Is there a way that I can hide a video from all youtube search results?

June 24, 2023 2:26 AM

Is there a way that I can hide a video from all youtube search results? There's a video which has a very disturbing photo that keeps coming up in my youtube search results despite having nothing to do with my search terms or my watch history. Is there a way I can hide it forever so that it doesn't come up in future searches?
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

There's an extension called Blocktube you can use for that if you use chrome or firefox to browse.
posted by automatic cabinet at 2:50 AM on June 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

Generically ublock origin can block anything, like the picture itself.
posted by flimflam at 3:26 AM on June 24, 2023

Youtube itself has a block feature. If you hover your mouse next to the title on a video, you should see three dots in a vertical column appear on the right, below the right corner of the video frame. Click on them and you get a pop up menu with several options (share, watch later, etc.) and down at the bottom are the options "not interested", "don't recommend channel", and "report". "Not interested" should block the video, and "don't recommend channel" is more of a nuclear option.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:06 AM on June 24, 2023 [6 favorites]

Forgot to add that I have used the "not interested" option often and it works as advertised.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:06 AM on June 24, 2023

Yeah, I have gotten good results with both options - "not interested" will get rid of that particular video (but possibly only from that channel - if this is something that's been published on many different channels, it is unclear how reliably all of them will disappear from the rec engine) and to some (highly variable) extent tell the algorithm that you don't like (whatever the algo perceives as) the "topic", but what they do with that is something of a mystery.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:37 AM on June 24, 2023

"Not interested" and "do not recommend channel" do generally work, but they can stop working after some time (if the channel/video is on the same topic that you've shown a lot of interest in, I think). I'm not sure if they work at all when you search for videos as opposed to having them recommended to you.
posted by automatic cabinet at 10:15 AM on June 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

As ludicrous as it seems (implementing proper blocking tools is absolutely possible for Google; they just can't be bothered to implement them), I don't think it's possible to achieve this without a browser extension (there are several options available for Firefox and Chrome).

I have also found that while using YouTube's native "don't recommend" tools has some effect on the recommendation algorithm, I get crap that I'm pretty sure I've Not Interested before showing up in searches.

If the same video is reposted by multiple channels, blocking a single channel may not help, but some of the blocking extensions allow blocking by keyword or regular expression, so if the video description generally matches the content you may be able to target it that way.
posted by confluency at 11:53 PM on June 24, 2023