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?

masquenox,

Right-wing media is well-funded.

nom_nom,

A few years ago I downloaded a browser extension to stop showing me recommended videos, both on the homepage and on the side of videos. I can only watch what I’m subscribed to and what I search for - you’d think its a big sacrifice because you can’t discover as many videos, but in reality I’ve gained so much more of my time back and control over what I actually want to watch.

derf82,

I get them all the time. Pro-gun crap, Jordon Peterson, Joe Rogan, and other trash. I constantly hit “don’t recommend this channel” or “show me less of this” but they still come. I honestly think Youtube is getting paid off.

jossbo,

Anger drives engagement because your m more likely to comment when you’re angry. If you’re fine you probably just move on. So the algorithm prioritises stuff that makes people angry.

borlax,
@borlax@lemmy.borlax.com avatar

Because controversy makes money and conservatism is filled with controversial opinions and purposely obtuse takes intended to spark conversation and promote divisiveness. That’s the grift.

buckykat,

three dots -> don’t recommend channel

use it on anything even a little sus

stappern,

does not work. i made a point to click it everytime and i still get the same right wing shit

primalmotion,
@primalmotion@lemmy.antisocial.ly avatar

My account -> delete

buckykat,

The no account suggestions are even worse

Kushia,
@Kushia@lemmy.ml avatar

I’d suggest to stop using the platform entirely.

wtvr,

It’s because you are a guy in your 30s. You (and me) are in a shitty demographic so the algorithm peddles us shit. It doesn’t matter how many times I list shitheel vids by the ppl you me mentioned as “do not recommend channel”, I will always have Rogan or Peterson popping up in my feed to ruin my day. It drives me crazy

Robertej92,

It can’t just be that though, I’m a guy in my 30s and I never get any of these channels recommended to me, just videos by channels I’ve subscribed to or similar to what I’ve been watching, even after watching political videos I don’t get those shysters recommended to me.

stealth_cookies,

Agreed, I’m in the demographic as well and mostly get science education and cooking videos recommended to me. I’ll get the occasional political video but they are definitely more left wing channels.

Obi,
@Obi@sopuli.xyz avatar

There’s a difference between the recommendations for normal videos and shorts, I’d bet OP is looking at shorts.

In the normal feed YouTube knows about my hobbies, interests and serves decent recommendations that usually interest me.

The rare times I look at shorts it starts with comedians, goes to ass&tits, and then out come the crazy right-wingers.

stappern,

fucking same and im also dude in my 30s, i stopped using it. no way to not get that garbage.

foggy, (edited )

It sees you like standup comedy (POTENTIALLY ANTI-WOKE) and gaming (POTENTIALLY INCEL) and in your 30s (LIKELY HAS SOME DISPOSABLE INCOME)

So it’s pipelining you to the annals of YouTube that check those boxes, have very good viewer retention and have good user engagement.

The ones with good user engagement are the ones that raise your blood pressure. They make you angry. So, politics, or dirty cops, interrogations, murder stories, stuff like that.

You can resist them all you want, but stuff that makes people angry and chatty and commenty and re-watchy is like cocaine to the algorithm. It makes them money, so they spam it everywhere it even remotely makes sense to try to get you stuck in their quicksand.

DarkMatter_contract,

Could be they are using k-nearest neighbors, and op bracket fit into those content.

ScrimbloBimblo,

This is the real answer. It’s easy to forget that for most people who are famous for their unusual political views, most of their overall content has nothing to do with that. There’s something about politics that can turn even the most open-minded of individuals into raging idealogues.

It’s hilarious to me that Joe Rogan is now known for his like 3 conservative views when I mostly remember him as the guy who hosted Fear Factor, did every drug known to man, interviewed scientists in every field out there, and did that really popular interview with Bernie Sanders a couple years ago.

The point is that every hobby and niche interest has someone who gets way too hung up on one particular issue and devotes way too much time to talking about it, dragging the whole community down with them.

kemsat, (edited )

Conspiracy theory: All the corps are working together to push the global politics to the right, because leftists dgaf about taking money from corps (as in they’ll tax the corps & the rich).

MelonTheMan,
@MelonTheMan@lemmy.world avatar

It’s not a conspiracy theory if it’s obviously true

maniajack,

I’ll see major swings in the algorithm from time to time (a week of bass guitar video recommendations for some reason), but I can usually trace back a video or two that I watched that it just decided to try and cram the topic down my throat. I would just say make sure you keep avoiding the conservative vids to try and get the recommendations to stop. I wonder if maybe one of your kids is watching videos on your account and skewing it?

harmonea,
@harmonea@kbin.social avatar

(a week of bass guitar video recommendations for some reason)

Sometimes I wish youtube's algorithm were sentient so I could shake it and ask why the fuck--

For me it was a week of growing your own backyard basil. Not herb gardens, not vegetables, not self-sufficiency in general. Literally just basil. I don't even own a single plant.

NightOwl,

It can also be linked based where it recommends videos that conservatives have enjoyed that seem unrelated. Like maybe watching home improvement videos and historical war videos then the algorithm feeding new content that seems unrelated but actually is according to it, since it’s trying to expose you to new interests to expand the time you spend there.

Best I found is just not using YouTube with an account and having cookies cleared on exit, or using newpipe (Android) and freetube (desktop) which let’s you have an accountless subscription feed with Adblock and sponsorblock support.

MiloSquirrel,

For me if I ever look up warhammer 40k it immediately starts sending me losers like quartering or other channels like him.

Like, bo youtube, I don’t want to hear about how feminism and “wokes” are ruining warhammer. I also don’t want to be sent Sargon of Carl videos. Uhg. Lmao

PowerCrazy,

The algorithm wants engagement first and foremost (positive vs negative is irrelevant), after that it wants to push view points that preserve the status quo since change is scary to shareholders. So of course capitalist/fascist propaganda is preferred especially if the host is wrong about basic facts (being wrong drives engagement.)

Bencodec,

The algorithm is clever enough to know that people that watch a few of those videos are likely to watch a whole lot more. So it’s good business to recommend them as often as possible. If they CAN convince you to dive into that, the stats are that you will start to watch a ton more YouTube content.

king_dead,

You can get rid of a lot of the bullshit YouTube loves to shove down your throat by telling it not to recommend the channel. I haven’t got any of that garbage in years

PerCarita,
@PerCarita@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

You can view what Google “knows” about you on your account settings. I made my account when I was very young, I lied about my age and my gender, then it made assumptions based on my interests of my professional situation. I guess many people in my gender and age group, sharing my actual interests (tech, movies, culture, food) are also interested in the kind of content you described (Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Yiannopolous, etc). I keep clicking “not interested”, but the algorithm keep suggesting these videos to me. I don’t mind that Google doesn’t know my politics. I’m a feminist, but there’s really not a lot of interesting discourse about feminism on Youtube, so I just read and attend real life lectures instead.

Atrabiliousaurus,

machining

No idea about your algorithm problems but have you seen the Cutting Edge Engineering Australia channel? It’s so good.

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