YouTube, Despite Algorithm Improvements Over a Year... Users Say "Recommended Videos Are Unpleasant"

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] Despite YouTube improving its algorithm over the past year to prevent problematic videos from being recommended, it has been found that the platform still recommends videos that users find offensive.

On the 7th (local time), The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported this citing research results from the software nonprofit organization Mozilla Foundation.

The Mozilla Foundation conducted an experiment tracking the YouTube usage of 37,000 participants over 10 months using a specific program.

In the experiment, when participants reported videos as problematic due to sexual content or false claims, the program tracked whether YouTube's algorithm had recommended the video to the participant or if the participant had found the video on their own.

As a result, 71% of the videos reported as offensive by participants were found to have been recommended by YouTube's algorithm.

Mozilla reported that although YouTube later removed 200 videos reported by participants, the total views of those videos had already exceeded 160 million.

YouTube stated that over the past year, various measures have reduced the proportion of videos classified as harmful content being recommended to less than 1% of viewed videos.

In particular, automated systems detect 94% of videos violating YouTube policies, and most of these videos are deleted before reaching 10 views.

Mozilla owns and operates the Firefox internet browser, which competes with Google Chrome.

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