[UN-SOLVED!!!] YouTube's 'Recomended' recomendations now suck AGAIN.

[nali]

Yeh maybe smart wasn't the best choice of wording !

[langwadt]

It sounds like YT may be profiling to see who may be receptive to non-English content.

If that were the case, wouldn't it make sense to offer content that was at least on a similar theme to other content in which I already have shown an interest?

The last odd recommendation I had was, I think, a religious video with just a few hundred views - so, not a popular video in its own right, and nothing at all in common with the videos I usually watch. Other times it's suggested videos aimed at babies and toddlers.

It's almost as though it's trying to pick out the videos I'm least likely to ever see otherwise.

https://youtu.be/1PGm8LslEb4

[BrianHG]

I don't know if it has any relevance but Google's tracking seems to be getting smarter. For example I was looking for a relacement shower door recently so plenty of Googling including the Shopping links. Within an hour or so my wife mentioned that she was getting adverts in her Facebook feed for shower doors...

I'd call that targeting less smart. It targeted the wrong person.

This might explain a thing or 2 since my ISP changes my IP address every 2 days.
I'm sure every IP address I get is shared in a pool of my ISP's customers.

[bitseeker]

Yes, that can make a mess of things. However, if you're logged into your Google account, they don't have to rely on IP address for targeting. They know it's you.

Even if you aren't logged in, your browser can be fingerprinted to differentiate it even if your IP address changes or if different devices share the same IP.

[NiHaoMike]

It looks like adblock might actually be the best counterattack to ad tracking. If they can figure out you use adblock, they'll know their efforts are completely wasted.

I suppose something like Adnauseum (hide ads but automatically "click" on some of them) might help in giving them an illusion of showing ads except in reality, nobody sees it.

[taydin]

People seem to be mostly focusing on the shitty recommendations of youtube. But I think a bigger problem is the fact that I cannot block a channel from EVER BEING RECOMMENDED. I go and click "not interested" and later another video gets recommended from that channel. I click "not interested" again and this repeats endlessly and I keep getting videos from that channel again

And putting my tin foil hat on, I have to say that this particular channel promotes a USA endorsed, but locally not very popular political view It seems as if one of youtube's mission is just that: promote channels that advocate certain political viewpoints and don't give a damn whether the user doesn't want anything from that channel.

[MagicSmoker]

People seem to be mostly focusing on the shitty recommendations of youtube. But I think a bigger problem is the fact that I cannot block a channel from EVER BEING RECOMMENDED. I go and click "not interested" and later another video gets recommended from that channel. I click "not interested" again and this repeats endlessly and I keep getting videos from that channel again

Yep, that infuriated me, too, but I found a solution that I posted on the previous page:

...install the Channel Blocker extension [for FireFox] and you can at least permanently stop getting served the same recommendations over and over again no matter how many times you go through the tedious process of clicking on the 3 vertical dots, clicking on "not interested" then clicking on "tell us why" and then clicking a 4th time to check the box for "not interested in this channel."...

[taydin]

I had tried channel blocker but it didn't block the channel that I told it to block. But will try again, maybe a bug was fixed in the meantime.

[tszaboo]

Probably the algorithm got trained by 3 year olds, who keep on watching the same videos over and over again.
I completely skip the home page, I go for subscriptions directly.

I dont know why you are suprised that google knows things. You order stuff online, you get a mail about it.
You go somewhere, your phone tacks you. It will even ask if you enjoyed your stay at a certain restaurant. The one you looked up the address on google and used maps to go there. At the end of the month, I get an email telling em that I was in 4 countries last month and spent 30 hours in a car and walked so many km.

You dont even have to be a conspirator theorist to see the pattern here, it happens in front of your own eyes, and it is written in the terms of service. All you can turn off, if you want to get a mail about it.

[AndyC_772]

People seem to be mostly focusing on the shitty recommendations of youtube. But I think a bigger problem is the fact that I cannot block a channel from EVER BEING RECOMMENDED.

I've never seen that behaviour. If I say I'm not interested in a channel, I don't get recommendations from that channel again. It looks as though the system isn't working the same way for everyone.