Why is youtube recommending conservative "talking points" to me?

V01t45@lemmy.fmhy.ml to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 481 points –

Hi, I am a guy in early thirties with a wife and two kids and whenever I go on youtube it always suggests conservative things like guys dunking on women, ben shapiro reacting to some bullshit, joe rogan, all the works. I almost never allow it to go to that type of video and when I do it is either by accident or by curiosity. My interest are gaming, standup comedy, memes, react videos, metalurgy, machining, blacksmithing, with occasional songs and videos about funny bullshit and I am not from america and I consider myself pretty liberal if I had to put it into terms used in america. But european liberal, so by american standards a socialist. Why does it recommend this shit to me, is this some kind of vector for radicalization of guys in my category? Do you have similar experience?

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Follow up question: why won’t YouTube Shorts trust me when I say I don’t want to be recommended channels.

So…many…dancing…trends. And they keep sending more.

YouTube algorithm only cares about engagement not likes or dislikes. It has a neutral impression of likes and dislikes and only cares if people are actively leaving impressions. Whether it's from liking with joy or disliking with anger engagement is a sign to show more. I've heard contrary to logic it's better to just skip immediately and not press anything signifying reception to the content shown, since it'll perceive it as recommendation to show more.

Yeah I can understand that for likes/dislikes or comments of “this is dumb”, but after hundreds of “do not recommend this channel”, the algorithm should be able to tell a lack of interest in a particular content.