• Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    YouTube, like other corporate social media and engagement platforms, thrives on anger and conflict, and pushes shitty takes higher up the recs list to get angry engagement.

    So it’s more likely to be bad than good.

    • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      What have y’all been clicking on YT? I watch, frankly, an unhealthy amount of YT and I don’t get recommendations for hateful shit.

    • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      That depends on what you watch and subscribe. Watch angry, conflict-driven videos, and you’ll get those.

      I personally don’t get any of that shit in my feed.

      • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 months ago

        As I’ve said three times now, I barely use YouTube and then only direct links. This isn’t that. YouTube rewards civil bigots so civil bigots are common and have big audiences

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          Which is why my general rule of thumb is to avoid the top channels. Some things I especially try to avoid:

          • lots of jump cuts
          • stupid thumbnails
          • clickbait headlines

          Those are things that drive “engagement,” and going after engagement for engagement’s sake is a clear sign to me that the channel isn’t worth my time. If the channel largely avoids that crap and still manages to have a respectable subscriber count, it’s a lot more likely to be a decent channel. Some channels I really like:

          • Gamer’s Nexus
          • Digital Foundry
          • Tech Ingredients

          Each of those have high quality content, tend to avoid most of the above (still have BS thumbnails, but not nearly as bad as the big channels), and have a sizeable following. Good content absolutely exists, you just have to scrape away the crap on top to find decent channels.

          That said, I no longer use my YT account, I just subbed to everything I care about on Grayjay and Newpipe (in case one fails, and NewPipe has failed more often than not for me), and I’ll watch specific channels whenever I actually use YT’s website.

          • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            2 months ago

            Absolutely. Sticking to the things they know and avoiding the recs is how a lot of people use Youtube. But all of the things you avoid are thrown in your face in the recs. Clickbait titles, bait and switch content, dogwhistling videos that start people down the path of ever more bigoted content (for example, the video the OP posted).

            I generally don’t engage much with video content though, so I’ll just continue to ignore it

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              all of the things you avoid are thrown in your face in the recs

              Hence why I tend to avoid the YT website. I have disabled recommendations on NewPipe and Grayjay, and that’s where 95% of my YT viewing comes from.