YouTube recommendations (the videos that show up on Home Feed and Up Next) have been notorious for giving you suggestions of weird or completely unrelated videos. This has had serious repercussions with kids videos in particular, where the algorithm suggested inappropriate videos to watch next.
The execs at YouTube had to step in to resolve the matter, and it looks like their efforts have finally paid off.
Users will now have more control over the videos that pop up on recommendations. A new update is available for YouTube on iOS from today, rolling out for Android and desktop users soon.
The first change made by YouTube is topic wise exploration. Just like Instagram’s search tab, there will be a horizontal bar containing all the topics based on your current personalized suggestion. These videos will mostly include videos similar to what you usually watch, videos from the same channel or other topics that are related to the video.
The scrollable horizontal bar will be available at your home page and can be accessed by scrolling up. This feature is available in English only for the time being but will be rolled out in other languages soon.
The next thing, which everyone wanted, was removing certain suggested videos from your homepage. YouTube has finally added this highly demanded feature. If you tap the three vertical dots next to the recommended videos, you will see a, “Don’t recommend channel” option.
Once you select it, none of the videos from the channel will show up on your home page. However, if you are still interested in watching their videos, you will be able to search for the channel using the search bar. This feature does not block the channel, only removes it from suggestions.
Last but not least is the feature that will help users get a better insight into why you are seeing a certain genre of videos on your home feed. Information regarding why the video popped up in your recommended videos will be shown in a small rectangular box under the video.