YouTube Is Giving User More Control Over Recommended Videos

As concerns raised over harmful content spreading through the platform’s recommendation algorithm, YouTube took action and changed two super important browsing features.

According to a new blog post, filter-able topics will be found on YouTube’s homepage, and “up next” recommended categories, in an attempt to offer users more control over their content.

Therefore, users will be able to click on certain topics they want to explore, on the top of the homepage, the same applies to “up next” category which will offer more specific videos for users.

Users will also have more control over the type of videos they don’t want to see on YouTube, like irrelevant content to their interests that might have been recommended by the algorithm. “Don’t recommend channel” feature will soon be available for users to click and hide content they don’t want to interact with. Though still discoverable on the platform, the videos and creators won’t make it in the recommended tab or homepage.

New transparency tools being rolled out with the update will show people why certain videos or creators are being recommended, too.

“Sometimes, we recommend videos from channels you haven’t seen before based on what other viewers with similar interests have liked and watched in the past,” Essam El-Dardiry, product manager at YouTube, wrote in the blog post. “Our goal is to explain why these videos surface on your homepage in order to help you find videos from new channels you might like.”

Not so long ago, publications like The New York Times have shown the way YouTube’s recommendation algorithm can offer users rather harmful, which, technically, doesn’t break YouTube’s community guidelines or terms of service, therefore it was allowed to stay up.

Now, YouTube won’t allow borderline content to feature as recommended people’s homepage or recommended feed.

A few changes are scheduled to arrive these days, while others will take place later.