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Mozilla Youtube

Mozilla: YouTube's Dislike Button Largely Fails To Stop Unwanted Recommendations (mozilla.org) 75

Posted by BeauHD from the functionless-buttons dept.
AmiMoJo shares a report from the Mozilla Foundation: YouTube's user controls -- buttons like "Dislike " and "Not interested" -- largely fail to help users avoid unwanted recommendations like misinformation and violent content, according to new research by Mozilla. An accompanying survey also found that YouTube's controls routinely frustrate and confuse users. Indeed, Mozilla's research found that people who are experiencing unwanted recommendations and turn to the platform's user controls for assistance prevent less than half of unwanted recommendations.

This is especially troubling because Mozilla's past research shows that YouTube recommends videos that violate its very own community guidelines, like misinformation, violent content, hate speech, and spam. For example, one user in this most recent research asked YouTube to stop recommending war footage from Ukraine -- but shortly after was recommended even more grisly content from the region. The study, titled "Does This Button Work? Investigating YouTube's ineffective user controls" is the culmination of months of rigorous qualitative and quantitative research. The study was made possible by the data of more than 20,000 participants who used Mozilla's RegretsReporter browser extension, and by data about more than 500 million YouTube videos. These are the top findings, as highlighted in the report: People don't trust YouTube's user controls. More than a third (39.3%) of people surveyed felt YouTube's user controls did not impact their recommendations at all, and 23% felt the controls had a mixed response. Said one interviewee: "Nothing changed. Sometimes I would report things as misleading and spam and the next day it was back in [...] Even when you block certain sources they eventually return."

People take matters into their own hands. Our study found that people did not always understand how YouTube's controls affect their recommendations, and so took a jury rigged approach instead. People will log out, create new accounts, or use privacy tools just to manage their YouTube recommendations. Said one user: "When the Superbowl came around ... if someone recommended a particular commercial, I used to log out of YouTube, watch the commercial, and then log back in."

The data confirms people are right. The most "effective" user control was "Don't recommend channel," but compared to users who do not make use of YouTube's user controls, only 43% of unwanted recommendations are prevented -- and recommendations from the unwanted channel sometimes persist. Other controls were even less effective: The "Not Interested" tool prevented only 11% of unwanted recommendations.

YouTube can fix this problem. YouTube has the power to confront this issue and do a better job at enabling people to control their recommendations. Our research outlines several concrete suggestions to put people back into the driver's seat, like making YouTube's controls more proactive, allowing users to shape their own experience; and giving researchers increased access to YouTube's API and other tools. Further reading: YouTube Targets TikTok With Revenue Sharing For Shorts, Partner Program Expansion
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Mozilla: YouTube's Dislike Button Largely Fails To Stop Unwanted Recommendations More

Mozilla: YouTube's Dislike Button Largely Fails To Stop Unwanted Recommendations

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  • largely fail to help users avoid unwanted recommendations like misinformation and violent content

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

    • Re: Weasel words...subjective reasoning...pure bia (Score:4, Interesting)

      by NagrothAgain ( 4130865 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @08:20PM (#62903359)
      "I keep leaving angry commentary on these videos before I hit dislike. Why do I keep getting them???" Well, because interacting with a video is a stronger signal than hitting the dislike button. Fact is, you WANT to see those videos because it gives you a reason to be angry.
      • I don't agree with that. I don't like being angry. It's stressful and often leads to poor outcomes because my judgment is compromised. Maybe some people enjoy being angry, but at the very least you are making a generalization here. Me leaving an angry comment on a video I don't like does not mean I want to see more of it, it means I'm angry. I've actually cut several sources of anger out of my life altogether, like certain kinds of multiplayer games; I wouldn't do this if I wanted to be angry.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by flink ( 18449 )

        If you interact with the video at all, including disliking it, it will count as "engagement" and both up the video's rank in recommendation and possibly cause you to see more videos on that topic. Youtube doesn't care if you are hate watching: as long as you are watching, the ads keep rolling, and the money faucet stays on. Some Youtubers even encourage you to leave a dislike if you didn't like the content because they know it helps their "engagement" rank.

