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For twenty dollars a month, I can spend every waking hour watching a great helpful video about how to paint in various mediums.

There is nothing else that comes close to that, for me, as an artist hoping to learn.

I think there need be oversight and laws regarding all social media. But at least for me, YouTube is an incredible boon.

Pretty much any piece of music will have at least one video, and a huge number with filmed orchestras.

Oh, and an enormous number of home improvement "how-tos."

However, it can be a giant rabbit hole.

Are what I watch for.

I learned how to buff out scratches on my car with YouTube how tos. There are so many things you can learn to do there.

But yeah I watch liberal shows too, like Meidas Touch, David Pakman and others. I always wondered why in my recommendations they always listed some stupid Fox program. Never watch them but they are always sprinkled in

videos. I was so impressed with the skill and the artistry, not to mention their workshops! Another time, it was growing garlic! Therre are endless rabbit holes, and many of them are fun, informative.

the historical videos and the ones that people post using metal detectors.

sometimes questions I have about a knitting stitch (knitting is a new thing for me), baking stuff. But the silly animals will have me amused (and following more links into youtube) for hours.

I especially like the cats with strange animal friends.

You will see a huge difference since they have no cookies to identify you. You can search for any video you like without it adding to your online profile

It's the same as any source of information. You need to evaluate what you see if you watch a recommended video. Or, you can just skip past the recommendation. If it starts playing automatically as next in line, just close it and move on.

I use You Tube for a lot of things -- history documentaries, songs, recipes, nutrition info on various foods, watching Meidas Touch videos, catching up on Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, old movies, watching political debates, and more.

Sometimes things are recommended that look interesting, but if I open them and find that they are pushing a belief or political view that I don't share, I just close them out. If I've been watching something political, I get ads with the ugly orange face telling me why I should support him. I just click on the "skip" option and get rid of him.

It's like TV. You can switch to watch something else, or you can just turn it off and do something else.

and trolls are always amusing.

Kings and Generals, Majorianus, and the Time Ghost Army videos are my faves. Also foreign language instructional videos (German for me).

it’s us telling our own experiences. I use Quora, YouTube and Reddit quite regularly and I literally never, ever see right wing themed videos. Never.

youtube lists. But I think about the algorithms that operate for the "do your own research" crowd. I have looked up some of the bs (the med beds and 3 gorges dam come to mind) just to see what they are seeing, but don't get flooded with the bs, thank goodness. But I can see how it happens, not only based on what one watches, but how one phrases the search questions. Just the otther day, I was looking for a specific piece of information. I put the queston in three slightly different ways, and got three completely different lists. Very interesting.

However, I am currently annoyed when TRAITOR** shows up begging for money, and seeing a local ad attacking one of our local Dem candidates. No indication of the source, but I just got a local candidate information sheet, and her opponent is an even bigger crackpot than I suspected.

by Max Fisher. Lays out how it all went down and quite readable.

...which seems to have been entirely lost on almost everyone who has replied.