RegretsReporter

If you are regularly watching YouTube, then chances are that you noticed that the recommendation algorithms can be quite annoying. Not only does it not account fully for the types of videos you are watching, but sometimes it offers misleading, click bait, scams and overall harmful content.

RegretsReporter is a Chrome extension that enables you to take control over the suggestion algorithm of YouTube.

The extension is part of Mozilla’s ongoing research and advocacy against harmful recommendations, so using it makes you a part of the research. Immediately following the installation in Chrome, you are provided with all the details about the Mozilla research and you need to agree to the terms to continue.

As indicated in the same page, there is a chance that the extension may not work for you, as the research entails splitting the volunteers into the standard and control group. If you are part of the latter, then the extension does not work, but are kindly asked to leave it there even though it is not doing anything.

Considering that this is an ongoing research, it goes without saying that Mozilla will gather information about some of your YouTube activity, such as number of videos viewed or the features you use to control the recommendations along with the actual videos watched.

As far as the privacy is concerned, Mozilla states that they do not link the data to your actual YouTube account, but rather assign randomly-generated user ID. This ID can be referred to in the research and can be shared with other organizations that are involved with investigating more trustworthy AI and algorithms.

In the eventuality that you would like to improve your overall YouTube experience by filtering out videos that are misleading, clic baits or simply clips that don’t present any interest, then perhaps you can consider giving RegretsReporter a try.