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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.

choquel ,

i dont know but im just glad youre alive bc the fish bumped you out of the water with its nose

MelonTheMan ,
@MelonTheMan@lemmy.world avatar

Great advice in here. Now, how do I de-radicalize my mom? :(

alphacyberranger ,
@alphacyberranger@lemmy.world avatar

I too faced this dilemma. So I uninstalled every ad blocker and made it very tedious videos. It kinda helped.

MrFagtron9000 ,

I had to log into my 84-year-old grandmother’s YouTube account and unsubscribe from a bunch of stuff, “Not interested” on a bunch of stuff, subscribed to more mainstream news sources… But it only works for a couple months.

The problem is the algorithm that values viewing time over anything else.

Watch a news clip from a real news source and then it recommends Fox News. Watch Fox News and then it recommends PragerU. Watch PragerU and then it recommends The Daily Wire. Watch that and then it recommends Steven Crowder. A couple years ago it would go even stupider than Crowder, she’d start getting those videos where it’s computer voice talking over stock footage about Hillary Clinton being arrested for being a demonic pedophile. Luckily most of those channels are banned at this point or at least the algorithm doesn’t recommend them.

I’ve thought about putting her into restricted mode, but I think that would be too obvious that I’m manipulating the strings in the background.

Then I thought she’s 84, she’s going to be dead in a few years, she doesn’t vote, does it really matter that she’s concerned about trans people trying to cut off little boy’s penises or thinks that Obama is wearing ankle monitor because he was arrested by the Trump administration or that aliens are visiting the Earth because she heard it on Joe Rogan?

luis123456 ,

I did the same thing, although putting some videos with other things will declutter the algorithm too

Jackolantern ,

Oof that’s hard!

You may want to try the following though to clear the algorithm up

Clear her YouTube watch history: This will reset the algorithm, getting rid of a lot of the data it uses to make recommendations. You can do this by going to “History” on the left menu, then clicking on “Clear All Watch History”.

Clear her YouTube search history: This is also part of the data YouTube uses for recommendations. You can do this from the same “History” page, by clicking “Clear All Search History”.

Change her ‘Ad personalization’ settings: This is found in her Google account settings. Turning off ad personalization will limit how much YouTube’s algorithms can target her based on her data.

Introduce diverse content: Once the histories are cleared, start watching a variety of non-political, non-conspiracy content that she might enjoy, like cooking shows, travel vlogs, or nature documentaries. This will help teach the algorithm new patterns.

Dislike, not just ignore, unwanted videos: If a video that isn’t to her taste pops up, make sure to click ‘dislike’. This will tell the algorithm not to recommend similar content in the future.

Manually curate her subscriptions: Unsubscribe from the channels she’s not interested in, and find some new ones that she might like. This directly influences what content YouTube will recommend.

ScaNtuRd ,

Migrate her over to a Federated alternative. No aggressive algorithms here

Relected ,
@Relected@lemmy.kya.moe avatar

delete the account, cookies, and refresh your router

Skullfurious ,

Wat

ilco ,

block youtube/facebook/and any social media . though dns .with pihole for the time being . and in the meantime try to reset her youtube(or delete and create new one -if she doesnt use gmail)

Ozymati ,
@Ozymati@lemmy.nz avatar

Log in as her on your device. Delete the history, turn off ad personalisation, unsubscribe and block dodgy stuff, like and subscribe healthier things, and this is the important part: keep coming back regularly to tell YouTube you don’t like any suggested videos that are down the qanon path/remove dodgy watched videos from her history.

Also, subscribe and interact with things she’ll like - cute pets, crafts, knitting, whatever she’s likely to watch more of. You can’t just block and report, you’ve gotta retrain the algorithm.

sergih123 ,

Yeah, when you go on the feed make sure to click on the 3 dots for every recommended video and “Don’t show content like this” and also “Block channel” because chances are, if they uploaded one of these stupid videos, their whole channel is full of them.

lingh0e ,

Would it help to start liking/subscribing to videos that specifically debunk those kinds of conspiracy videos? Or, at the very least, demonstrate rational concepts and critical thinking?

