YouTube = Alphabet = Google Search

They know.

My shorts is mostly what I watch on long form and vice versa

I'm always on an anonymous VPN and for work am never logged in to YouTube and this is the unfiltered garbage I see too on suggested content.

Honestly, I recently created a fake Facebook account and the first things to pop up in the "shorts" was all actual porn (soft but nudity and all) so unlike others I don't think this MUST be your own doing

First, why do you even have a shorts feed? Get rid of that trash. Second, stop clicking on porn and it'll stop recommending you porn.

I disabled shorts everywhere. Before I saw your post, I couldn't even recall YouTube having shorts. 

Also, Google tracks your everything, not just your YouTube history. You likely use Google Search a lot for adult content. Even a VPN and browsing on incognito mode might not save you. They have lots of ways track you.

YouTube lately has stopped attempting reccomendations entirely, instead they berate me for having history turned off lmao.

Mine is a bunch of podcast clips and reality TV drama slop.
I guess it suggests whatever is popular in your country?

Jelly- mine is all electronics, home building, and plumbers. Oh yeah, and a bunch of standup comedy.

I'm just getting REAL tired of YT recommending these shit channels that have <300 views, <10 thumbs up, and yet have 20k+ subs and their just ripped videos from other sources with obviously AI generated text to voice.

I've reported a few, and YT has removed them.

Here's an example of one, https://www.youtube.com/@WorldViewtheory973/videos

Putting out a video on random topics every 2 hours.

There are Firefox extensions to: disable shorts, make your homepage your subscription page.

Never touch the YT homepage. Always went straight to Subscription tab and watch stuff you subscribe to or search for the stuff you want to watch yourself. Also turn off watch history and web activity.

Mine's the same. For some strange reason, full of hot chicks. I also don't watch shorts. Maybe they know I'm male and figure that will draw me in.

YouTube shorts are something I hate so much, that is why I removed them thanks to the extensions available for Firefox.

There's plenty of extensions to block shorts entirely. I'm on YouTube for a good reason. If I was interested in under 10min videos I'd be elsewhere.

Hahaha. Whoa! So different. Mine is All stand up comedians and military training things and toolmakers DIY stuff.

The irony is if I had real control over the shorts I'd actually sometimes watch them. But currently YT is trying to force them on me, with no control over which shorts I watch.

My main account there is nothing like this, even the shorts are mostly pop science stuff.

But my other account is very much this way on purpose, much like my other Lemmy account, X account (really the only one I use anymore), etc.

click on the non-horny ones for thom to stop suggesting it to you

Google knows!!!!

My Shorts list is a lot of random Spanish-language stuff. I don't speak Spanish.

Yes you are.

I ended up installing an extension that blocked all shorts, most of them are trash waste of time anyways.

Issue is if you accidentally watch one it will Keep getting recommended, it happened to me with the Dexter TV show.

Keep selecting don't recommend this channel and maybe watch something else?

I never actually log into YouTube so don't get a tailored feed.

Popular videos all adopt one of several formats for their cover.

Search "house music". It's always hot girls.

Obligatory Viva La Dirt League Video

Trying to stop the tiktok dancers

It recommends me some of those sometimes, but most of the time my shorts feed is kinda interesting and from people I follow

Mine has been programming, world history, and how to. They've figured me out.

I think this stuff is high engagement content among a large subset of the population. So it gets recommended a lot.

Maybe if you watch videos with a niche that doesn't also draw in the same audience as the borderline porn stuff's, you will see less of these shorts. Alternatively, you can download a YouTube client that gives you a completely different interface for subscriptions and recommendations, or use an Invideous instance.