    • Re:Weasel words...subjective reasoning...pure bias (Score:5, Funny)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 ) on Thursday September 22, 2022 @09:00AM (#62904403) Homepage

      I just want the thing to stop recommending country music. I watch one video about a squirrel in a church and now I'm a conway twitty fan. Please make it stop!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by narcc ( 412956 )

        On any given video, if you hover your mouse near the lower right, just below the thumbnail, three white vertical dots should appear. Clicking those should bring up a menu with options like "Not Interested" and "Don't Recommend This Channel". It might take a bit, but they'll get the hint.

  • Viewers are the product, not customers of YT (Score:5, Interesting)

    by khchung ( 462899 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @08:01PM (#62903319) Journal

    I think Mozilla forgot that viewers are not customers of YouTube, they are the product which YouTube sells to advertisers.

    Viewers complaining YT recommending things they don't like is like the sheep complaining feedstock tastes bad, it aint going to change anything.

    What would make YT change is when it affects their profits, and as long as you are still watching YT, nothing will change.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @08:57PM (#62903457)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • You mean like all broadcast TV and radio for the last 70 years and most cable?

        Like broadcast TV and radio wishes it could be if only it was customized just for you. Reaching each individual sheep directly is much more effective than addressing the whole herd at once.

      • You mean like all broadcast TV and radio for the last 70 years and most cable?

        I'd say it's quite a bit worse than that, since the YT dealer is still slinging that shit for free.

        I don't recall every kid walking around with a radio in their back pocket in high school. Nor did they carry a TV with them into the shitter every time.

        And dammit, back in my day, we had to hike deep into the woods for softcore porn. Bunch of lazy jerk-offs these days, I tell ya.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      People can simply close YouTube if they don't like it. Obviously that's bad for YouTube, because then they won't be watching ads. So YouTube is very much concerned about providing an engaging user experience.

      There's also the issue of terrorism. When you have actual mass murderers telling people to "subscribe to PewDiePie" it kinda looks bad for YouTube, and makes advertisers reconsider their association.

      At the very least advertisers don't want to be shown beside white supremacy videos, so failure to demonet

      • How is it bad for YouTube if a mass murderer tells people to subscribe to PewDiePie? What mass murderer are you talking about? PewDiePie is one of the most popular channels on YouTube. What's so shocking about anyone recommending it? If a bad person likes McDonald's fries, am I not allowed to like them too? This is such a strange line of reasoning.

        • Re: Viewers are the product, not customers of YT (Score:4, Interesting)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday September 22, 2022 @06:19AM (#62904143) Homepage Journal

          That white supremacist terrorist who murdered a load of people in Christchurch, while live streaming it to Facebook, told subscribers to "subscribe to PewDiePie". The reason being that other white supremacists have used the fact that PewDiePie occasionally makes off-colour jokes, and mimicking his style of videos, to create a pipeline from his content to theirs. The algorithm helps drive people who subscribe to his channel to their "soft" videos, stuff like Prager U and the more presentable right wing commentators. From there it's just a few clicks away to the more extreme stuff.

          Obviously this makes YouTube look bad, and advertisers reconsider if they want to be associated with those kinds of videos.

    • Viewers complaining YT recommending things they don't like is like the sheep complaining feedstock tastes bad, it aint going to change anything.

      You are not wrong in the least. However, the government is concerned about this issue when it comes to misinformation and violent content in particular and they have the power to invoke change. I'm not saying they will, I'm saying that the study still has value.

  • When i click dont recommend channel its because the channel is usually toxic. When i click "don't recommend video", i want that particular video to stop showing in my recommended feed. If i clicked "dont recommend video" on a covid denial video, and it stopped recommending ALL COVID related videos, that would be bad. Tags are a thing, the algorithm isn't that hard to figure out. Youtube tags videos with simple topics, like gameing, PC hardware, "name of brand here" etc. Curate your interests, don't share

    • Re:Working as intended (Score:4)

      by Catvid-22 ( 9314307 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @08:37PM (#62903419)
      Or how about just stop passively watching YouTube? Search for the stuff you want, preferably using a third party search engine. Then bookmark the channels that you really like.

