Is youtube under attack? (Not quite.)

[Rugg]

I have seen two channels, LTT, and Joshua Fluke, posting weird polls about the youtube algorithm, I will post screenshots soon.

Do you guys think this is coincidence, or something spooky?

They also have lots of weird comments, I think thats normal though.

[Rugg]

Spoiler

Spoiler

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edit: spoilered the images

[OwayBaway]

1 minute ago, Rugg said:

(._.)

[OwayBaway]

1 minute ago, Rugg said:

that is creepy, do you think there was a database leak,

also check the accounts that commented, check if they are bots

[The_russian]

Under attack... by who and how? In LTT's post it says "Apparently" which make's it sounds like they heard about this from someone else. If that is the case, the chances of 1. whoever they heard it from doing a similar thing and 2. other youtubers hearing and trying the same thing, are pretty good. 

[Moonzy]

10 minutes ago, Rugg said:

Do you guys think this is coincidence, or something spooky?

Seems like they're trying to exploit youtube algo to grow their channel

 

The usual, some may be annoyed by it, but I'm actually laughing about it

[Rugg]

4 minutes ago, The_russian said:

Under attack... by who and how? In LTT's post it says "Apparently" which make's it sounds like they heard about this from someone else. If that is the case, the chances of 1. whoever they heard it from doing a similar thing and 2. other youtubers hearing and trying the same thing, are pretty good. 

I don't know, the similarities in the posts are spooky though. It really sounds like its some guy who found an exploit.

If you hit read more on Joshua Fluke's, it reads this.

Quote

This is an experiment to test a breakthrough in the youtube algorithm*HELP BREAK YOUTUBE BY LIKING THIS POLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

 

Simply Vote in the poll and like the post and we will EXPLOIT A GLITCH IN THE YOUTUBE ALGORITHM! Today we will demonstrate just how broken polls are by creating the MOST LIKED COMMUNITY POLL! The system is so broken and today we are going to break it even more!!!

 

But how will it get shown to everyone? Simple If I include all of the algorithmically correct trending terms in this message then YouTube will show it to everyone! Do your part to support this by liking the post and commenting on it! Perhaps YouTube might take this message and rework the community post feature and make it so that random people not subscribed to me do not get BOMBARDED by my cute corgi pictures!

 

To prove just how broken it is if you are not subscribed to this channel leave a comment saying so. I can track just how Borked this system is!

 

Thank you for helping! As a reward pat yourselves on the back knowing this is going to be a video!

 

So time for some perfectly balanced SEO that breaks the algorithm:

We can include terms like baby shark and pewdiepie to really broaden the audience and then spice it up with some among us and Minecraft crossed with the hit new youtube sensation that is rust on the OTV server featuring twitch funny moments from jackscepticeye. I also have to mention music, asmr and markiplier that are all important terms here on youtube. Let us not forget of course the makeup and fashion community by referencing shane dawson and james charles. Now whilst this is COMPLETE GIBBERISH to most an algorithm is able to pick out the specific key terms in this post and promote it accordingly. So lets support the Kpop stans by mentioning bts and lofi hip hop. We can even talk about some other big channels like mrbeast and dantdm. For some reason in 2020 some of the most searched tags are game of thrones and avengers endgame... Let us of course not forget the most important things of the year like dunke peppa pig and roblox! Time for all the top current searches Among Us - online game, new song 2020, pop smoke and techno gamerz and tubbo smp! Time For todays new aditions in SEO too: Thanos, fifa, joe biden, inauguration, Tommy, sidemen, mod, update, rt game, yogscast, the spiffing brit, game, predator, fortnite update, fortnite predator, boss! Lets glitch the youtube algorithm corporate cringe, joshua fluke, disowned, gas lighting, corporate

 

[Rugg]

So, case closed I assume.

Just two youtubers both trying to abuse an algorithm issue.

TLDR from my watching at 2x and skipping through, who youtube serves community posts to only depends on things within the post, so having random garbage will serve it to kids, vastly broadening your reach. When someone clicks on a poll answer like "just show me the answers, idk who you are" it gives them points and are more likely to be served actual videos, etc etc etc.

 

I don't think LTT or Josh for that matter should be doing this, purposely abusing the algorithm even if it is just to gain attention.

[trag1c]

3 minutes ago, Rugg said:

 

I was about to post this lol

[Arika]

Shame that it is going to take people exploiting the algorithm to force YouTube to fix their shit.

 

Thank Queenie for Spiffing Brit and Yorkshire tea gold.

[EricX2]

Companies like youtube need to make their algorithm visible. I'm sure most people think they are complex AI or machine learning algorithm but I bet most are just basic keyword searches with very clearly defined "if $include show video" "if $exclude don't show video" type rules. It doesn't have to be fully open source or anything, they just need to show something that says why a video showed up, what rule matched what criteria to determine why a video shows up. I don't think people question often enough why some videos show up when you search or in your feed and others don't, as long as they get something worth watching.

 

I'd love to know when I see a video if it could tell me what video I watched in the past that made it recommend it or if a video is recommended based on trending or friends viewing habits or what. I'm sure each person has an entire database it uses for showing videos and results based on the browsing history and ads and everything else google has access to.

[tikker]

9 hours ago, EricX2 said:

Companies like youtube need to make their algorithm visible. I'm sure most people think they are complex AI or machine learning algorithm but I bet most are just basic keyword searches with very clearly defined "if $include show video" "if $exclude don't show video" type rules. It doesn't have to be fully open source or anything, they just need to show something that says why a video showed up, what rule matched what criteria to determine why a video shows up.

If they published exactly how the algorithm worked the entire world would then know how to abuse it, so naturally they will never do that.

9 hours ago, EricX2 said:

I don't think people question often enough why some videos show up when you search or in your feed and others don't, as long as they get something worth watching.

Why should they. I think the majority couldn't care less what is recommended to them as long as, as you say, they get something worth watching. I agree with the curiosity though. Sometimes videos recommended to me are completely "ehm, what? why" but it's not uncommon to see one that is "huh, interesting" either. In both cases I do wonder how on Earth did you arrive at that suggestion.

 

Good and bad aside, I think it's kind of fun to see the cycle of evolution and breaking of the algorithm.

[Master Disaster]

Was going to make a tech news topic but its hard to do with a video source, just watch the video and laugh

[TetraSky]

Never seen a single community post (with 122 subscriptions). Probably disabled that or something, the bell is set to "none" for all channels in my case and I always use the subscription page on youtube, which only shows my subscription and not some random crap on the home page.

[trag1c]

Watched the video yesterday and I loved spiffs analysis of it. I always wondered how he magically jumped to 1.8M subs seemingly overnight.

[Middcore]

I was hoping he was going to call out some of the people in the thumbnail specifically but I must salute him for a good clickbait thumbnail in any case. 

[MadAnt250]

Great, something about something I can't use.

[LloydLynx]

I think it's fine if people do this. And if Youtube doesn't like it, then they'll patch it. Those that have the knowledge and skill will rise to the top and that's fine, it's not like it's a giant government or mainstream new media.