What if?

Sjmarf@sh.itjust.works to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 1238 points –
190

My red flag would be showing them NewPipe, with recommendations turned completely off.

And subscriptions using RSS feeds instead of a YouTube account.

Guilty.

Having no actual presence on social media is considered "creepy" by modern social standards, instead of what I view it as: more secure.

Having no actual presence on social media

I've got some bad news for you...

I meant no actual presence on mainstream social media where I'm not using a pseudonym, and exchange profiles with the general public that I meet.

Forums are not social media. How is this hard to understand. Forums have existed for decades longer than social media and if you include forums in the definition of social media then you literally by definition include every comment section on every blog, news site, and even things like the FCC request for comments from citizens.

It’s absolutely idiotic to include forums in that definition. You make the definition so wide as to be useless.

People have gotten confused and declared that any internet based activity that involves interaction is social media. Social media is centered on users (you follow other people, not topics, and people for whatever crazy reason use their real name), whereas there is absolutely no real reason to do that on a forum.

Social media is centered on users (you follow other people, not topics

This is the exact reason I never became interested in Mastodon. Following people just isn't my style. The only social media I use is YouTube (without an account) because apparently Lemmy isn't social media.

if forums are social media, or the internet more broadly is social media, would that include shit like, newspapers? And like, the library?

I find avoiding social media helps reduce encounters with the insane side of people who somehow appear to be relatively normal in real life.

For instance, I actually like my inlaws in real life, despite having some very different views than they do. On Facebook however, they're complete fucking idiots that I wouldn't give the time of day because they would just argue with me about it.

It's odd how that proxy allows people to act feral. It's like the behavior of a dog behind a fence.

Though I'll admit to trolling a little bit here and there, so maybe I'm not the best example.

It's funny, I'm the opposite. In real life, I openly advocate for seizing the means of production and guillotining the rich, but I don't do that on Facebook because I don't want to get banned.

I've had the opposite response. Generally I get a "good on ya, I should really delete it too"

as far as i care, having social media makes you more likely to be insane, because of the aggressive amount of influence that these sites and applications hold over people.

I actually got a date once by saying I had 10 laptop computers and no Facebook account. Not a good match in other regards, but the person was cool about privacy.

They ask for your search history then

My browser clears private data at the end of every session.

Same, but you were talking about NewPipe. I assume you use that on your phone.

And while you can disable the search history there, too, it often is convenient not to have to type the name of that thing you want to listen to while you're driving, so many people leave it enabled.

YSK you could also swipe single entries away in your Newpipe search history.

I just leverage playlists or bookmarks, typically. But while driving, I play my FLAC library off a thumbdrive.

Or switching profiles in GrapheneOS so I can look at my Google apps

The brain rotted mind doesn't understand the lack of an infinite pit of o-face reaction videos to pick from.

Someone asking to see my YouTube recommendations is a good test for red flags, too. I’m not interested in a relationship with someone who will judge me based on an algorithm.

A party is indeed the time and place where no jokes are made ever, no alcohol is involved, no cheesy flirting techniques occur, and everything is meant a 100% seriously always.

Good point. I would have had to be there to see what the mood was like. She could have been funny as hell, and I’m just not picking it up from this tweet.

Edit: I just watched the video. It’s only about 8 minutes long. A great combination of funny and interesting. Recommended!

The algorithm sucks anyway. I have to clear my cookies every couple days because all my recommendations starts to turn into weird manosphere stuff and DBZ videos. Sprinkled with a small amount of shit from channels I have watched recently.

I’ve found that being really aggressive with my not interested/do not recommends keeps it down (but not absent). In my case I assume they pop up because I like watching history and gaming videos, even though I go out of my way to avoid anyone who’s dog whistle-y or chuddy.

The topic and creator based clustering of multiple interests will pollute that anyway, because they don't care about precision and just care about keeping your attention

What is the reason for these two things to get grouped up and shoved down my feed? I'm a life long and very public activist for medical financial aid programs, public housing, sexual wellness, free kindergarten, hot meals, direct aid, take back the night, ada accomodations, needle exchanges, loan forgiveness, and just about every humane cause I know of. My viewing history is about as antithetical to Tate's small dick energy as I can imagine and the anime I watch is more likely to be weird surreal stuff like Tengoku Daimakyou than some 50th year of dragon Ball

How does my feed switch from normal shorts to the incel only feed?!

