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Watch videos you want to see
Click the dots > Not Interested in videos you don't
Enjoy your tailored feed with only stuff you want to see!
My YouTube algorithm is fantastic. I never see politics because if I want to watch a political video, I open it in a private window
I also find that marking stuff with "not interested" works pretty well. Some far right bullshit pops up occasionally but it's quickly dealt with.
Yeah, with a small amount of effort you can really make your YouTube feed work for you. I have a main account full of engineering, computers, and misc entertainment (sketch comedy channels + Atrioc) and a separate one for my work laptop that's just music. Both feeds are pretty fantastic but the recommendations on latter is especially good - I've found a ton of new artists including some with only a few hundred followers (shout out to folk singer Alexander Guy!)
i forgot about disliking videos and channels! That might fix my problem right away. THank you
It might take some time but if you don't want to start fresh with a new account, mark everything you don't want as Not Interested as they pop up until your feed is clean! It's worth the effort imo
Also, you can tell YT to never recommend a channel. It's permanent (can't undo) but well worth the use.
In addition, if you see a video like this, I prefer to select "don't recommend channel"
Also i find that removing stuff you want to avoid from your watch history helps
Turn off all history tracking for youtube (disables all recommendations). Rely solely on your subscriptions
This is the only way. I've been doing it for years, in part because I absolutely hate catered content based on what I've viewed/read. Doing so only increases silos. At least with reddit (RIP)/Lemmy you pick from a potpourri of silos that are don't change depending on what I've read.
This is the only way.
No, that's just the only way to do it without putting in any effort.
I've have history enabled for years and I don't get much of the complaints people have about YouTube; my recommendations are fine and I usually find other channels I like that way, anything I don't like I dislike and mark as not interested and that type of content goes away after a handful of markings.
I understand the want of not being silo'd, but at the same time, I know what kind of brain rot YouTube can offer, so I'm happy to solo myself away from that dreck.
I have the exact opposite advice lol
Edit: privacy aside, it does work. YT shows rage inducing content because it wants engagement more than anything. My algorithm is so trained now that it can show me stuff I'll actually enjoy and want to engage with and therefore it doesn't bother showing me that crap
Keep ignoring the videos and choosing "don't recommend this channel", eventually they will diminish.
My shorts feed cleaned up eventually like this.
YT wants to keep you watching YT, so:
Do you have a yt account?
If so, curate your watch history.
I have done it for at least a decade, as soon as I watch something outside my sphere of Tech, History, Electronics, Transportation, Gaming, Amateur Radio, Lego, cool old objects, Acheology, Car, Programming, Long form documentaries, and similar videos I delete it from my YT history.
This has a huge impact, it feels sort of as if you constantly need to fight for your balance on a knife's edge, falling either way will massacre your yt feed.
I'd be happy to post what channels I subscribe to if you want to get started
This is exactly what needs to be done. I too have been curating my YT feed for years. I don't let anyone watch videos on my account and anything that is in conflict with the environment I want to maintain in my feed I simply don't watch or sign into a burner account to watch.
Everyone else's feeds are pure cancer compared to mine.
Police your algorithms, folks.
Everyone else's feeds are pure cancer compared to mine.
The worst part of it is that we have people like my dad who refuse to get a Youtube account, because then you hand over information to Google.
But he won't stop using youtube....
They already have your info! You are just refusing to actually aknowledge it and give yourself control of how a part with huge impact on you get's used!
This may be immoral, but I support kids taking control of their parents YT history, removing alt right content from their watch history and even secretly watching other interesting content to change the feed.
There have been so many horror stories of kids seeing their parents slip away to the alt right by youtube and social media algorithms and push more and more extreme content.
This needs a counter force, I would never stop someone from watching a specific video, but if I needed to I would do what I could to make it not show up in the feed.
When a video pops up that you find upsetting or irrelevant, click on the "Not interested" option. You'll have the chance to provide feedback on why you don't like the video. This helps YouTube understand your preferences better and refine future suggestions.
And you can also block entire channels. Some channels are better blocked.
To keep YT under control: Firefox is my web browser, with the uBlock Origin extension installed. So, all Shorts/Suggestions, 'News' and 'Related content' are now automatically removed from YT '(easy to achieve with uBlock Origin when using Firefox).
😍🥰 Firefox + uBlockOrigin
And whenever Google/YT suggests me some turd content, I dislike it and ask it to not suggest the channel/content anymore.
In the end, my feed is mostly made of stuff I enjoy watching, with so little noise that it can not be considered an issue.
