My phone is ringing. The screen says Nancy, an old friend I’ve known for decades, is calling. I rarely get real phone calls, so I answer.
” Help me ! Please! are the first sobbing words my ears pick up. I did not expect that. We’re good friends, but our relationship tends to stick to pleasant conversations once or twice a year, tops.
“Hey Nancy. Why don’t you take a deep breath and tell me what’s going on? »
She does. My friend was clickbaited in the worst possible way. A day or two ago, Nancy had a bad day. To cheer herself up, she typed “cute animals” into YouTube’s search engine. As expected, a long list of results appeared. Unfortunately, a very cruel person used this keyword to name a misleading video. While the thumbnail showed cute kittens and the title promised cute clips of cats and dogs, that’s not what the video actually showed. The video showed deeply disturbing images of animal abuse.
Nancy immediately clicked on the three dots to the right of the headline, selected “Report” from the drop-down menu, and then chose the “Violent Content” option. Troubled, she decided to be done with YouTube for the night.
When she returned to YouTube the next day, she found that the video recommendations on her home screen had changed. They were now populated with gruesome videos of injured or mistreated animals. She searched for other topics she felt more comfortable with and watched those videos, but the horrible videos kept popping up on her YouTube home screen. She couldn’t make them go away.
Two days later, she called me. During a Zoom screen sharing session, I show him how to clean up his feed.
Clean up your history
Most people don’t know this, but YouTube gives you very fine control over your viewing history. YouTube’s algorithm uses your viewing history to create recommended videos that it displays on your YouTube homepage. So the more control you have over your viewing history, the more your YouTube home screen will be tailored to your interests.
It’s quite simple, until your viewing history gets corrupted.
To fix it, click “History” in the YouTube sidebar. My instructions are for the Chrome browser version of YouTube, as this functionality is hidden when watching YouTube with your desktop browser (Chrome or Safari) on a Mac. Oddly enough, this same feature isn’t hidden and is reasonably accessible on Windows and mobile devices. I will show you later in the article.
This is my history page in Chrome on macOS. As you can see, there’s a blood pressure video right up top. At my age, the doctor advises me to monitor my blood pressure. Even though I know all about blood pressure, I came across this TED Talk on my travels and decided to check it out. None of these videos have an “X” icon to the right of the title. This appears to be Mac-specific behavior. On Windows, all videos in watch history have an X. More on that below.
But here is the problem. Now that I’ve watched a video, I don’t want YouTube to send me a constant stream of videos about blood pressure, heart issues, etc. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s just that I like my feed to be filled with how-to stuff, discussions about the latest episodes of star trek, workshop tours, tool tips, and everything I can watch on 3D printing and other DIY stuff. If I want to see health-related topics, I’ll search specifically for the topic I’m researching.
In star trek, evil Borg often say “You will be assimilated.” Resistance is futile. We will add your biological and technological specificity to ours”. In the case of YouTube, the algorithm assimilates the descriptions and keywords of the videos you watch, adding their “specificity” to what it presents to you.
That’s what happened to Nancy. Because she inadvertently uploaded this terrible video, YouTube’s algorithm took over the video description and keyword list.
Luckily, you can remove that distinctiveness by deleting videos with unwanted subject matter from your viewing history.
This is what the history entry looks like. Note that there is nothing near the arrow, as I’m on a Mac. On Windows there is the “X” which you will see in the next screenshot.
Now move your cursor to the right of the title you want to remove. As you can see in the image below, if you’re on a Mac, the previously hidden “X” appears. Under Windows, it has always been there. In both cases, just click on it.
And There you go. The unwanted video has been removed from the view history. Note the message “All views of this video have been removed from history” which confirms that the algorithm has been updated.
As soon as Nancy deleted the horrific video from her viewing history, her YouTube homepage once again became the safe space she often turned to when she wanted to watch something relevant to her interests.
In my case, the health-related videos were removed, and my homepage is now populated with videos related to my interests, like “10 Incredible Star Trek Concept Art Designs You Need To See” and “The SURPRISING story behind duct tape”. I know. I’m a fascinating guy.
Deleting history entries on a mobile device
I’m showing you the iOS version of the YouTube app, but it’s quite similar for Android. At the bottom of the YouTube app is a menu bar. On the far right is the “Library” button. Click on it.
You will see a selection of library categories. Tap “History”.
Choose the video you want to delete and tap the three dots in the History pane. Next, tap “Delete from viewing history”.
There it’s done. Assimilation avoided, distinctiveness not added.
Source: ZDNet.com