this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2024
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[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

From what I've gathered from various big time 'tubers I've watched for years now, as they slowly trickle tidbits of info about what it's like working as a YouTuber, and what tools and tips Google gives them to assist: Google/YouTube is the one that recommended using the types of thumbnails commonly employed by uploaders, along with a ton of other things that are ubequitous to the platform (such as the phrase "like, subscribe and ring that bell!").

[–] Toribor@corndog.social 8 points 1 day ago

YouTube also decided that every video should be ten minutes long and made the algorithm recommend videos of that length so everyone had to start making their videos ten minutes long even if it made no sense to do so.

[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 58 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

They either look like they need to shit or are eating an invisible popsicle

[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 120 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Or, you can bring back the dislike button and stop promoting videos with high dislike ratios.

[–] RandomVideos@programming.dev 13 points 1 day ago

And maybe stop making comments help the video get more popular

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 23 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Do comments first. There's so much spam that almost looks legit because of how many upvotes they have.

[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day 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.

[–] Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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

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[–] MITM0@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You guys buying this baloney ?

[–] RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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?

What? Most likely in favor of more profitable clickbait.

[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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?

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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.

[–] graff@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago

Writing (not clickbait) in the title obviously

[–] protist@mander.xyz 247 points 2 days ago (8 children)

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@discuss.tchncs.de 107 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

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.

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.

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[–] Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 29 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] smokebuddy@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago

unless they pay for it to be shown as an advertisement of course

[–] grue@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days 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.).

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days 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.

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 11 points 2 days ago

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

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[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 130 points 2 days 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...

[–] dan@upvote.au 59 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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

[–] Syntha@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

YouTube basically completely stopped recommending me those videos years ago because it learned I never click on them.

[–] smokebuddy@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago

I just saw a video posted here about how Tyler Oliveria is a liar and his content is bogus, but when youtube kept pushing that garbage at me the over the top AI thumbnails were enough to tip off it was going to be shit, and I had blocked him months ago lol

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[–] _sideffect@lemmy.world 138 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 42 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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 8 points 2 days 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. 🙃

[–] penquin@lemm.ee 154 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The fix was there, but they removed it. The dislike button. Fucking unbelievable how stupid these companies are.

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 38 points 2 days ago (7 children)

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.

[–] nulluser@lemmy.world 47 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

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.

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[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 9 points 2 days ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] 7rokhym@lemmy.ca 30 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days 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.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 63 points 2 days ago
[–] konomikitten@lemmy.blahaj.zone 62 points 2 days ago (4 children)

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

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[–] Spuddlesv2@lemmy.ca 66 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Better title: “YouTube is cracking down on click bait - here’s how”

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 45 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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

[–] Lanusensei87@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

YouTube tried to crack down on clickbait, what happened next will shock you!

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[–] Bogasse@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 days ago

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

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 9 points 2 days ago (7 children)

*Only directly misleading clickbait. So they'll continue to promote other forms of clickbait like specific thumbnails or capitalized & ambiguous titles.

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