# YouTube vs. Plausible Deniability

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-vs-plausible-deniability/525931>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [January 22, 2010, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-vs-plausible-deniability/525931 "2010-01-22T01:06:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-vs-plausible-deniability/525931/1 "2010-01-22T01:06:13Z")

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So while I was looking at my YouTube homepage, I discovered that they’ve added a feature. In the “Recommended for You” box, they not only have videos they recommend, but also the justification. So when I pull the page up, my girlfriend can not only see what videos YouTube recommends for me, but what videos I watched previously that made them think I’d like that. Now she knows that I’ve watched every episode of Kkotboda Namja, a Korean teenage soap opera, and that I may have a “thing” for Christiane Amanpour. Before, I could always just say that their algorhithm was screwy, and that there was no particular reason for YouTUbe to recommend these videos for me. Now I have my whole history laid bare.

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**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-vs-plausible-deniability/525931/2 "2010-01-22T01:09:34Z")

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Two words: browse incognito.

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**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-vs-plausible-deniability/525931/3 "2010-01-22T02:22:28Z")

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> [@Rigamarole](#):
>
> Two words: browse incognito.

Well, I’m not that ashamed. It’s not that the recommendations are so wrong (they were once: I used to have friends in a band called New Math. When their '80s vintage videos were posted on YouTube, I favorited all of them, and then got suggestions for videos on how to do algebra). I’d just like to be able to blame the lame suggestions on the algorithm, so I don’t have to own them.

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**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-vs-plausible-deniability/525931/4 "2010-01-22T03:40:23Z")

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My home page just has the recommendations, but no explanation. Maybe it’s an option you turned on by mistake.

(Dear YouTube, just because I’m a “Doctor Who” fan doesn’t mean I want to see a video for John Barrowman’s “Please Remember Me.” Thank you.)