At best it's because there's just a shitload of other people that are into that stuff no matter what else they're watching so everything ends up associated with it. At worst Youtube specifically funnels people to that kind of content.

Clustering algorithms plus a focus on keeping your attention (watch time), not on quality

I wish I knew what I was doing because I very rarely get that stuff, unless I go to Shorts. Then that crap shows up in both the Shorts and my recommendations. After ignoring them for a couple days they go away and stay away as long as I also avoid Shorts... So maybe that's the key?

Hey this person likes anime and political subjects. You know what audience also likes these things, and is most likely to watch/click ads? Manosphere, incel, altright, losers! Recommend some Andrew Tate and Lotus Eaters.

Right wing propaganda receives heavy financial backing.

Wait you also watch DBZ highlights and wonder what super Saiyan Piccolo would have looked like? 😍

No. So why do they keep coming up to me? Nothing against DBZ btw.

It's giving you what your heart secretly wants and that's useless DBZ facts. Accept our Lord and Savior Goku.

The last time I saw a DBZ episode there was only one set of dragon balls and the animation was 8-12 frames a second. Now it seems like everyone is immortal, there is a multiverse, and Goku can clown on actual gods for the lols.

Why do so many people on Lemmy take things way too seriously

This is clearly meant to be a small tease for fun, and you're telling them to fuck off lol

No context. What seems obvious to one person doesn’t come across that way to another. Plus, this is the internet. We see too many people who would do this seriously.

Most of my browser history, youtube and podcast recommendations etc. are benign.

My fear is when they ask the question "when does VR Porn become cheating?" Because I don't think anyone can answer that one honestly and the way one would expect.

Like my brain would say "when you can smell it" but that leads down a lot of other questions that scare me.

IMO if you ever ask someone whether porn is cheating, you should probably be put into an asylum and studied, because i cannot for the life of me figure out why someone would give a shit, unless it's a shared mutual agreement between two parties, in which case, you probably wouldn't ask that question.

It's almost as insane as asking whether or not touching your dick counts as masturbation or not.

“when does VR Porn become cheating?”

The same point anything else does. It's when you're getting involved with another person and your partner is not cool with that. If you're just consuming media it's not cheating.

Not even the wackiest scenario he's done.

Bro legit took this one incredibly seriously and talked about the consequences of having to explain sudden freak accident deaths to pre-schoolers and how conspiracy theories would proliferate about Reagan being responsible because supposedly he had pushed for the launch to stay on schedule even when issues came up because the plan was for him to make s phone call to the crew of the ship from the SotU address that year.

Basically Reagan would go down in pop culture canon as being the man who murdered big bird, and whatever consequences that sprung from that would be the biggest shift vs present timeline instead of the obvious fact that big bird would be canonically dead since all the normal viewers would have seen him go up in a fireball and die.

Nah he's a bird,he could fly on outta there. A little singed, maybe, if he dawdled

So what you are saying is that we would have flying cars and free healthcare if Big Bird had died in the Space Shuttle?

I'm so happy to be out of the dating phase of my life. I wouldn't stand a chance with my tinfoil hat settings like deactivated recommendations, ad- and js-blocking and auto-deleting all cookies when closing a tab.

What do you mean women don't like a FOSS privacy-oriented user experience? Don't they like going through 500 pages of documentation when Gentoo breaks only to realize all along that the problem was fixed by turning the computer off and on again?

What do you mean men don't like that either?? What kind of place is this?!

auto-deleting all cookies when closing a tab.

You know, I would never use auto-delete cookies because I want to stay logged into sites. However I do wish there was an extension or something that would delete all cookies except for manually whitelisted sites. Then random news websites wouldn't be able to easily track all my visits, but I could stay logged into sites.

What you want is a feature that all Firefox based browser have. I am not sure about chromium based but ik that brave also have it.

Librewolf has this built in.

Any guide on how to enable this feature?

In Firefox or any browser based on it:
Open settings > Privacy & Security
Under "Cookies and Site Data" check the box. For exceptions click the "Manage Exceptions..." on the right.

Works great. Just wish it had an "export" button for the list so you could transfer the list between new installs/reinstalls

On Librewolf the default is all cookies get cleared. When you go to a site you want to save cookies for, you can easily add it to the whitelist by clicking the lock icon in the URL bar and toggling on the "Keep cookies" option.