      • I've noticed that the Bing search engine works surprisingly well for finding video. YMMV.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by The_Noid ( 28819 )

        Exactly. And then bookmark www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions
        It's the only youtube URL you need.
        It contains all videos from your subscribed channels, in chronological order. And only the videos from your subscribed channels. No AI, No broken logic.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Briareos ( 21163 )

          ^ This. So very much this.

          Also, if you're about to follow a random YouTube link someone posted, open it in a private browsing window first - that way YouTube will have a hard time using it to recommend unwanted stuff to you.

      • Then bookmark the channels that you really like.

        What we need is some form of subscription system. Which we would have and can work perfectly fine passively if it wasn't f-ing broken by Youtube's algorithm.

    • Curate your interests, don't share your account with wifey-looks-at-makeup-tutorials-and-hatespeech and you are golden.

      Now we see the down side of the trophy wife.

  • The point is to get and keep your attention (Score:4, Funny)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @08:04PM (#62903333)
    not to have better recommendations. It's about engagement. So you're not tuning it out but instead noticing the advertisements.

    • I would probably be more attentive if Youtube didn't recommend to me solutions to problems I got rid of months ago when I watched a single video about the issue. Jesus, one video about installing pipework and Youtube seems to think I want to have a career change to be a plumber.

      They can sell plenty of advertisements from the channels I'm subscribed to. Just put those in my feed instead. I don't have a plumbing fetish.

  • I stopped going on YT regularly back in 2017 because it had just become a mess. Ads everywhere, most of the content being pushed by them was political & incendiary and all the uploads were by "creators" who were looking for a quick way into stardom.

    I think they should go back to their roots and take a lesson from Google's enterprise offerings. Offer industry specific solutions from adjacent industries such as e-Learning, Medical Imaging etc that are able to pay for the consumer version of the product,

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Find some channels you like and subscribe to them. Occasionally browse the recommendations, but mostly stick to channels you know are good. You will find that the algorithm slowly learns that you aren't a neo-Nazi and starts making better suggestions, but even then you have to be careful not to click on the wrong thing because it will go nuts the moment it thinks it has found a new interest for you.

      There are lots of good channels out there. Adrian's Digital Basement for retro computer repairs, and The 8 Bit

    • YouTube is always pushing their premium service that removes ads. I wonder if their algorithm works differently for subscribers since it is no longer in their interest to get you to watch as much as possible.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Askmum ( 1038780 )
      You can use Brave [brave.com] as an alternative to remove the ads. The rest still remains a mess, I have no solution for that.

  • There is an about:config setting to prevent Firefox from loading a new page on every new version. So I set that setting and then Firefox reverted it on upgrade.

    Firefox on Linux doesn't let you set scrollbar width, citing CSS control over that element. But on Windows, you can.

    In the old plugin model, extensions could write to disk. Therefore you could save a webpage as displayed, with edits from other extensions and such. Pocket doesn't do that. They spent $20M on Pocket, which is a tool for keeping track of

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ded Bob ( 67043 )

      There is an about:config setting to prevent Firefox from loading a new page on every new version. So I set that setting and then Firefox reverted it on upgrade.

      Have you tried making a setting in user.js in the profile directory to force it every time you start Firefox? Check out the arkenfox link at the bottom of my post.

      Firefox on Linux doesn't let you set scrollbar width, citing CSS control over that element. But on Windows, you can.

      Try setting:
      - widget.gtk.overlay-scrollbars.enabled to false
      - widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.size.override to the size you want

      In the old plugin model, extensions could write to disk. Therefore you could save a webpage as displayed, with edits from other extensions and such. Pocket doesn't do that. They spent $20M on Pocket, which is a tool for keeping track of what webpages users find important. Mozilla is now a PII-harvesting organization that generates unwanted page loads in order to collect your information.

      I cannot help you there. Pocket is one of the first things disabled for me.

      You should take a gander at https://github.com/arkenfox/us... [github.com] to minimize the junk in Firefox.

  • Block an entire channel and I would be so much happier. I am sick to my stomach of having leftist propaganda being recommended to me. I never ever watch it, can't you idiots at YT figure that out?

