CylonBunny,
@CylonBunny@lemmy.world avatar

I watch Linus from time to time, but don’t get that sort of recommendation (unless I watch some gun videos!). I only watch his tech stuff and don’t know anything about his politics. Now I’m worried.

Poob,

Oh I didn’t want to imply that Linus puts out political opinions. Of the few videos I’ve seen of his it’s all tech hype videos. I was only giving an example of the algorithm deciding to nuke my recommendations if I watch one of his videos.

Wahots,
@Wahots@pawb.social avatar

I used to watch LTT a ton. He doesn’t disclose his political opinions, but from watching years of his live streams, it’s pretty clear he fits the PNW Canadian + American metro demographic quite well. Basically Seattle/Vancouver, you probably get the gist of it.

ilovetacos,
@ilovetacos@lemmy.world avatar

I watch Linus all the time and almost never get these recommendations. Might be a certain combination of interests?

Maslo,

I can confirm, I get pushed Linus hard. I watched like 3 or 4 of his PC build videos one time a while back. Never clicked on a WAN Show episode (his podcast). But now if I let just about any gaming/tech video roll to next, I get served entire podcast episodes of his like 25% of the time. I never asked for this, I always click off, they keep coming back. I’m not mad really just bewildered. Idk the retention must be there

Nerorero,
@Nerorero@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

To be fair, you did watch a 3 hour JP video…

Poob,

That’s my point, the algorithm doesn’t understand context.

Cyder,

Maybe you have the same problem I have: my wife is still a republican. When that kind of stuff shows up, I know she has been watching it on the family PC. She’s not that tech savvy, so I usually go in later and block or limit some of it. It’s a pain to fight the algorithms.

AquaTofana,

As a woman, I can never understand how other women can be Republican.

My mom was a Dem growing up, but then she fell down the religious rabbit hole after I left home and it was all downhill from there.

My little sister though? I have zero idea how she ended up Republican. It’s fucking bizarre. 🤷‍♀️

Phillaholic,

“The Leopards won’t eat my face”

ChillPill,
@ChillPill@lemmy.world avatar

Its the “Leopards eating people’s faces party”; not the " Leopards eating my face party". GOSH!

PS - is that a community here yet?

SailorMoss, (edited )

I agree with and get the point of the metaphor. But the leopard metaphor always seemed a bit tortured to me. There’s got to be a cleaner way to communicate that point.

ChillPill,
@ChillPill@lemmy.world avatar

You’d think so; and yet, so many people that metaphor is directed at don’t even realize…

Event_Horizon,

My thoughts. It never starts as full blown conservatism but reaches that point by a branching topic. My brother was always financially conservative, boot straps and all that, but over the last 12-18 months as the media he consumes moves further right he has become more socially conservative, because these people were inline with his thinking before so they must be right now of course.

I caught him going on about trans people corrupting his kids a couple of weeks ago. My brother might be a dick but he wouldn’t have been saying that 5-10 years ago.

Cyder,

In our case, we both grew up in a conservative state with conservative parents. But over time, I drifted away from it (and it drifted in crazy land). However she still hangs on. She’s come around on a few things. She often falls into the false equivalence mindset that both sides are just as bad. And whenever she starts to bring up any anti-vax or Joe Rogan BS, I try to stomp on that real quick. But I know she will always vote for anyone with an R by their name when it comes down to it.

stappern,

people in minorities are republican, the shit doesnt make sense.

stappern,

condolences…

RogueTyre,

Could probably use another account with a different profile and just switch whenever you use the pc

ChillPill,
@ChillPill@lemmy.world avatar

This is why I inist that each person have their own account on a shared pc.

bownt,

you are a closet conservative. the algoritham has spoken.

CurlyWurlies4All,
@CurlyWurlies4All@prxs.site avatar

How YouTube became a perpetual Nazi machine

A55A,
@A55A@lemmy.ml avatar

Just use Odysee, the YouTube algorithm is fully cooked from millions of hours of pure crap being posted every day.

