I watch #YouTube for stuff like food videos, travel, old video games... anything to try to help mental health in the current situation.
But YouTube's "suggestions" bar consistently brings up videos that are political propaganda for the far right.
Just now it suggested "How the Nazis created an economic miracle" FFS 🤮
(And before someone who's watched the video claims it's more nuanced etc etc etc, what percentage are going to actually watch every video on their suggestions? The main effect of this suggestion is a banner ad doing PR for Hitler.)
I've edited out the name of the channel to avoid giving it visibility.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
FediThing
in reply to FediThing • • •p.s. Before anyone says "Oh it's based on what you watch", it really isn't. I don't watch political content on YouTube at all, not on the site nor embedded videos.
Also, before anyone says "It's just trying to provoke you for engagement", it's funny how most of the "provocative" videos YouTube suggests are far right or even pro-Nazi messages.
john fink ok!! :goat:
in reply to FediThing • • •FediThing reshared this.
FediThing
in reply to john fink ok!! :goat: • • •That's a very interesting observation.
I don't have a Google/YT account so I only watch without being logged in (and I use incoginito anyway). This far right stuff appears to be what YouTube shows by default 😞
bazkie 👩🏼💻 bitplanes 🎵
in reply to FediThing • • •@adr yep.. I too was shocked to see what "the default user" gets to see 😲
but it makes sense. these corpo platforms make money on shock value, emotional uproar, etc; and guess what, so does the right wing.
so it's a match made in heaven. one does it for money, the other for political power.
disgusting af
FediThing
in reply to FediThing • • •p.p.s. I don't have a Google/YT account so I only watch while logged out. This seems to make YouTube default to showing far right suggestions. Someone else in the replies tried this and got similar results when they logged out:
mastodon.social/@adr/115973391…
So it seems that YouTube has an algo that defaults to suggesting far right videos when people aren't logged in, which is presumably many or most people visiting the YT website.
john fink ok!! :goat:
2026-01-28 15:18:30
LillyLyle/Count Melancholia
in reply to FediThing • • •FediThing
in reply to LillyLyle/Count Melancholia • • •@LillyHerself
Thanks! 🙏
It's not so much my user experience I'm worried about though, but the radicalisation this might be causing if everyone logged-out is seeing this 😞
Mr. Funk E. Dude
in reply to FediThing • • •I don't know why, but this never happens to me. I think it's because of any videos seems remotely right wing I hit the "do not suggest" link.
Maybe that's why?
FediThing
in reply to Mr. Funk E. Dude • • •@Mrfunkedude
Have you tried logging out and browsing in incognito mode?
According to one of the other replies viewing it while logged out makes far right videos more likely to appear by default.
Mr. Funk E. Dude
in reply to FediThing • • •GinevraCat
in reply to FediThing • • •FediThing
in reply to GinevraCat • • •That's what seems to happen for me, and the other person replying found the same:
mastodon.social/@adr/115973391…
Logged out -> YouTube defaults to far right video suggestions
john fink ok!! :goat:
2026-01-28 15:18:30
GinevraCat
in reply to FediThing • • •Hello Clippy
in reply to FediThing • • •That's why I love FreeTube and PipePipe (NewPipe fork, mobile), because I can just turn off suggestions.
Edit: Also I love the option to add PeerTube instances to PipePipe*
William B Peckham
in reply to FediThing • • •FediThing
in reply to William B Peckham • • •@wbpeckham
I know, I do watch PeerTube wherever possible and I promote PeerTube on my account @FediVideo and site fedi.video
But sometimes I watch stuff on YouTube as well if it's stuff I can't find on PeerTube.