I know for a fact that the algorithm retains data about your viewing preferences even after deleting watch history. After deleting mine it would still occasionally recommend something I’ve seen before and can pretty easily corral me back into whatever direction I had previously gone in. After having done this many times the videos became more random, so I think it keeps a few data points to “jump start” your viewing experience but they gradually change. If you reset your history and view as many random new videos as you can, rinse and repeat, they eventually use those those as starting points.
interestingly, when i delete the my history, after watching one video yt repopulates the recommendations almost exactly as it were a few minutes ago. it isn’t even trying
Heh. That’s also my “reason to believe”, but I was trying to get an unruly comment under control and trimmed that part.
Namely, I once took an account right back to no watch history and no likes - either that was a feature at some point or I did it manually - and still got suspiciously familiar suggestions.
I know for a fact that the algorithm retains data about your viewing preferences even after deleting watch history. After deleting mine it would still occasionally recommend something I’ve seen before and can pretty easily corral me back into whatever direction I had previously gone in. After having done this many times the videos became more random, so I think it keeps a few data points to “jump start” your viewing experience but they gradually change. If you reset your history and view as many random new videos as you can, rinse and repeat, they eventually use those those as starting points.
interestingly, when i delete the my history, after watching one video yt repopulates the recommendations almost exactly as it were a few minutes ago. it isn’t even trying
if you’re not logged in, which i dont, it will try to reccomend controversial videos to you.
Heh. That’s also my “reason to believe”, but I was trying to get an unruly comment under control and trimmed that part.
Namely, I once took an account right back to no watch history and no likes - either that was a feature at some point or I did it manually - and still got suspiciously familiar suggestions.