RocksForBrains,

Conservative proganda is a highly coordinated and well-funded network. They pay for preference.

chakan2,
@chakan2@lemmy.world avatar

It’s not that so much as Howard Stern theory. The people that like that stuff, click on it and move on.

The people that hate that stuff hate it enough to interact with it… That means more time on the site, more ads, more revenue.

It’s just the hate algorithms… They’re lucrative.

SaltySalamander,
@SaltySalamander@lemmy.fmhy.ml avatar

Why does it recommend this shit to me

Because you, or someone using your account, has watched this type of shit in the past.

elkaki,

Not necessarily, although YouTube shorts may be it’s own thing in terms of algorithm I frequently see andrew tate, ben shapiro, jordan peterdon clips despite disliking and inmediatly scrolling past when I see their faces. Also I have encountered a lot of anti feminism content of the likes of 2014 this year, where someone is seen mocking “feminists” making what seems like stupid remark and getting owned with some sigma face meme from the american psycho guy and music.

it has been the case multiple times that the YouTube algorithm makes weird connections which often lead to right wing channels being promoted. Or sometimes an entire subsection of creatores are libked with the alt right without being direct (the old atheism sphere, gaming channels are common ones too)

obinice,
@obinice@lemmy.world avatar

It could be where you live too, maybe?

I live in the UK and never see ANY right wing stuff, even though we have our fair share of xenophobic nutjobs (some of them are even running our government’s immigration department currently).

But I’ve heard that some places in the USA may be extremely polarised regionally, and so maybe that coupled with your other demographic information such as gender, age, occupation, etc, might be giving YouTube the idea that you probably fit the standard local mould for a right winger and thus might appreciate the same suggestions?

That’s been my best guess whenever I see this kinda thing mentioned, though honestly it’s just a guess! It always seems to be USA people suffering from it too :-(

Maybe the laws against hate speech, disinformation, etc, aren’t as tight there and YouTube doesn’t have as much incentive to hide that content? That seems less likely, but who knows! When I lived in the USA I saw soooo much more blatant flagrant lies in official emails, ads, media content and such, it seemed acceptable in a way it’s not here.

SaltySalamander,
@SaltySalamander@lemmy.fmhy.ml avatar

I live in the Southeastern US, never get bombarded with right-wing stuff on Youtube. My conclusion is if you’re getting hit with that content, at some point you’ve watched that sort of content. Always click the 3 dots and click Don’t Recommend Channel. It actually works, contrary to what people are saying here.

elkaki,

I really dont think location is playing a role here, Im from chile but 100% of the content I consume on youtube is in english, the shorts have also appeared in english. I doubt this content is due to location as im not close to the US nor is there particular US cultural dominance in the area (most people consume youtube in spanish, be it creatos from latin america or Spain)

stappern,

nope

lustyargonian,

I think such content gets most engagement. Dunking on leftist ideas brings right wingers celebrating and parroting the piece while pissed left wingers trying to explain why the argument doesn’t make sense.

TheKingBee,
@TheKingBee@lemmy.world avatar

You need to train your algorithm.

When you hover over those videos there will be three dots in the lower right hand corner use either not interested or don’t recommend this channel to clear the right wing trash from your feed.

On videos you do like you need to do some engagement, watch complete videos, thumbs up (or down it doesn’t matter) and comment.

Do that for a few days and your feed should clear up.

ketcham1009,
@ketcham1009@lemmy.ml avatar

And make sure to turn off The setting that auto plays the videos in browser if you mouse over them (don’t remember the setting’s name). Hovering your mouse over it counts as you watching/playing the video if the setting is on.

xthedeerlordx,

your feed should clear up.

This works for like a few days, then inevitably the cycle begins again…

TheKingBee,
@TheKingBee@lemmy.world avatar

I’m a daily youtube user and this has been not been the case for me.

My feed, outside the occasional straggler, is pretty free of nonsense.

OneNot,
@OneNot@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah. I never really watched shorts, but I recently started watching them and I get tons of right-wing/red-pill shit in there despite clicking on “dont recommend this channel” (or whatever it says) on like 50 of those types of channels.

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