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It gets worse when the system also won't show you everything that you follow; only a portion that currently matches your search and viewing history and which hits certain quotas of views.

That's why a lot of high view videos often feel like they are the same or similar designed - because they are playing the algorithm to get those early hits as much as possible otherwise the video just gets buried from even their own fans and followers.

And that's why things like GW get a lot more videos than other game brands because whilst people do want to see other brands; doing another brand is a "lower traction/attention" content so the code marks it down.
It's why you get those "this game will destroy games workshop" style titles because if it was just "Indepth Review of new game" it wouldn't rank it as high just because GW is the "hot" company

I’ve a strong personal policy of “Don’t Recommend This Channel” when it’s video titles are overly sensational, and/or it’s got their idiot, gormless face either expressing shock and surprise, or being surly, depending on what their drivel title is.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t tend to get gambling ads, but I get a ton of porn-adjacent reels shoved at me (farm girl wearing the least overalls, woman shopping in butt leggings, redhead in wet sundress driving over bumpy roads), and I have no idea why since I don’t watch porn on my phone. I do have some personal photos, though, so now I have to worry if the algorithm is scraping my most private data.

YouTube on my phone is still not too bad. YouTube on my TV is more ad than tube.

Phew!

I keep getting them too. Glad it's not just me! Was wondering what I had done to train the algorithm...

Oh.... you know what you did. You know!




/S

I absolutely hate it when you watch one random video and Youtube then hyper-focuses on the subject, but stuff you actually watch a lot of (In my case crafting videos, I find them relaxing) never gets a look in.

The other week I got a recommendation for an "Eggs plus rice" recipe vid that I watched (I thought it was going to be an easy Egg Fried Rice recipe, it was not), and now I'm still being inundated with "Egg plus random ingredient, it's better than pizza!" videos.

Yeah I've never worked that one out - I can only assume there's some part of the code that identifies:

1) "hot" topics that the masses watch and if you ever stray to watching one of those it hyper fixates on thrusting the stuff at you because "its the most popular with the masses".
Which of course ends up being a positive feedback loop because now those videos are getting way more views so get more exposure

2) Some bit of the code that assumes whatever you normally find yourself is something you'll find yourself and finding new things has a higher chance of generating more clicks from "the new shiny thing" so it goes into overdrive to hyperfixate on whatever is new for you.

I'm pretty sure it's mainly point 2 - the algorithm wants to feed you new stuff, so it takes the outlier thing you clicked on and forces it down your throat. Presumably it hopes you'll now get a new fixation and spend hours spiralling down a rabbit hole of content.

What's weird is that I have a few types of video I watch a lot, from specific channels, and it seems like if you're quite consistent in watching that content the algorithm throws less of that type of stuff at you. So it seems like, for content you watch a lot of, it becomes harder to discover new, related content, possibly because the algorithm assumes you can find it yourself.

YouTube gets more a pass from me, as I’m far less grudging of being offered content that took effort to make.

Granted, a decent swathe of YouTube content is utter crap. But when you’ve caught the algorithm’s beady eye? It’s usually because of a sudden spike in viewer interest. And quite a few channels have blossomed from One Viral Moment,

But they still taken some effort in making, editing and uploading. Which is the polar opposite of TikTok and Instagram drivel.

The algorithmn is always looking for a chance to send you right-wing propaganda to hook you into the pipeline.

Always.

It’s an addiction machine. Radicalizing people is one way to get them Addicted to YouTube. There was also a hypersexualization route that led to CP. Behind the Bastards did an episode on it that covers some other dark rabbit holes the algorithm will take you down if you aren’t careful.



Sadly, I watched that episode….on YouTube.

As terrible as youtube is if you're logged in and the algorithm wants to get you - try using it with an adblocker on your Phone without logging in.
It's beyond useless.
Even when you search for channels you know, it tries to not show you any recent stuff, only 2-5 year old videos. And even with an adblocker they somehow can shove ads before every video, which you can terminate by refreshing, but then it turns off the sound. Youtube might as well just put a large pic of a middle finger on there.

