Tell me about it... Started clicking "Do not recommend this channel" solely based on the thumbnail - if there is trump, musk or anything political, I clicked the button. Recently I started noticing pro Chinese "propaganda" which is something I don't want to watch either.

My solution: sticking mainly to subscribed channels and if I don't see anything I want to watch I'll try the YouTube feed algorithm.

I need YouTube word filter or figure out how to do the same I did for Lemmy and reddit in ublock custom filters. Example I found for reddit which works for me: reddit.com##article[aria-label]:has-text(/tesla|trump|vance|biden|republic|democrat|conservative|senate|congress|candidate|politic|healthcare|capitalism|billionaire|inflation|corporation|greed|tariff/i)

I'd love the same thing for YouTube, but I don't know how to configure it.

Do what I do fuck the YouTube algorithms and just only use the subscription part. I use the "recommended" part once every few months if that. Got my subscriptions on my smart tube and that's all I need.

It's frustrating, but to make it somewhat work you have to keep using the "Not interested" and "Don't recommend channel" options, and go into watch history and remove ones that you click on by mistake or find out you don't like while watching.

Interesting, I've always found it to work incredibly well for me, to the point I generally only watch the stuff it recommends. Like, out of the 6 videos it shows me, maybe 1 every now and then is something I don't care about. But like, if there's 4-5 ones I'm interested in out of 6, I think that's pretty good, and the 2 wild cards are how I tend to find new stuff to be interested in.

Tell you a problem I've had with it recently: search.

Used to be, you'd search Youtube for something like 'how to make a zero clearance throat plate for table saw" and you'd get pages of useful results, then some not so great results, then things that make you say "no not that kind of throat." and by then it's just giving you results with at least one of the search terms in it.

Now, you'll get maybe ten relevant results, then about ten results that have absolutely nothing to do with your search, just...stuff it would clutter your home page with. Like you're not trying to find information. You can feel that "increase watch time at all costs" shit.

I watch so much niche stuff that it’s hard for YouTube to sneak their suggestions in.

• someone nerding out about history
• someone nerding out about science
• someone nerding out about Star Trek
• ✅ EPIC FAIL COMPILATION ✅

Never had this problem with YouTube’s algorithm. If anything, it offers 20 more videos from the same channel after I watch just one.

Are you using the options where you tell it you don’t like this video/don’t recommend this channel/thumbs down the video? There are like three different ways to tell YouTube you’re not interested.

I still find it funny it thinks my 3 year old is interested in solar panels.

The more concerning one was a divorce lawyer for fathers. That shit wasn't even on my account or my computer, it just assumed daytime watching of kids stuff means a guys going through a divorce, lol.

The algorithm is a combination of things they think you want to watch and things they want you to watch. The latter are things that tend to keep people watching, increasing ad revenue for youtube.

It seems to know my tastes so well, most recommendations are either things I already watch, or things so similar that even the people in them look and sound almost identical to the things I watch. Like I have found at least 2 other chemistry channels that I thought were NileRed until I actually looked at the channel names. And no, one of them is not NileBlue, his other channel.

Top #1 sign(s) that you're spending too much time on YouTube.

Why the fuck would you think this is a showerthought?

What algorythm? I turned off watch history so all I see is turn on history notifications.

my subscriptions work so I have more than I have time to watch available.

Use Grayjay. No ads, no algorithm, all video platforms in one feed.

I've been thinking – somebody should make a 3rd party YT front page with its own algorithm. Google would probably be livid but we do already have alternarive front ends.