    • Google experimented with custom search results where you could block domains from ever appearing, then they stopped doing that because (I presume) their metrics showed that it led to less clicks that produced ad revenue.

      Google is not going to make decisions which are not in its best interest, except for the short-sighted ones like when they invest in a project and then murder it prematurely.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nasch ( 598556 )

      Three vertical dots -> Don't recommend channel

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • My most effective tool (Score:3)

    by Mononymous ( 6156676 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @09:13PM (#62903485)

    I don't allow cookies from YouTube.
    It's interesting to see how the videos on the homepage change during a session.
    After I close Firefox and re-open it, YouTube is back to normal.

    • YouTube is back to normal.

      So your homepage is full of absolutely meaningless junk... not much of an improvement.

  • What actually works is going to https://www.youtube.com/feed/h... [youtube.com] , and deleting anything that could be causing YouTube to make unwanted suggestions.

  • I have always assumed the dislike button was a dummy button - it registers that you pressed it, but it has absolutely no other effect on anything.

    • Arthur Dent: What happens if I press this button?
      Ford Prefect: I wouldn't-
      Arthur Dent: Oh.
      Ford Prefect: What happened?
      Arthur Dent: A sign lit up, saying 'Please do not press this button again.

  • Dislike means you didn't like that video. No action taken except your vote is registered and shared with the uploader

    Not interested means you would not like this video to appear in your recommendations in future.

    That's it. That's what they do and have always done.

    There's a dropdown button on vids called "Don't recommend channel" that does exactly what it says

    • The problem is that the "not interested" and "don't recommend this channel" options only show up like 10% of the time for me, if even that.

    • Besides sharing with the uploader, other viewers could see how many of the other viewers liked versus disliked the content. I thought it was a great idea, that I would quickly skip videos recommended to me but were weakly voted. This may not work for political content -that I usually dont watch- but worked very well for scientific/techical content. Apparently it was not a great idea for Google, that we as viewers acted as a whole and influenced others. Now the recommendation algorithm is the only boss.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Dislike button is still there. What's not there is the dislike COUNT.

        You can dislike a video just fine. You just don't see without extensions) what the count or ratio of like to dislike is.

        Anyhow, it turns out the dislike button doesn't do anything for the algorithm - a disliked video doesn't affect how its recommended to people. LIked videos yes, disliked videos no.

        The only thing the dislike button did was increment a counter, and adjust your engagement statistics - if you clicked the dislike button, you'r

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Askmum ( 1038780 )
          So the only thing the dislike button was good for was to give the viewer a means to decide the video was crap or not (because Youtube did not do that). And they took that away.

          It's nice that you correct the previous commenter, but the message of his comment is still valid: they took a meaningful tool away from the users. Like we always knew, the reasons they gave for removing the dislike button were bogus and doing it was only to fuck the viewers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Askmum ( 1038780 )

      Not interested means you would not like this video to appear in your recommendations in future.

      That's it. That's what they do and have always done.

      There's a dropdown button on vids called "Don't recommend channel" that does exactly what it says

      Nope. On multiple occasions I have clicked the "not interested" button and the same video showed up in the recommended list later. Last weekend I got a number of random shitposters in the recommended list and used "Don't recommend channel" on them. Guess what. One day later they showed up again.

  • Don't use Youtube (as a content recommender). Problem solved.

  • I've noticed something weird with the Youtube recommendation system. I don't use YT much, only to discover new music every once in a while. For the past 5 (?) years there's always been the same one music video in the right recommendation panel, usually in the 1st 3, no matter what I'm watching. After about a year I decided to watch it thinking it'd go away, but it is still there. I doesn't happen with any other videos.
    BTW, it is Kent's Da Som Nu For Alltid, and it's pretty good, but still, a symptom of a

  • They are all the same, in fact, Facebook is a lot worse. It is really pushing the video stream tab, and the videos are all exploitative, fake, full of misinformation, and down a rabbit hole within a few clicks.

    Youtube is still one of the best systems out there. At least it has some decent content, which does not seem to be true for Facebook. But you always have to watch out for the rabbit holes.

