1420
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

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 are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] timp80@lemmy.chatterverse.social 63 points 1 year ago

I've found that if I remove things from my history, it stops suggesting related content, hopefully that helps.

[-] briongloid@aussie.zone 21 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Fondots@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Ech@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 17 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[-] AdmiralShat@programming.dev 12 points 1 year ago

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

[-] SgtAStrawberry@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] timp80@lemmy.chatterverse.social 22 points 1 year ago
[-] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 6 points 1 year ago

Thanks, going to check that too.

[-] diffusive@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

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)

[-] Weborl@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Delete also the search history. After that, search non toxic topics, like live shows of her favourite artists, recipes, nature documentaries...

[-] fluffy@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
1420 points (97.5% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35822 readers
214 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS