Here's how content should show up on the recommended sidebars and front page.
If you click like on something.
That's the only thing that should move the needle. If the only thing I ever clicked like on was a single vaporwave video 2 years ago, then my feed and recommended should be entirely vaporwave videos even if I've clicked on 1000 videos in the 2 years since.
If I type up to see what happened to the guy from Linus Tech Tips who trooned out, out of morbid curiosity, and click on Anthony's dead channel, just out of that desire to see a trainwreck, that doesn't mean, youtube, that I'm interested in "the study of trans-ness" or "my coming out story" from other people.
If I click on a leftist video, maybe it's because I want to laugh to myself at the absurd arguments. It doesn't make me a leftist. But if you were to click on a Vaush video out of masochistic self hatred, congratulations, now you're gonna get Destiny pop up in your feed and other woke people.
Again, Youtube, I'll TELL you what I actually like, by doing something I rarely do which is click the like button.
Every Youtube video you click carries with it an instant change to the front page and the recommended. It makes going "do I want to click this retarded crap" not worth it most of the time because you know it's going to influence whatever pops up in your home page. Clicking a video should be seen as meaningless. Only liking a video should tell Youtube, "show more of that".
it's not even just clicks anymore. mousing over a video will cause it to poison your algorithm. remember, Google is not in the business of showing you what you want to see. they are in the business of showing you what you will watch.
Same with twitter, just taking longer to read a tweet means the algorithm boosts more stuff like that to you.
It's all about engagement, that's why it will constantly show you ragebait if that's what gets you to interact with it longer.
Make sure you remove any videos from your history you just watch as a one off, keeps your algorithm clean.
I went on a spree last night of clicking "Don't recommend this channel" on every news station that came up.
talk shit or repeat some dumb shit once and I'll hit that. been doing this for 3 years now.
youtube actually finds videos with less than 100 views that are interesting and shows them to me again. it has no choice.
i also block channels like a motherfucker and i see this too, yeah. i'm very sure the last thing Google wants me to do is watch 100 view nobodies, so it feels a little like defeating the algorithm.
Or my favorite which is showing me the same video I watched months ago every fucking time I open the site until I explicitly tell it that I'm not interested in it
Yeah exactly!
Watch anything you don't want to risk poisoning your recommendations in a private tab.
Most of what I want to watch is suppressed/restricted. Besides, I just keep my Subscriptions page bookmarked and use that.
What's also great on desktop is that hovering over a video for too long counts as watching it, and the thumbnails are huge so I have to navigate like I'm playing a knockoff osu.
Yeah, that's why I have moved on to Greyjay (among other things)
I like SkyTube, fairly lightweight, can download videos, and the "feed" is literally just the latest videos from your subscriptions in chronological order. No algorithm, no BS.
The downside is very poor playlist functionality and sometimes you have to wait while they fix the tracker after youtube breaks it.
One of my biggest little black pills is that people have entire careers dedicated to making my life more difficult. Schizophrenia diagnosis aside, the amount of time and effort that goes into breaking things so that they are inconvenient enough to get people to give up and us mainstream options is insane. Imagine the heights humanity would reach if our effort wasn't so bogged down.
YouTube removed the "sort by upload date" option when you search for a topic. It's practically useless now. I search using yewtu.be even if the videos don't work 80% of the time. The old school style YouTube layout is way better.
The instagram algorithm is also fucked. If you watch videos all the way through, it starts showing you more like that. So far, so good.
If you don't interact with these new videos, though, it eventually stops showing you them and moves to adjacent topics.
I had an account where I followed no one. I was shown a couple comedians I liked and some tabletop stuff. For a while, my feed was just those items. But I didn't follow or like anything, so the specific comedians got cycled out and other comedians started showing up. The tabletop stuff became more broad and shifted to general "D&D/Warhammer culture" type reddit shit. Eventually, both converged on thots.
So I reset my recommendations. And the original, specific comedians came back in the feed! And it happened again. Then I stopped using instagram.
Make sure you are using the 3 dots to select "not interested"
It does help some