It turns out it’s harder to meet a privacy-conscious partner but they really do exist in large numbers. Back in my day the dating scene for this type was the weed dealer’s house/apartment, but now that it’s legal I don’t know what the replacement is. Probably ren fairs or lighter hobbies like kite flying meetups lol.

Why deactivate recommendations instead of being logged into YouTube using an email that exists only for the YT account?

Because it does nothing for privacy?

But if it is collecting data on how to recommend video just to the account that is only used for YT, it seems like it is well partitioned.

mine is half science and half whatever video game im trying to play so currently elden ring

mine is

Your watch history is off

You can change your setting at any time to get the latest videos tailored to you. Learn more

Same. If I go on a desktop browser sometimes it tries to trick me into re-enableing the history too.

I have it that way on desktop and just changed my setting on mobile, I didn't know I could do that without logging in. On desktop YT keeps watch history even if you tell YT not to, recommendations being relevant gives it away.

I have ADHD.

someone opens my Youtube as a litmus test

"So we pray unto the holy beings that this child may not lose their way. For which many forsaken paths they may tred, nor what trends they may trod upon, that they alight on lightened road and partake only within golden rays."

"Also, just, like...ignore that 3am Pokemon rabbit ahem hole I went down when overtired."

My kids use my account.

So mine is a quarter space, a quarter MTG, and half Minecraft.

Hey man my kids use my YouTube, and my oldest likes space videos too.

"I only watch youtube through libretube, invidious and freetube"

Probably its own kind of red flag.

I'm glad I'm old enough where I can actively pretend like I don't know how to use technology.

Like I was at a bar, and some weirdo asked if I was on Facebook and I shrugged and said I don't understand technology and they go, "Totally makes sense at your age!"

I'd definitely lose interest in a conversation with someone who responded with that.

They're bad enough online.

Smart people?

Maybe smart people, but definitely someone who have probably won't shut up about one of the following topics:

  1. Linux

  2. Anti corpo

  3. Ads on websites

None of these are bad or unpopular things, mind you.

It's just a sign of someone shifted a liiiittle more extremist.

They'll probably nag at you to leave reddit to join their weird website called Lemmy. Maybe insist you use their to a Plex open source jellyfin server that only works 2/3 of the time.

Of_course_i_know_him_hes_me.jpg

Hmmm I wonder what this say about me.

I watched this video because of you

It was interesting 👀

Made me want to taste test myself, am I doomed?

I dont think so. I shared this pic in a discord and literally seconds after a couple dudes started asking about the results of that test. I guess we all wonder that because I dont think the percentage of population using flavoured condoms is that high.

I actually have YouTube history turned off and rarely if ever watch something that I'm not subscribed to, namely, a maths nerd, two tech channels, some musical people and the guy who makes sausages.

Similar here. I don't trust the algorithm and I'm not interested in outsourcing my attention and thinking to it.

The guy who makes sausages might be my favorite channel and I feel slightly deranged for it.

....also I hope we're talking about the same sausageman. But really how many can there be?

I'm not logged in because I don't want any suggestions! I'm using ReVanced of course.

It took me until your comment to realize i can take back control of my feed.

And the required: "nice" for the 69.

You're correct. Judging people based on an algorithm your have no way of knowing is indeed a red flag ma'am.

I think if I was a woman and I saw that a potential mate's recommended was full of *ndrew t*int videos or similar, I would take it exactly as that: a red flag. Not an immediate condemnation but a sign that something MIGHT be wrong. It could be that they're watching the videos with a critical mindset, or the algorithm is just doing some wonky shit, but I would probe further just to make sure that they aren't a raging misogynist

Yeah I'll eat crow on that. Tate is in my thumbnails because I'm probably just a little too deep into politics. Maybe not a red flag as much as a bore flag.

So.. what would happen?

I know you watched.

The biggest thing is that all the Muppets on Sesame Street canonically exist in the same world as us at the same speed as us. One week for us is one week for them. If Big Bird died in real life, he would also die in the show. Which would be a problem, since at the time he was the de facto audience insert and was as popular as Elmo is now. It would also definitely cause tone issues which patents might not like. Imagine if Elmo died and Big Bird had to try to explain to Zoe that her best friend wasnt coming back. Or imagine her bringing Rocco to the funeral.

