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?

const_void,

Because ‘conservative’ content gets a lot of engagement (ie ad money). The more they recommend it the bigger the audience, the bigger ad payout. They’re literally monetizing hate.

ablackcatstail,
@ablackcatstail@lemmy.goblackcat.com avatar

I am guessing you probably viewed enough of these videos that YouTube’s dumb algorithm is like, “Oh hey @V01t45 wants to see right wing stuff so let’s show him that.” I agree that it is very annoying. This is why we need to rally behind starting to use PeerTube and cancelling YouTube.

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.

reddig33,

Could be paid promotion. I get a lot of suggestions in my feed for some really awful music in genres that I never listen to. I wouldn’t be surprised if the record label is paying to put it there.

angrymouse,

You did not need to watch something to be bombarded with similar content, Youtube recommends things that are watched by ppl that watch things you watch (sorry about that). And it seems to considerate the overall popularity, at leat for me, so it usually recommends stupid popular right wing things just because it is overall popular and happens to be watched by a lot ppl that also watch dota 2 for example. I had to disable YouTube tu use my history to suggest content, my front page is full of things that I already watched from my subscriptions but for its better than YouTube stupid suggestions.

Atrabiliousaurus,

machining

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

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.

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.

CynicalStoic,

What state do you live in?

I know I’m doing good WHEN I get served this kind of content. I don’t browse YT logged in, my browser always deletes cookies upon closure, and I run Ghostery/add block plugins.

Living in Texas, I kinda assume that is why I constantly get this right wing content (ads, vid recommendations). I figure my location is all they know about me and so that is why I get served this content.

It just tells me they don’t know anything about me so my countermeasures are working 🤞🏼

tinwhiskers,
@tinwhiskers@kbin.social avatar

He said not from America.

CynicalStoic,

Oh you’re right, totally missed that

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

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.

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.)

perviouslyiner,

Fix the input not the algorithm - either disable watch history, or clear it of anyone who you don’t trust their viewers to recommend positive channels.

If you watch something that turns out to worsen your experience, purge it from the view history, undo any likes and remove any comments.

megane_kun,

My “YT™ experience” has gotten a lot better ever since I started avoiding it altogether and opted to watch videos through an alternative frontend. I do get a fairly different “popular” feed, but I mostly ignore that and go directly to my subscriptions feed instead.

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.

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

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