"Exposing YouTube's Bias!" - Great Video by Ann Reardon (How To Cook That) about YouTube's algorithm, possible bias and the impact of "Shorts"

[keesetoast]

Hey folks,

I just watched “Exposing YouTube's Bias!” by Ann Reardon (How To Cook That). It's about how YouTube’s algorithm is pushing "Shorts" over longer videos and the possible impact on long-form content. Ann talks about possible gender bias which is something I hadn’t thought much about before, but seems more than plausible to me.
The video got me thinking about how all this affects the videos we get to see (or not see). "Shorts", especially the way they are implemented into YouTube, annoy the heck out of me personally. Also, "search" definitely has gotten worse in recent times.

Wanted to share this video because I think it's an important topic and I know Linus also talked a lot about the changes in YouTube's algorithm over the years. Do you think that YouTubes AI algorithm could amplify a possible gender bias and push male creators over others? How do you feel about the rise of "Shorts"? 
Would love to hear this community's thoughts on this! 

Cheers!

[Caroline]

Youtube Redux has an option to hide shorts, I use that. It's not the kind of content I watch, it's clearly made for smartphone users with the attention span of a sock, the crop is terrible if you watch on PC.

 

9 hours ago, keesetoast said:

Do you think that YouTubes AI algorithm could amplify a possible gender bias and push male creators

Depends on the kind of content you watch. If you search for makeup, cooking and clothing videos you won't have a single male youtuber in your homepage. But if you look for cars or guns 9/10 will be male.

Google is terrible but not everything has to be an evil conspiracy to oppress beautiful, vibrant, female content creators.

[da na]

Offering the perspective of a creator here.

YouTube is not only pushing shorts for users, they also try to push creators to make shorts, thus perpetuating the cycle. At first there was very little incentive to make Shorts, but now... well, the Shorts user base from phone zombies is MASSIVE. It is genuinely shocking how many views Shorts get versus normal videos. YouTube Studio automatically converts videos under a certain length to Shorts (very annoying sometimes).

 

It is not just female creators, it's also the "woman in thumbnail" phenomenon. Studies have shown that many people find a female voice more inviting, but studies have also shown people tend to click videos with women in the thumbnail more frequently. Some of this data comes from YouTube's own survey results (that could either reinforce or completely disprove this data, depending on your viewpoint). 

 

So YouTube is definitely pushing Shorts, but there are a lot of misconceptions about what YouTube "pushes" on the algorithm. YouTube itself doesn't have a bias towards the type of content promoted, the users on the platform do, and that norm is reflected sitewide. This last portion IS my subjective opinion, so take it with a grain of salt.

[Holmes108]

9 hours ago, Caroline said:

Depends on the kind of content you watch. If you search for makeup, cooking and clothing videos you won't have a single male youtuber in your homepage. But if you look for cars or guns 9/10 will be male.

Google is terrible but not everything has to be an evil conspiracy to oppress beautiful, vibrant, female content creators.

  

9 hours ago, da na said:

So YouTube is definitely pushing Shorts, but there are a lot of misconceptions about what YouTube "pushes" on the algorithm. YouTube itself doesn't have a bias towards the type of content promoted, the users on the platform do, and that norm is reflected sitewide. This last portion IS my subjective opinion, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

I think this is 100% correct. I've seen more than one experiment done online by people who use new accounts and see what happens with their algorithms with different behaviors. And despite this idea that the algorithm wants to push conflict, politics, and outrage (presumably for engagement), it seemed to consistently show that if you only watch and search for cat videos, you'll be presented with cat videos. No divisive nonsense to be seen.

[Caroline]

And without an account, if you don't keep cookies after closing the browser, it'll simply default to a blank homepage with the search bar. It used to show 'trending' content before but at least for me that's not the case anymore, which is great because no matter what your OS and browser language is, it insists on displaying content based on your IP address, and boy the content creators in my country are the cringiest morons ever, oh and it used to show me propaganda channels and news about politics I'm really not interested in... that's why I use invidious and set it to UK, it'll recommend me relevant videos based on my view history, for example if I watch breaking bad shitposts it'll recommend me one or two more every time I load the website, same with tech channels.

 

14 hours ago, da na said:

Studies have shown that many people find a female voice more inviting,

Ah crap another reason to be on a list. I find most women youtubers annoying as fuck, even if the topic is interesting I just can't concentrate on the content of the clip, they always sound like they're rushing through the script or saying 'ummm...' or 'like...' every 3 words. Science videos are an exception to the rule. And Philomena Cunk.

[da na]

5 minutes ago, Caroline said:

And without an account, if you don't keep cookies after closing the browser, it'll simply default to a blank homepage with the search bar

Oh so that's not just me? I thought it was just my Windows 7 computer not playing nice with YouTube.

Wahoo, datamining

[Poinkachu]

15 hours ago, Caroline said:

Youtube Redux has an option to hide shorts, I use that.

Just wanna add :

Or use addon if yer using firefox

 

Back then I added shorts and anything associated with it to my ublock list

 

As for the blank page, opening youtube using a container on firefox does that too, even after I log in.

[TheLANguy]

Most people on this forum don't like shorts (including myself), however we probably are not the target demographic.

I personally block shorts, the featured section, trending, and the interests/ related section using Ublock origin. This helps the search function a bit, however it is not what it used to be. I also bookmark all my favorite creators so I don't have to rely on the algorithm. Heck, most the time I don't log in!

[Caroline]

9 hours ago, Poinkachu said:

Just wanna add :

Or use addon if yer using firefox

 

Back then I added shorts and anything associated with it to my ublock list

 

As for the blank page, opening youtube using a container on firefox does that too, even after I log in.

"shits" container lol

[da na]

3 minutes ago, Caroline said:

"shits" container lol

I initially didn't see what you were referring to in the image so I looked it up.

 

"Shits container" is not a good internet search. Do not recommend. 

[BrandonLatzig]

I don't mind *All* shorts
Some shorts I like, NWYT because lets say I wanted to share something with a friend, a short might be more digestable (especially if its just for a joke)
Speedrunning yt shorts I watch because I find it funny and informative on occassion. Beyond that not much else for shorts