How to de-radicalize my mom's youtube algorithm?
How to de-radicalize my mom's youtube algorithm?
She's almost 70, spend all day watching q-anon style of videos (but in Spanish) and every day she's anguished about something new, last week was asking us to start digging a nuclear shelter because Russia was dropped a nuclear bomb over Ukraine. Before that she was begging us to install reinforced doors because the indigenous population were about to invade the cities and kill everyone with poisonous arrows. I have access to her YouTube account and I'm trying to unsubscribe and report the videos, but the reccomended videos keep feeding her more crazy shit.
You're viewing a single thread.
I've found that if I remove things from my history, it stops suggesting related content, hopefully that helps.
That's what I do, but it requires doing it frequently, as for OP they should start fresh with a new profile which can be under the same login via channels.
Once you have it dialed you can disable your search/watch history.
Some of my personal hobbies/interests tend to appeal to the right wing tinfoil hat fringe (outdoorsy hunting/camping/survivalist stuff, ham radio, a casual interest in guns, and I have a small libertarian streak although I'd generally call myself a liberal these days, etc.) So left unchecked the algorithm will show me some crazy stuff. It used to happen to me occasionally that while I was googling around for info and reviews on some piece of kit I'd be clicking into different forums to see people discussing them then I'd realize at some point that I was on the stormfront forums (and immediately nope the fuck out of there) usually it would be a totally normal conversation of people discussing a ham radio or gun or whatever until halfway down the page someone would drop a comment like "in my opinion, every nationalist should own one of these"
So my YouTube history has been paused for years, probably since well before trump and q anon and everything really took off, and frankly I've been happy with my recommendations. I haven't looked too much into how those recommendations are determined now but it seems to mostly be based on what channels I'm subscribed to.
There is definitely more going into it though, because I get a lot of recommendations about the breed of dog I have despite not subscribing to any dog-related channels, so it's definitely pulling from the rest of my Google search history or social media or something, or secretly keeping track of my history a little in the background somewhere, so you'll probably have to do some pruning in the rest of her online accounts too.
Some things just completely skew your home page with just a single viewing. I am very careful with my watch history, only watching one off stuff from other sites in a private window. That seems to work well.
That was something I tried tried today, deleted the YouTube history and paused it. It didn't had immediately effects, but hope it helps on something.
Another thing that I'd consider doing is to unpause her history a bit, put YouTube to play a few videos about other stuff (topics that she'd watch, based on her tastes, minus the q-anon junk), then pause it again. This might tell youtube "I want to watch this".
Side note: that's how mainstream media is making every single one of us flat and single-minded. So you watched X? Onwards you shall see X nonstop.
I fucking hate this.
I got a new phone recently and wanted to watch some videos on recommend cases and screen protectors, and now 70% of my scrolling feed is related to this God damn phone.
I own it already youtube, I don't need to see any more content on this phone, ffs
I had a similar case. I watch a video about a former jewle thif or bank rober analys the GTA5 Jewel store hist. After that I was getting recommended to watch every single one of his vlog where he was talk about how life in prison was. It went on for about a few weeks but it eventually stopped as I never clicked on them.
you can also go here: https://myactivity.google.com/product/youtube and set it to auto delete
Thanks, going to check that too.
I would not pause the history, i would populate the history with balanced contents and then (if you feel like your mother will actively look for radicalized content) pause it.
So that the algorithm will have something"balanced" to work on.
Re not acting immediately: per GDPR they can't keep deleted data on your activity more than a few months (and probably they do before the deadline)
Delete also the search history. After that, search non toxic topics, like live shows of her favourite artists, recipes, nature documentaries...
Video likes have an effect on the algorithm. If she has lots of liked videos, delete them. Any playlists she made would influence the algorithm too.
Not sure if video feedback data gets used, but you can clear them too. I’m talking about those “What did you think of this video?”, “Please tell us more” questions.
Edit: I’m not entirely sure if there is an option to delete the “likes”. You might have to manually “unlike” them.