• @protist@mander.xyz
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    2504 months ago

    YouTube says the policy will combat “egregious” clickbait that misleads viewers, with a particular focus on videos related to “breaking news” or “current events.” The company’s examples of egregious clickbait include a video with the title “the president resigned!” that doesn’t actually address a resignation or a “top political news” thumbnail attached to a video with no news content.

    This is only going to target garbage-level content. You can still expect the same clickbait-style titles and thumbnails from established creators

    • Karyoplasma
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      4 months ago

      YouTube will never “crack down” on these guys. They are their money-makes and can do whatever the fuck the want. Clickbait on huge channels is YouTube’s bread and butter, even if people just click to comment that the creator sucks, that’s still engagement and means there is more money in the ad bids.

      • @conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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        444 months ago

        YouTube is the one pushing them to clickbait. Their metrics are designed such that if you don’t bait clicks a huge percentage of the time you’re shown, you won’t even show up in the feeds of your actual subscribers.

      • Dran
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        84 months ago

        I think you’ve correctly identified their self-interest over altruism, but you’ve misidentified the internal value of discouraging clickbait. YouTube is a treasure trove for building training datasets, and its value increases when metadata like thumbnails, descriptions, titles, and tags can be trusted.

        It’s the AI gold rush; notice how this coincides with options to limit or disable third-party training but not first-party training? It coincides but is definitely not a coincidence.

    • Alphane Moon
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      294 months ago

      Yeah, this is not even really targeting clickbait, more like putting restrictions on openly malicious content.

    • @grue@lemmy.world
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      164 months ago

      I’ll be even more cynical than that: I think this policy will be abused to suppress legitimate news/current events videos with a POV the oligarchs doesn’t approve of (e.g. pro-Palestinian, pro-Adjuster, etc.).

    • DarkThoughts
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      114 months ago

      Yes, which YT actively encourages people to do. So ultimately nothing really changes.

    • @scarabic@lemmy.world
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      114 months ago

      This will address extreme and obvious falsehoods but I still encounter clickbait of the more pedestrian kind everywhere I go. “You’re using your table saw WRONG” or “the 1 table saw trick 99% of people don’t know” etc.

      I consider this clickbait: it creates a false sense of urgency and doesn’t convey any information in itself. What is this one trick? Oh I already knew that one, but I had to watch the video to realize that.

      It wastes a lot of time and makes things harder to search for. And often these clickbait headlines are not in the video headline where YT can easily scan them, but in the thumbnail graphic in huge letters, where it’s probably harder to automate any moderation for.

      I pay for YT premium but this aspect of the experience still feels ad-like and cheap.

    • @cheese_greater@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I’ve noticed these super annoying news flashes that say like Beyonce fleeing US and shit like that. Super long videos too and they’re all trash. Makes it hard to get real news on it

      • @OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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        154 months ago

        Makes it hard to get real news on it

        Well there’s your problem. Why the fuck are you trying to get news on Youtube?!

    • @woelkchen@lemmy.world
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      474 months ago

      The fix was there, but they removed it.

      Return YouTube Dislikes still exists. The likes and dislikes of RYD users are stored in an external database, so Google cannot take them away.

      • Null User Object
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        474 months ago

        Unless YouTube is using that data to not recommend crappy videos, then it’s completely pointless. If YouTube was going to use that data, then they would, oh, I don’t know, maybe still have a dislike button?

        • @woelkchen@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Unless YouTube is using that data to not recommend crappy videos, then it’s completely pointless.

          YouTube never did that anyway. YouTube recommends videos on user engagement. Thumb buttons in any direction are engagement. They have slightly hidden “don’t recommend video/channel” options for that.

          What RYD does is to show what others think.

          • Gormadt
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            64 months ago

            The fact they never used that data in video recommendations is surprising, and if they started to factor it in would have probably helped make this less of an issue

            • @woelkchen@lemmy.world
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              104 months ago

              The fact they never used that data in video recommendations is surprising

              So you never clicked dislike, just to get recommendations for the same channel / type of video over and over again? I thought everyone figured that out by now. These are the menu items that actually do the trick:

      • DarkThoughts
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        94 months ago

        It’s completely inaccurate though. It can show massive amounts of faux dislikes that don’t actually exist. This has been confirmed with youtubers, who still see the dislike ratio on their backend.

        • @woelkchen@lemmy.world
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          84 months ago

          It’s completely inaccurate though. It can show massive amounts of faux dislikes that don’t actually exist. This has been confirmed with youtubers, who still see the dislike ratio on their backend.

          I’d say the “actual” dislike numbers are completely inaccurate because what’s the point of disliking a video in an environment where the dislikes don’t count?

          RYD extrapolates the like/dislike ratio as stored on their own server to the like numbers as displayed by YouTube. That’s not secret information. They spell it out in their FAQ.

          If anything, if you like more representative numbers, get more people to install RYD.

          • DarkThoughts
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            74 months ago

            So a video getting like 80% dislikes in the addon, but like 90% likes in the backend, is an okay and totally not misleading metric to you? And I uninstalled the addon because of this.

            • @grue@lemmy.world
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              84 months ago

              When the only people hitting the dislike button are the people using the addon (because that’s the only circumstance in which it counts), WTF else did you expect than for the dislike ratio with the addon to be higher?