 Overread wrote:
Yeah I've never worked that one out - I can only assume there's some part of the code that identifies:

1) "hot" topics that the masses watch and if you ever stray to watching one of those it hyper fixates on thrusting the stuff at you because "its the most popular with the masses".
Which of course ends up being a positive feedback loop because now those videos are getting way more views so get more exposure

2) Some bit of the code that assumes whatever you normally find yourself is something you'll find yourself and finding new things has a higher chance of generating more clicks from "the new shiny thing" so it goes into overdrive to hyperfixate on whatever is new for you.

I think there's a third option, that sorta feels "right": It's an algorithm written by people with ADHD, for people with ADHD. So, if you've spent the last 10 years watching 40k batreps, the odd how-to video, and some music videos, and suddenly you click on "japanese street food cooking asmr" it thinks "OMG!!!! its time!!! the new hyperfixation is here, bring out aLL THE VIDEOS!!!!!"

Because I don't think I would classify anything I've been interested in, or clicked on as "mainstream popular" in any real sense, but if something comes up at work, or I do end up looking at something, it doesn't matter what it is, I'll get inundated with semi-tangentially related content. A few months ago, I picked up an orchid. Was watching one or two how to care for my specific genus/variety videos, for the next 2 weeks it was random gardening vids including a "This japanese maple tree hasn't been trimmed in over 30 years" video, it was kinda nuts (ironically, the japanese maple video got me, cuz I do like the look of that tree, and so yea, I potentially ruined my algorithm more by clicking on it). Or, I guess slightly more mainstream, I clicked on a scale model build video of a car. Suddenly my algorithm is flooded with "this is the best muscle car of all time!" videos and whatnot (despite that model not being a muscle car)

I just wish they would understand somehow that I follow my senators and my congressman. That does NOT mean I need to hear from some random politician in Iown - hey this guy like politicians!

No. I want to know what MY politicians are up to.

Same thing, I follow the US embassy in the country I am in, that does mean show me every embassy in the world.

My friends dad died and Facebook decided not to show me the anouncement for 5 days, all whilst regularly claiming I'd run out of new stuff to see. It did decide to share a post he'd make *after* that about music. WTH?

So whilst I can sort of endulge their filtered feed nonsense, if it's failing to produce the basics and realistically the only thing most of us still have it for - keeping in touch with friends and family - then what's the point in having it?

I've found it horribly buggy of late too, so I've gone from checking it often and doomscrolling to maybe checking in once or twice a day because there's virtually no utility to it now.

Social Media is all mostly people trying to sell you something now.

I am no exception.

FB never shows me news from friends or relatives. It's just mostly AI slop. I'm getting a lot of 'renovation' videos of buildings that don't actually exist. And if someone told my teenage self that I would become dead bored of pictures of sexy ladies....

But surely they are in your area?

Wore than that - they don't exist at all. Whether I block the poster or scroll right past, even if they stop it's only for a while. It's like stuff comes round in cycles. I had some religious, anti-atheist stuff for a while. It's taper off, for now.

MarkNorfolk wrote:
FB never shows me news from friends or relatives. It's just mostly AI slop. I'm getting a lot of 'renovation' videos of buildings that don't actually exist. And if someone told my teenage self that I would become dead bored of pictures of sexy ladies....

I know. It just an endless scroll of meme pages now. Like remember when it was only stuff from your Friends? I literally don't know the point of it anymore. Just Marketplace I guess.

I get more friend/family info through groups on What'sap than FB.

I Tend to use FB more as a marketplace; mostly because a LOT of personal trading went there to avoid ebay fees but also a lot of retailers are generally active on their FB or at least respond to it.

 Overread wrote:
I Tend to use FB more as a marketplace; mostly because a LOT of personal trading went there to avoid ebay fees but also a lot of retailers are generally active on their FB or at least respond to it.

For personal trading, the problem with eBay isn't even just the fees, but they actively turned it into an AliExpress clone because that was more profitable than being an online garage sale. So as much as Marketplace is a horrible platform, it's still better than eBay now for finding or selling second hand stuff.

Which is annoying, because eBay is also so much better to actually use for selling now, as they've automated so much of the behind the scenes stuff. And because Marketplace effectively limits you to buying or selling to people in your nearby area, if you want to avoid getting scammed.