    I assume that Youtube counts the dislike button as an interaction, which is more than apathy. So I am not surprise

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Askmum ( 1038780 )

      Youtube is still one of the best systems out there.

      That helps in the sense that the NSDAP was still one of the best nazi parties out there.

      Oops, Godwin called.

  • Casey Neistat, MrBeast, and Rick Beato - Youtube will recommend these people no matter what. You cannot block them. These people have friends or family inside making sure they have multiple videos on everyone's front page no matter what. It is so obvious. I have never watched any of these people, and never will, and the recommendations will never stop. Lets just call it CaseyNeistatTube.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nasch ( 598556 )

      I have never gotten a recommendation for Casey Neistat or MrBeast that I recall. Certainly not on a regular basis. I have for Rick Beato, and it has been relevant to other videos I've watched.

    • Never had them recced to me once...well I vaguely remember once way back I think I saw mrbeast a single time. Get friends with better taste.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Askmum ( 1038780 )
      Never received one recommendation for any of them. So apparently there is some kind of algorithm there.

      Of maybe I have and it slipped beyond my event horizon and the "do not recommend channel" actually worked. No, that can't be.

  • Wow! (Score:2)

    by xenog ( 3653043 )
    First world problems.

  • Firefox addons for YouTube (Score:3)

    by Bobtree ( 105901 ) on Thursday September 22, 2022 @08:07AM (#62904305)

    Blocktube to block channels and videos:
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]

    Watchmarker to grey-out already seen videos:
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]

    Enhancer for quality of life tweaks:
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]

    uBlock Origin for ad blocking:
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]

  • I can't even force a 480p playback resolution (slower connection, older hardware), it always goes back to "Auto 480p" instead, and if I make the mistake of toggling into full-screen, it always tries to play back at 720p, which nearly freezes my computer - it takes about 15 seconds before I can get any control back.

    Also, the "don't recommend" isn't even always there and YouTube keeps suggesting crap I absolutely hate, or YouTubers I watched once (and hated) and now they keep showing videos by them. I downvot

  • It is "you were engaged" button. Same logic as posting comments, liking or disliking videos. Hence more content to entertain you.

    Reporting compromised accounts does not work too. They keep posting more forged videos days and weeks after report.

  • A big issue here is that not only do ppl not understand (and, reasonably, most ppl will never want to waste the time to learn) the rec system but there are also lots of accidental votes. Oops, forgot I was watching on my wife's laptop. Ppl's kids hit them and I'm clicking things by accident on YouTube all the time.

    Given that, the big problem with highly sticky recs is that lots of ppl will end up being locked out of content they would like to watch with no way to realize or fix the problem. You can go t

  • So I get that it's about ad sales and totally see reasons not to strongly avoid disliked subjects given risks of mistakes etc (and could care less about it...I'll just not watch the vids I don't like) but why isnt the algorithm way better at positively recommending me videos? I stop watching all the time bc of this frustration.

    I know it's possible to do alot better using modern ml methods so why don't they? Why do so few signals seem to matter (eg no apparent negative effect of presenting and getting igno

  • The buttons work fine. The algorithm is pretty effective.
    I would love more fined grain control sometimes, but I understand why they do not allow use to manually modify our keywords. I think the one control we lack is stop recommending this specific video over and over again. Because sometimes I love a channel, but I have a specific reason not to watch a specific video I keep getting recommended for a week, like I already watched it or this content does not interest me.

    Also the dislike button is not for tell

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Askmum ( 1038780 )
      You are probably the only one it works for.

      Maybe what bothers me the most is that I get a whole page of recommendations, don't watch any of them (that should give a message, no?) and when I refresh the page, it is 90% the same videos. NO! I AM NOT INTERESTED IN THEM!

  • YouTube has the power to confront this issue and do a better job at enabling people to control their recommendations.

    Sure. But do you think they will? 39.3% of users think they won't.

    Last weekend, Youtube was behaving particularly bad. I got recommened lots of videos that I had watched before (like at one point 25% of recommended videos were from one channel I was subscribed to, hadn't posted in 2 years and I had watched all videos before), it did not show the red line that I'd watched the videos and I

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