Stop clicking on them. YT shows it to you because it has seen you open them and watch a chunk of the video. The algorithm is dumb and can't tell whether you watch because you like it or hate watch them. It just knows you make engagement and revenue whenever it shows you that, so it does it more.
This isn’t true. I’m constantly getting recommended all kinds of crazy right wing video nonsense and I have never clicked on a single one nor has the only other person in my house. They are picking up on something else or just pushing those videos in general.
Some seemingly-innocuous channels just happen to appeal to fascists and become arbitrary entrances to the right wing YT pipeline.
I’ve noticed Big Think, Sabine Hossenfelder, lots of economics videos, and lots of less-reputable science channels tend to spur a rash of neocon content.
Go into your watch history and delete all of the rage inducing videos. YouTube generates recommendations directly from your watch history (as well as subscriptions etc).
Then subscribe to channels you really like that don’t enrage you! I highly recommend hobby-focused and science-based channels. There are tons of them out there and they have great content!
Apparently the gardening and eco/tiny-house world is very wholesome, because that's 75% of what I watch (not including music) and I never see recommendations for ragebait.
Safest way is to block chanels. It's a bit of a constant work, but at least I avoid falling twice for the same idiot.
Stay within your sub box. If you want to watch recommended, stay within the video you are watching right now.
I watch gaming and science stuff and my feed is filled with gaming and science stuff.
Agreed, though I wish youtubes algorithm was able to take into account video release date. Sometimes most of the science youtubers happen to be on a break and I end up watching a higher proportion of gaming content which then further kills the science content in my feed until I manually search it out again.
Use a different YouTube client. Free tube for the desktop, new pipe for Android.
That way you control your feed completely and your recommendations. You don't get to see the rage algorithmic baiting
I use Newpipe to anonymously access subscriptions and nothing but. Bonus is you can download it locally as video or 160kbps .opus
On a video in a video list page there should be a "..." menu next to the title. It has options for "hiding" the video and "don't recommend channel". I can't comment on how effective those are, but they might give the algorithm some hints about what you want to watch.
In addition, if you have stuff on your watch history that you don't want to see more of, you can go to https://www.youtube.com/feed/history and remove them. Allegedly that stops them being used to decide what videos are recommended.
Personally I prefer not to be fed by the algorithm. I bookmarked 'subscriptions', check for new ones and if there aren't any I go do something else.
Use Newpipe.
Subscribe to creators you like instead of just watching random shit?
Sponsorblock, ublock origin(don’t use chrome), and Unhook are nice browser extensions to help remove much of the bullshit.
I use YouTube almost exclusively for ASMR, metal forging, and engineering disaster documentaries. That's all my recommended feed is now. YouTube wants you to watch things on there and keep watching them, the algorithm really doesn't care what you watch to do that. The more you watch non-political stuff and avoid/immediately click away from political stuff, the more it will recommend non-political stuff.
Find a healthy hobby out-of-doors.
Clear or curate (remove anything political) your watch history, start liberally (hue hue) blocking shit. Install BlockTube. (uBO and SponsorBlock are also a given, just slightly less on topic)
Subscribe to the channels you like, tell Youtube to stop reccing outrage-mongers
I have a question
Why is election stuff rage inducing? Like what’s an example of a thumbnail you would see that would induce rage?
Example: Thumbnail with Trump and some other guy i dont know, big caption: "OH MY GOD!" Video title: "Trump Released the MOST EMBARRASSING Video EVER & You HAVE to Watch it! | Bulkwark Takes"
I assume it is designed to induce rage.
I highly recommend the DeArrow extension. I was on a waiting list after installing, for a few days, and then once I got access it has made the entire YouTube experience much better.
The extension removes clickbait thumbnails (replacing them with a part of the video itself), and clickbait titles are replaced with more accurate descriptions. It's all done by a big community, so the more popular videos are likely to have the edits, however overall it certainly is a better experience for me.
this is radical suggestion, but maybe dont use youtube? its working for me.
I like the idea. Can you elaborate, please? Did you stop, or did you never start? Do you use something else instead? How do you wind down or get a quick laugh?
so, i just stopped going directly to youtube and switched to doomscrolling a meme-excessive feed [for humor]. youtube still pops up in fediverse feeds, and i will watch some things from there, but i'm not going directly to the domain.
ive never really appreciated video on the web. i prefer to stream locally. the few youtube videos i want (usually obscure vhs copies of old shit), i have my kid download into out media center.
