Sorry but I have to vent this

Off Topic
#1

Ok so once again I have deleted my Youtube account and my Google account.
Why? I hear you ask.
Well gather round folks I have some grievances I wish to air that might be of interest.

My first issue is the platform is not a free and open source of entertainment and knowledge.
I am not talking about censorship or monetization, I am talking about how content is continually suggested for you.

Content is suggested to you in a way that is tuned up to your viewing preferences.
But how many of us every found anything interesting by following a strict path according to how some corporate entity decides we should discover interesting information?

At the end of the day I remove my account because of the channel ends up being crap, having all manner of rubbish posted to my recommendations repetitively.

Also if you do some research on a topic and find you are not interested in it or just wanted to read about it for a day or so, the YouTube will bombard you with all sorts of associated crap for weeks as it assumes it knows how you think, but neglects the fact that you are now seeking new topics, not last weeks search preferences.

On a side note I believe that this type of algorithm programming is indeed detrimental to new ideas and thoughts, it appears to promote “tunnel vision”, it has your personality set on a path of boredom and non discovery.

And last but not least, do you really need someone else to do your thinking for you?

This is one space were I can see decentralized platforms being of great use.
Cut out the middle man, content can be tipped in crypto, straight from the blockchain to the content creators wallet, free of adverts or content suggestions.

Will this ever happen, well probably not in my lifetime.

Dan

6 Likes
#2

Well done! :smiley:

And last but not least, do you really need someone else to do your thinking for you?

Many people seem happy for this… I am encouraged to find that someone challenges this perception for me. Also people have forgotten their personal responsibilities and allow them to act as they wish towards other human beings in internet, sadly this behavior appears to spread to real world also. It’s ok to be critical but I myself refrain from nonsensical, non-needed and unconstructive comments/feedback. If you wouldn’t do it in real world, don’t do it in internet.

Anyways, good venting and here are some platforms for videos (blockchain and non-blockchain) to study upon:

Bitchute
DTube (steemit platform)
RealVideo (no “political” cencorship)

If anyone finds more contenders for video hosting platform, please add it to list!

1 Like
#4

I’m not trying to defend Youtube and its algorithms now, I think their flagging bot is doing a shit job and censoring and demonetizing left and right without seemingly much thought, but I will tell you that my recommendations are pretty spot on and they’re usually stuff that’s either other videos of channels I watched, or similar videos to the ones I watched. So I don’t know how you’re browsing Youtube, but for me the recommendations are pretty good.

Also, whenever it happens that I find a video that, like you said was only curious about but then starts appearing in my feed, I mark it as “not interested” and after, it and similar other ones get removed from my feed.
I’m fairly ok with the recommendations algorithm, albeit far from perfect, it’s still helpful to me.

And regarding the tunnel vision you speak of, my recommendations change all the time, I have periods of up to a week when I binge watch a certain subject that I just discovered or rediscovered, but for me at least, it’s a continuous shift in preferences. And it’s funny and interesting to see my preferences path change throughout time, based on what I feel like watching that week.

1 Like
#6

All I see on youtube lately is a lot of good looking rich kids, indulging in them selves.
And gamer stuff.
Dan

#7

You’ve been raging these days Dan haha. Check out Idles, brilliant new band. Might take your mind off it. Check out mother for example, but they have a bunch of good ones with videos too. Use incognito mode!

1 Like
#8

After more than 10 years using Facebook heavily I deleted my account around 1 month ago. Still thinking to do the same with others platforms.
If we believe in real decentralize internet I guess we have to be an example and start to use alternatives.
Not sure what ProximaX can achieve, but they are working with alternatives for Dropbox, mail, streaming videos probably and so on. I’ll give a try when it’s ready.
I’m exploring Twitch as an alternative to youtube, I think blockchain can be really useful there (tips payments for example).

1 Like
#9

Yes I agree.
I also get some really weird and nasty stuff in my youtube feed and I am not even logged on (no account), stuff like exotic diseases, animal cruelty, racism, very young women in all manner of click bait poses etc etc…
Hey I can take a joke but please YouTube, stop frying my brain!
Mate it is so messed up, who knows, I may even have to read a book!
Dan

#10

Bit of an offtopic to the offtopic here, but speaking about deleting your Facebook account, I recently installed Opera just because I hadn’t used it for 10 years I guess and I saw they have a sidebar on the left side that has integrated among other functions the messenger, whatsapp and telegram apps. I cannot tell you how great this is, because now I literally don’t have a reason to open Facebook anymore (and I haven’t), I simply pull out the messenger app from the sidebar (and that was 95% of my reason for using Facebook).

#11

YouTube is scary as is a lot of the social media, for example if I want to make a comment I have to sign in/ sign up, and they pretty much want your phone number or email address to do so… badda bing, they want your identity!
Why? well so they can monitor anything you say.
Why? Because making money and the truth do not actually walk hand in hand.

Dan

#12

How do we fight that shit?! Today people get tracked even if they do not use
google or any of those social media because there are to many links to this services.
Even this forum loads some shit from google servers.

1 Like
#13

Well… there’s always these that reduces “shit” :slight_smile:

Ad server blocks through hosts file: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

And the all glorious Pi-Hole (I love it!): https://pi-hole.net
(It blocks aroun 140k ad-, malware-, etc servers)

When I started using these (years ago), my browsing experience went from “meh” to “oh… internet can be this fast?!”.

Also, your browsing experience wont most propably suffer too much if you delete all cookies and cache when browser is closed. If you have sites that you want to save login information (e.g. forums to be accessed without fuzz), use different browser for that (Opera is nice <3).

How to fight? Use.alternatives. Youtube (etc. conglomerates) only change policies after governments force them…

2 Likes
#14

I agree that seeing these ads is so annoying and kinda spying on you, but I also think that we are paying a small price for having omnipresent Internet that can answer any question we ask. I am fine with it. Isn’t it possible to block such ads with some kind of premium account? Haven’t explored the option myself yet

1 Like
#15

I use Adblock program in my browser. It’s much easier now when different ads don’t interrupt while browsing.

#16

Dan exactly this and many other complaints in thread are being directly addressed by the Brave browser & BAT utility token.


#17

I see. I was using AdBlock in the past, but ads were not completely blocked, though. I guess I hadn’t tuned it correctly

#18

You can view program settings, maybe some options are turned off
Adblock really helps

#19

Can’t imagine my life without youtube now :frowning: There is so much info on different subjects
P.S. oh, you are talking about facebook - then I don’t like this platform either

#20

I would even agree with you here. Youtube takes a lot of time, you just find yourself browsing it all the way long.

#21

Ok, I know it but what can be done to you unless you live in a totalitarian country?

#22

Sometimes I catch myself thinking that Youtube is like a drug: once you open a video and then can’t help but watch more and more :sweat_smile: