RegretsReporter

The RegretsReporter extension gives you more control over your YouTube experience. RegretsReporter brings YouTube’s algorithmic controls to the forefront of your feed, giving you a simple way to tell YouTube’s algorithm to stop recommending certain videos, and also to report the recommendations that you regret. RegretsReporter is only for people who are 18 or older. This extension is part of a crowdsourced investigation into YouTube’s algorithm to learn more about what people regret being recommended and how the algorithm responds to user feedback. You can choose to opt-in to donating your data to support our research upon installing the extension. By contributing your data to our research you can help us improve one of the most powerful recommendation engines on the planet.

How does it work?

RegretsReporter overlays a “stop recommending” button onto the thumbnail of each video that appears in your YouTube recommendations. Pressing this button will send feedback directly to YouTube, telling them that you don’t want to be recommended that type of video in the future. After sending this feedback, you can provide an optional comment to help us learn more about why that recommendation was unwanted. If you choose to opt-in to Mozilla’s crowdsourced research project upon installing the extension, Mozilla will monitor your recommendations to see whether YouTube is really listening to the feedback that you send. This contributes to our advocacy work to put people in control of their experiences with online algorithms.

What kind of data am I donating when I use RegretsReporter?

If you choose to opt-in to Mozilla’s crowdsourced research project, the extension will send Mozilla information about the number of videos you view, your use of features to control your recommendations, and what kinds of videos you are recommended. If you choose to opt-out, Mozilla will not receive any data about your YouTube usage as part of our investigation into YouTube’s algorithm.