Strange videos in my watch history on YouTube

[Tsultrim Gyatso]

Hey,

 

I keep finding strange videos in my watch history on YouTube that I did not watch. Often they have a lot of views and not many comments.

 

Here is what I did, but it did not stop. 

1. Logged out of all devices.

2. Changed the password to a long one that only a computer could love. 

3. Set up passkeys and two factor authentication.

4. Deleted almost all extensions from Chrome in fear they might be the reason. 

 

I attached a photo of two videos that show up that I did not watch. I looked it up and Google tells me this is watched by an android device... But that should only be my pixel 8 and I did not watch it there. 

 

So what can I do. Yt support isn't helping tbh. 

[Spotty]

Do you have autoplay enabled? If you finish watching a video it will automatically start playing another video which will show in your watch history. I've also found sometimes hovering over a thumbnail for a few seconds to see the preview of a video, if left long enough, will also show in your watch history. If you open the Shorts page, even by accident and immediately close it, it will count whichever video loaded to play in your watch history.

 

I would consider those as possibilities for how stuff you might not have watched ended up in your watch history. That said, you took the right steps in securing your account. 

[AbydosOne]

29 minutes ago, Tsultrim Gyatso said:

So what can I do. Yt support isn't helping tbh. 

YT adds any video that preview-plays/thumbnail-plays to your history. It's a really weird choice, IMO.

[PowerPCFan]

2 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Do you have autoplay enabled? If you finish watching a video it will automatically start playing another video which will show in your watch history. I've also found sometimes hovering over a thumbnail for a few seconds to see the preview of a video, if left long enough, will also show in your watch history. If you open the Shorts page, even by accident and immediately close it, it will count whichever video loaded to play in your watch history.

 

I would consider those as possibilities for how stuff you might not have watched ended up in your watch history. That said, you took the right steps in securing your account. 

This is the only possibility besides thumbnail-hovering, unless someone hacked your account, but you said you changed your password so I would just shut off autoplay

[PowerPCFan]

Just now, AbydosOne said:

YT adds any video that preview-plays/thumbnail-plays to your history. It's a really weird choice, IMO.

Agreed, it also makes the algorithm think you like a certain type of content that you don't watch, because it's in your history... just because you hovered over a thumbnail? 

[Tsultrim Gyatso]

13 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Do you have autoplay enabled? If you finish watching a video it will automatically start playing another video which will show in your watch history. I've also found sometimes hovering over a thumbnail for a few seconds to see the preview of a video, if left long enough, will also show in your watch history. If you open the Shorts page, even by accident and immediately close it, it will count whichever video loaded to play in your watch history.

 

I would consider those as possibilities for how stuff you might not have watched ended up in your watch history. That said, you took the right steps in securing your account. 

Thank you very much.

Well I get watched videos while I am watching a long form video and did not swap. Autoplay is on but I do not get recommended Russian rocket league videos, which a lot of the fake videos are. 

 

I never got autoplay videos like this and never got recommended anything like this. Also not in shorts... Oh and these videos are not shorts. They are 3 hours plus. 

 

[Spotty]

1 minute ago, Tsultrim Gyatso said:

Thank you very much.

Well I get watched videos while I am watching a long form video and did not swap. Autoplay is on but I do not get recommended Russian rocket league videos, which a lot of the fake videos are. 

 

I never got autoplay videos like this and never got recommended anything like this. Also not in shorts... Oh and these videos are not shorts. They are 3 hours plus. 

 

Hmm. It could be possible that your account was compromised. Or you were still logged in to that account on another device somebody else was using (family member, old smart tv you sold that you were still logged in to, etc). Only advice I can really give is now that you've changed your password continue to monitor the account activity, including device logins and watch history. Probably wouldn't hurt to check your YouTube comment history as well for any comments you might not have posted. A virus scan would be a good idea, as malware to steal login credentials and session tokens is fairly common (change password again after removing malware, if found).

[Nuzicx]

Managing your google account security (including youtube).

 

Ether a connected device like a device you logged into at an AirBnB for example could still be logged in or a connected service could have been compromised, this shouldn't be overlooked. Don't give access to services (named connections) unless they are trusted and it's actually important.

 

Go  https://myaccount.google.com/security

Your devices -> Manage your devices.

Sign out of all devices you don't regularly use OR recognise

 

Go again to  https://myaccount.google.com/security

Your connections to third-party apps & services -> See all connections

Sign out of all connections you don't regularly use OR recognise

[Mark Kaine]

never checked my yt history  - absolutely no *weird* stuff here! 

 

 

 

i can only recommend to run full malwarebytes scan on all storage devices  + rootkit scan.

 

[Tsultrim Gyatso]

Update.  After I logged out of all devices reset my password and was only online with my phone. 

 

Yesterday evening nothing happend but today it happend again. Videos appearing that do not belong. 

 

My phone a pixel 8 has two active sessions it seams.

 

 

Is there anything else I can do? Are there virus checks for my phone you can recommend? 

 

 

[Tsultrim Gyatso]

On 6/19/2024 at 4:59 AM, Nuzicx said:

Managing your google account security (including youtube).

 

Ether a connected device like a device you logged into at an AirBnB for example could still be logged in or a connected service could have been compromised, this shouldn't be overlooked. Don't give access to services (named connections) unless they are trusted and it's actually important.

 

Go  https://myaccount.google.com/security

Your devices -> Manage your devices.

Sign out of all devices you don't regularly use OR recognise

 

Go again to  https://myaccount.google.com/security

Your connections to third-party apps & services -> See all connections

Sign out of all connections you don't regularly use OR recognise

Done all of that. Idk what ls happening here

[Tsultrim Gyatso]

On 6/19/2024 at 8:53 AM, Mark Kaine said:

never checked my yt history  - absolutely no *weird* stuff here! 

 

 

 

i can only recommend to run full malwarebytes scan on all storage devices  + rootkit scan.

 

One thing I noticed is that all these "fakes" in my history have no watchtime. Different to your view. Here is a normal one and a fake compared.