I'm not sure thumbs up/down matter in the algorithm. But that's the problem: we don't know.

I understand you can watch only one type of video, but, from what I,'ve seen, as soon as you watch/click on 1 political video, you get bombarded by it. Also sharing ip with other people seem to affect what you're being shown. I'm surprised that hn seems to think it has that much control over the recommendation algorithm.

It’s been shown again and again [1] that YouTube endlessly promoted conspiracy videos, fringe thinking, UFO “truth”, and other such garbage for wide swaths of its audience. They are a parasite on the way the algorithm works, feed by clicks.

It’s a bit like blaming the heroin addict who is offered it everywhere they go. Don’t blame the user when this is wide spread.

[1] https://mashable.com/article/youtube-conspiracy-theory-recom...

They promote what they asked for. Assigning it agency from its content would be fundamentally ignorant and/or disingenuous. It is the exact same thing as the Google testimonies where congress members were upset that negative content came up when they were searched for.

Who is they and what is the ask? YouTube serves this to you by default.