              • DarkThoughts
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                34 months ago

                If that’s the only people using the addon, then they should adjust their extrapolation formula to account for the bias of their user base. Because like this it will only feed people’s confirmation bias through literal disinformation, making content look heavily disliked even when it isn’t.

        • @woelkchen@lemmy.world
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          14 months ago

          This is not official

          Neither was the previous workaround which IIRC required some JavaScript trickery with the web player.

            • @woelkchen@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              it wasn’t a workaround, it was a feature built into the YouTube app that is made by Google. I can’t believe I have to explain this. Lol

              You wrote “there was a fix” which I assumed you meant one of those user scripts / browser extensions that let users access removed features for a while. Pretty sure this worked with downvotes for a while but not in an official capacity.

  • @_sideffect@lemmy.world
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    1414 months ago

    Yeah sure they will. They’ll target small creators, but keep shit heads like the scammer Paul, the fake philanthropist Beast, and others

    • sunzu2
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      464 months ago

      Top talent who made careers on clickbait will not be harmed

      Pedophiles on set, no problem

      Scamming people, no problem

      Advertising and selling spoiled food, no problem

      Say suicide, demonetized 🤡

      • @Martineski@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        94 months ago

        Youtube will age restrict songs in my playlist with a word “fuck” in title but won’t do anything about unrestricted animated gore on a channel of a studio that does kid animations that I’ve reported long ago. 🙃

  • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘
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    1294 months ago

    So, they created an algorithm that will only reward clickbait and completely ignore honest titles and thumbnails, then complain about their platform being one giant clickbait? Huh…

      • Tlaloc_Temporal
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        94 months ago

        And actual scams with 300+ upvotes. Not just copied comments that get edited layer, but entire chains directing people to whatsapp numbers.

        • @spacecadet@lemm.ee
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          14 months ago

          I’d still take scam comments over “who is still listening in 2024?!” For a super popular song that came out in 2023 or for a timeless classic like Michael Jackson’s thriller

      • @SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works
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        74 months ago

        I am not referring to a like to dislike ration, I am referring to a dislike to view ratio. YouTube should bury those from recommendations.

    • TheTechnician27
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      4 months ago

      “5 ways YouTube is cracking down on clickbait – #3 will make you shid and fard and cum your pants”

    • rigatti
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      54 months ago

      Thumbnail:

      They’re doing WHAT!?! —>

      (⓿_⓿)

  • Konomi
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    634 months ago

    YouTube is clickbait. This is like them saying they’re going to crack down on their own advertising model.

    • sunzu2
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      94 months ago

      Youtube literally tell their wagies they need to make click but like this ugly ass thumbnails with up-close mug shots.

      I am not sure what data they have to support it but I don’t click these thumbnails but mrbeastade a career off them lol

  • @dan@upvote.au
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    614 months ago

    Shout out to DeArrow, from the same developer as SponsorBlock. It replaces video titles and thumbnails with community-provided non-clickbait versions. Available as a browser extension, and is also built-in to several third-party YouTube apps, such as SmartTube.

    • @dax@feddit.org
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      124 months ago

      I feel a bit conflicted about that, do I want that extension to hide the terrible clickbaity titles and thumbnails? For me that’s a good reason to not watch these videos in the first place

  • @7rokhym@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    YouTube ruined Christmas. I can’t stand my relatives anymore, they watch every conspiracy clip and now they are a thousand miles down the rabbit hole and I can’t handle them for more than a few days a year. I hate evil Google or alphabet, or whatever they call themselves.

    • @RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I heard Facebook is spent tons of money to combat election misinformation in 2016 and 2020 and I heard the same story again in 2024. The problem is solved right?

  • @whotookkarl@lemmy.world
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    144 months ago

    Smells like PR copy parading as news, what click bait was actually removed vs what they said they would? What’s the criteria to qualify as click bait?

    • graff
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      24 months ago

      Writing (not clickbait) in the title obviously

    • Pika
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      4 months ago

      YouTube says the policy will combat “egregious” clickbait that misleads viewers, with a particular focus on videos related to “breaking news” or “current events.” The company’s examples of egregious clickbait include a video with the title “the president resigned!” that doesn’t actually address a resignation or a “top political news” thumbnail attached to a video with no news content.

      sounds like anything that says it’s one thing but does a whole different thing

      Sadly it’s only in India atm, and doesn’t result in a strike(yet) so I doubt many are going to care.

  • @Bogasse@lemmy.ml
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    124 months ago

    Like, we will be able to make negative feedback about a video again? Oh no nevermind it’s just bs again…

  • @Free_Opinions@feddit.uk
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    114 months ago

    What the hell is wrong with the people here? Actual positive news for a while and what does Lemmy have to say? Complaining and cynicism. No wonder you’re so miserable all the time.

    • @LogicalDrivel@sopuli.xyz
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      174 months ago

      For years, every update YouTube has had has made the platform worse. I think its valid to doubt this will improve anything. That being said, I agree with you. Lemmy as a whole needs to calm down a bit and stop being so damn negative about everything.

      • sunzu2
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        74 months ago

        Hating corporate is a warranted approach

        They are not people, they are hostile threat actors.

        Why are you shocked they get treated as such?

    • @essteeyou@lemmy.world
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      34 months ago

      I haven’t seen any of the usual self-righteous “I only use self-hosted video services” comments in here yet though.