RGB3x3 ,

Probably not. This is an almost 70 year old who seems not to really think rationally in the first place. She’s easily convinced by emotional misinformation.

Probably just best to occupy her with harmless entertainment.

driving_crooner OP ,
@driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br avatar

We recommend her a youtube channel about linguistics and she didn’t like it because the Phd in linguistics was saying that is ok for language to change. Unfortunately, it comes a time when people just want to see what already confirms their worldview, and anything that challenges that is taken as an offense.

brainwashed ,

If she has no account maybe try to disable youtube from setting cookies. So shell start over every time.

ChameleonMan ,

She probably uses the TV app and doesn’t watch it on a PC

rustydrd ,

Could also help to deactivate the personalized advertising functionality in the Google/YouTube settings (basically wipe currently stored preference, the forbid YouTube from making suggestions based on your interests). This will keep her feed fairly generic (and bad, oh boy) so that she would have to actively search for or subscribe to these videos.

KeisukeTakatou ,

I just want to share my sympathies on how hard it must be when she goes and listens to those assholes on YouTube and believes them but won’t accept her family’s help telling her what bullshit all that is.

I hope you get her out of that zone op.

zombuey ,

youtube has a delete option that will wipe the recorded trend. then just watch a couple of videos and subscribe to some healthy stuff.

_g_be ,

Very cool, had no idea it was that simple

zombuey ,

support.google.com/youtube/answer/55759?hl=en#zip…

when you delete your account it also deletes your history. I assume she isn’t a content creator so the rest won’t be concerning. The next time you login using your gmail it will just be like when you first logged into youtube.

NightOwl ,

Switch her to FreeTube on desktop. Can still subscribe to keep a list of channels she likes, but won’t get the YouTube algorithm recommendations on the home page.

For mobile something like newpipe for the same algorithm removed experience.

CoatGhost ,

deleted_by_author

    •
    NightOwl ,

    It changes instances every time it loads from what I understand. Having it not change might help in that area.

    Chunk ,

    I curate my feed pretty often so I might be able to help.

    The first, and easiest, thing to do is to tell Youtube you aren’t interested in their recommendations. If you hover over the name of a video then three little dots will appear on the right side. Clicking them opens a menu that contains, among many, two options: Not Interested and Don’t Recommend Channel. Don’t Recommend Channel doesn’t actually remove the channel from recommendations but it will discourage the algorithm from recommending it as often. Not Interested will also inform the algorithm that you’re not interested, I think it discourages the entire topic but it’s not clear to me.

    You can also unsubscribe from channels that you don’t want to see as often. Youtube will recommend you things that were watched by other people who are also subscribed to the same channels you’re subscribed to. So if you subscribe to a channel that attracts viewers with unsavory video tastes then videos that are often watched by those viewers will get recommended to you. Unsubscribing will also reduce how often you get recommended videos by that content creator.

    Finally, you should watch videos you want to watch. If you see something that you like then watch it! Give it a like and a comment and otherwise interact with the content. Youtube knows when you see a video and then go to the Channel’s page and browse all their videos. They track that stuff. If you do things that Youtube likes then they will give you more videos like that because that’s how Youtube monetizes you, the user.

    To de-radicalize your mom’s feed I would try to

    1. Watch videos that you like on her feed. This introduces them to the algorithm.
    2. Use Not Interested and Don’t Recommend Channel to slowly phase out the old content.
    3. Unsubscribe to some channels she doesn’t watch a lot of so she won’t notice.
    Ducks ,
    @Ducks@ducks.dev avatar

    OP listen to this comment. YouTubes goal is to feed you as much related content to keep you on the site as long as possible. Radical content or otherwise, any engagement to them is positive. You can spend some time curating the feed so that the algorithm works in your favor and the algorithm will adjust very quickly to new interests.

    Beanerrr ,

    I can confirm that this works quite well. I use these tactics all the time on my parents’ feed to keep them from watching too many “crap” news, pardon my french. There’s a very notorious news channel in our country that insists on feeding bad (and only the bad) news - I often remove their channel from the suggested feed and try to give them stuff like FailArmy, cute cats, daily dose of internet and other happier videos.

    Give us an update sometime @driving_crooner , hope all goes well with your mom.

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