[fishtank]

YouTube is not a clear pass-through from one's truly held interests to the computer screen. I am not interested in fake news, Peppa the Pig, superhero movies, Logan Paul, Lil Durk, Time Magazine, and yet, loading up the YouTube home page just now, there they are.

YouTube profits from showing people things they might be likely to click on, and from collecting money from people who want people to click on their things. This has something to do with "interests" in some sense of the word but I do not think YouTube's recommendation engine is an unmediated expression of a user's true desires.

[kryogen1c]

> YouTube is not a clear pass-through from one's truly held interests to the computer screen. I am not interested in fake news, Peppa the Pig, superhero movies, Logan Paul, Lil Durk, Time Magazine, and yet, loading up the YouTube home page just now, there they are.

With respect, there is no way this is correct - at least not in a meaningful sense.

Are you logged in with a YouTube account? Does anyone else pass YouTube traffic through your IP address, ie do you have children, nieces, nephews, cousins, etc? Do you purposefully block ads and analytics that would make suggestions like this random? Lil durk and Peppa pig are simply not going to be recommended next to each other without reason.

I just loaded YouTube.com and scrolled for _dozens of pages_. There is nothing remotley bizzarre. The most annoying thing is that it supports cut-and-pasters, who take clips from source videos that I watch and repost them.

[citrablue]

> I do not think YouTube's recommendation engine is an unmediated expression of a user's true desires.

Cynically, I disagree. i think their recommendation engine is a reflection of a collection of people's true desires. People reveal their preferences through actions (clicking on things) more than thought, which is generally rationalization for a decision already made.