Next time I talk to a girl at a party, I'm gonna ask to see her browser history "because it's a good test for red flags." Judging someone by what they watch or read is stupid. Judging someone by what YT thinks they would like to watch is even worse. I know this is completely besides the point, and it is just a meme, but judgy behavior like that irks me.

I think the question is rather forward for a girl you just met at a party, but at the same time I think someone's youtube recommendations would be a good indicator of some obvious red flags that someone may want to consciously hide from a prospective partner. For example, if someone's feed is full of alt right/joe rogan/incel crap, or for women, full of FDS crap, you're damn right I'm gonna judge.

How do you feel about gregorian chant remixes of popular children's rhymes?

I think being interested in your own weird little niches is wonderful.

That's a judgement too btw, but a positive one.

I can definitely see the point if it's literally all there is in the feed, but if you just watch things from people you disagree with from time to time, and the algorithm picks up on it, there's bound to be a few things in your feed that might "look bad" if they are used to draw conclusions about your worldview from someone who doesn't know you.

I don't think anyone is really trying to divine the true essence of your soul via youtube. It's a conversation starter.

I don't think etiher is implied here, but sure, I suppose it can be a conversation starter.

My red flag would be telling her “fuck off creepy stranger”

It's not. I spend too much time vetting and blocking right wing channels despite never watching any while logged in.

I usually binge a specific channel in a new subject then youtube blasts me with whatever they think will engage me the most and it's always the trashiest content. Big red arrows, all caps, surprised faces, misleading thumbnails.

I once left a live stream open when I went to bed and the next day, I had train videos on my recommendations. They had raided into a train live stream.

I have watch history turned off precisely to avoid getting personal recommendations because they have always sucked for me

Pseudo-Spirituality is a good thing to look out for

The amount of guys who think the seventh principle of Hermeticism is a reason to be a sexist dick...

Edit: For the record, it's gender. The idea that Gender must be kept in balance.. I've actually seen incels say that they don't get laid because they let too much "Feminine energy" into their lives, and they need to "Man up" and "Reject these new fangled woke ideals"

The Seventh Principle is keeping Gender in balance WITHIN YOURSELF, embracing both your masculine and feminine traits. As an occultist it just pisses me off when I see fucking these pseudo-spiritual dickbags qouting the Seventh Principle to do the OPPOSITE and just double down on being toxic edgelords.

It's almost worse then the white girls who claim to be an expert on life after death because they had glow-in-the-dark star stickers on their ceiling as a kid.

Jokes on her I use PipePipe without signing in...I have no recommendations.

Er, this is mine.

I got a new Raycevick video and Engineering Explained video about F1. I am happy with this

I watched the sub one already, great recommendation to lose some minutes of time on

I don't watch YouTube on mobile, this app is an ancient Vanced version that doesn't even work, and newpipe hasn't worked for me recently either. If there is a YT vid I absolutely have to watch on mobile I rawdog it in Firefox with ubp

Newpipe has hat two major fixes to account for yt changing the way it served videos. Wasn't working for a few weeks for me either but since 1-2 weeks ago it's reliably working again. So, maybe try and update to the newest version now to check if it works again if you are interested in using it.

YT App patched with revanced still works for me, and the app uses less battery for me than the browser version. Privacy wise, the browser is presumably better, though.

My home page looks the same either way, though.

we love a good alternate history hub video.

Although if that were my recommendations they would be let down because i turned them off. You can't one up me, i am simply one step ahead of you.

I use NewPipe so there's no recommendations there.

Really open the eyes on the shot algo shoves into your face sometimes.

Fucking creeps.

Here's mine, not sure if shorts count, so here's shorts and the first normal video. 1000010760

1000010761

Family guy is a red flag, but American high shorts pulls it back if you are under 30

I'm 33, and family guy can be fucking hilarious if you're stoned. Watch a few and now my feed is borked from em. Lol

I mean we all know about his super power

::: spoiler Tap for spoiler Teleportation jutsu :::

Well I wasn't planning on immediately letting you know I like retro electronics, but have at it

My first recommendation is from that Townsend YouTube channel where the guy dresses up like it's 1776 and cooks food from that time period with a funny authentic 1776 kitchen and cookware

You guys watch more than the occasional video in an article or so?

I don't watch TV, YouTube or alternatives filling that gap in for me (so in short, yes, a lot more)

I use it mostly for background noise and the occasional video of interest.