My brother got an electric trike for my father and I asked him what kind and he sent me a link to the manufacturer through FB Messenger and now FB is full of adds for electric trikes. Ended up sharing stories about missing kids in the area in the last wo months, sadly both ended tragically, and now it is asking me if I have seen missing kids from all corners of the globe. Unsurprisingly I have not see the kid missing from Perth Australia.

For the real fun: Meta patents AI that takes over a dead person’s account to keep posting and chatting

Good God...

Meta is run by crazy people I think, they just observe ideas and mash them together until someone says it may work to them.

That is abhorrent.

This is why I tell terrible jokes. So when I all of a sudden start telling funny jokes you'll know I've been replaced.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:

I know. It just an endless scroll of meme pages now. Like remember when it was only stuff from your Friends? I literally don't know the point of it anymore. Just Marketplace I guess.

It survives with me because that is where the club page is and the weekly organising games post. I despise the impossibility of finding stuff in discord and I guess while I really want it to be a forum, facebook is the closest we can get for younger players who can't understand forums.

The other thing is that whilst discord has its up sides it is very limited on organisational structure and it also has the issue that its a closed system.

You have to be "on discord" to access it.

Facebook you can at least discover new groups without having to be a part of them. Plus its all in "one place" so you're not left hunting around the net and finding half finished websites that look like they are from the template or 90s and wondering if the club is going or not because the last updated was 3 years ago.

I am not a phone person and I still have a strong dislike for smart phones.
And NO this is not a grandpa does not like new thing. Lets say I have more self control over what goes on my PC than the portable stress machine run by what ever provider and app companies have a major stake in my current device. Not discussing that here.

On facebook; (and no i am not spelling it with a capital F, spellcheck. Capitals need to be earned),

Back in the day when facebook came out, I as an introvert, was already not really interested in the whole social media thing.
Like many people I had friends and family members who did so I ended up making a page anyway, which I barely used and is now pretty much defunct. I eventually got tired of all the "friends" requests by strangers somehow linked to friends and family members, as well as people with the same last name as those.
To anyone who can remember the MSN messenger days, the amount of people on your friends list, does not make you a better human being if you don't talk to or know 95% of them. Its was the "funny number goes up and I feel good", from back in the day.

I still get friend requests from people I don't know to this day. Yes I am aware because my name is on the page people who might know me, but I don't know them can try to see I am still using it. Also I am not interested in other peoples everyday life as like a normal person I have my own.

The ONLY good thing I had from facebook was the facebook messenger, since we used it to communicate with my late grandma when her hearing when so bad she could not use a phone anymore. Even though facebook desperately tried to get me to use the app on my phone going as far as removing the separate downloadable version for PC and forcing me to use facebook embedded version.

On YouTube;
Thank you to the people who made Firefox and add blockers.
Videos I like I just add to the my watch later playlist if I plan to watch them more than once.
Do not recommend channel gets a healty use out of me.
The only major issue is the amount of ads when I tried to watch it on any other device than my PC. (Apart from youtube and googles scumbag treatment of their users and content creators.)

Minor note on tiktok;

Yesterday I had a conversation with my manager who told me that store chain we work for pulled all their tiktok content as I wasn't generating the extra attention they had hopped. Also all the stores that had made accounts where told to close them. He told me how had watched some of the content other stores had made and he could not understand how that stuff could possibly attract buying customers. (dance and/or act like an idiot at worst). I then ask him why corporate would want to hang on to it with all the bad stuff on it as a toy chain. The challenges that are aimed at kids. The ones to do stuff like sticking a metal fork in an electrical outlet.
The conclusion was the same old one of people behind desks and with no knowledge other than their small personal bubble, make A LOT of poor decisions and they are the ones who are to make your company run as efficient as possible.
But hey, what do we know, we only work in the part of said company the brings in the money. The one where the customers come and buy stuff.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
This is why I tell terrible jokes. So when I all of a sudden start telling funny jokes you'll know I've been replaced.

I’d say, “Brilliant!” but I’ve read your jokes.