The shorts algorithm is really weird I find. The ones it advertises are usually essentially thinly veiled smut (whereas most videos I watch are tech/science/aviation stuff). But (and I think this is important), if I start watching shorts, most of them are normal type shorts in line with what I’d want to watch. So it feels like it puts some stuff up it thinks will grab your attention but doesn’t push it once you’re watching. I’m sure there’s a good reason for it. But, just comes across as weird to me.
I don’t get right wing stuff in shorts, but I do sometimes get it in the main videos suggested. How I think it happens is, I watch some videos about computer games, or perhaps a video on a games/science topic which is made by a channel that either also has right wing content OR their viewers also watch such stuff. So it figures, well if they viewed video A, and viewers that watched video A also watched video B, let’s push video B to that user too. The algorithm doesn’t really understand left or right wing, just pattern matching from views and other metrics.
I find if you start telling youtube that you don’t want to see them, they will go away, at least for a while.
If you click on something the algorithm goes hard on that content from then on. I clicked on a skateboarding short (which I usually have no interest in) and now half my feed is skateboarding, constantly.
One misclick, one hate watch, is all it takes.
Yeah, you sometimes need to curate your videos with the “dont recommend channel” or “dont like the video” or whatever its name is. It tends to happen when I go down a rabbithole - last time I got recommended stupid supra memes from some Turkish guy and watched a couple in a day. Next day, my entire feed is “IS THAT A SUPRA?!!” memes. A couple of clicks later and it’s back to what it was
I have been ”Don’t Recommend”-ing the generated “SuperPanavision” videos since they started earlier this year; blocking channels, “show less like this” everything. The problem is that this stuff is being pumped out constantly on so many channels that it is impossible to block them all.
