this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
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Why did YT make you angry? I haven’t experienced it yet. I block content I’m not interested in and it goes away.
taking a guess but I already saw some other comments on another thread mention this: The chart boys in any corps will see Engagement == Profit. Thus they will tune their recommendations solely for that. And if you aren't bothered about properly policing your video upload platform the end result is highly divisive content thats "not boring".
Divisive content makes people angry so they engage in comments.
i used to be on reddit. And I used to get into "debates" that devolved into a slap fight and make me angry about the people who intentionally or unintentionally riled me up with outrageous (real or my own perception) opinions.
While lemmy also has slap fights, I feel like the lack of an "algorithm" tuned for engagement prevents continuous fueling of the fire, metaphorically speaking.
sounds like you made some big progress in life
There's a lot to be said for stepping back from online debates and asking whether your voice is actually valuable, or whether you're just yelling into the void and getting yourself all pissy.
For me, I try to take the view that there's already enough negativity, so I try to be as positive as I can in my online interactions. If someone gets needlessly arsey with me, I'll try to sympathise with them. If they don't react well to that, I'll leave the thread. I'm not changing anyone's mind, not even yours.
I agree with this idea, but unfortunately YT and other engagement social media sites don't want that to happen. For me, I'm almost never shown videos I hate, but when I say "not interested/don't show me this channel" it USUALLY works. Not at the time though. I've definitely gotten channels recommended to me that I already said I don't want to see.
This is especially true for my mom, who is frequently getting upset by the fact that YT keeps showing her Fox News and Asmongold clips in her recommendations. I think changing the VPN to Canada helped to reduce the Fox News recommendations, but the Asmongold clips can't be escaped.
That’s so interesting re your mother. I wonder if her beliefs closely align to fox and asmongold (never heard of that one), but are different enough for her to not be interested in that content. Ie: ven diagram between the belief systems, except the differences are big enough for her to not to like fox content but for the algorithm the commonalities are good enough to keep suggesting the content.
No, she absolutely hates right-wing content and is definitely left. Asmongold is a grifter piece of shit human being who attracts alt-right viewers. It's not about her not being interested, she quite literally gets upset at the awful ideas and hate that those channels spread and doesn't want to see them. She never watches their videos on purpose, she's only ever clicked on them by accident, she always either clicks away immediately or dislikes the video, and never comments on them. She has repeatedly tried to block those channels. YT continues to show them.
Disliking the video is engagement, that's probably why they show up every so often. It's basically the algorithm saying "hey, can I suck you into an anger spiral today? No? Ok, I'll try again later."
It's so weird. 6 months ago I hadn't heard of that guy, but suddenly in the last month he's showing up in my feed.
YT, really Google, is just not a company I want to support. YT as a platform is not something I want to support by using. Also, data reasons.
It became downright personal for me. Its about accessibility.
My brain works a certain non typical way which is challenging to live with at best.
Sudden advertisements hits me like a physical punch in my face.
The ui focus on everything new rather then a nice subscription view with filters meant i who does not watch daily would frequently miss new uploads from the channels i do like.
I felt like i was in a toxic relationship being pushed to watch on their terms while openly hating that i protect myself from ad-sault by using blockers.
I realize i did not need things to be this way and am smart enough to build and alternative.
Now i have a yt-dlp script downloaded the latest uploads from chosen channels straight to jellyfin and also a selfhosted invidious with custom tweaks for everything i dont want to spend storage space on.
Basicly i take 100% of what i liked and never have to visit the website directly again.
They are waging war on invidious, it breaks on occasion. Yt-dlp though, stable as a rock.
I do the same with yt-dlp, though mine is still a little more manual. I have my subscriptions in FreeTube, which I use to select what I want to watch. Copy the link, run my script, then trundle to the lounge where I can watch them on my big TV.
There's a mindfulness to that process that's helpful to me. A conscious decision, as opposed to mindlessly absorbing content.
I hear you. I use an adblocker and don’t see ads at all. I cannot imagine using the internet without it. I also only use the home link on yt and freely use the not interested feature.