YouTube's updated filters are good news for anyone sick of Shorts

[midian182]

What just happened? In a move that will be welcomed by many people, YouTube has introduced several new search filters to the platform that allow users to, among other things, exclude Shorts from their results. It's especially pleasing given the huge number of AI slop-filled Shorts that are currently populating YouTube.

YouTube writes that as a result of user feedback, it is enhancing the search experience by updating the filters. In addition to introducing new options, others are being renamed and removed.

The biggest change relates to Shorts. YouTube has added a new Shorts option as a dedicated content type in the Type filter. It means you can now choose to search through long-form videos or Shorts exclusively.

YouTube is also changing the name of the Sort By menu. It will now be called Prioritize. According to the post, this refined sorting menu aims to maximize utility.

Elsewhere, the View count sort option has now been renamed to Popularity. YouTube will not only assess a video's view count, but also other metrics such as watch time to determine its popularity for specific queries.

Some filters are being removed in the update. Upload Date – Last Hour and Sort by Rating were not working as expected and had contributed to user complaints, according to YouTube. As such, they are being purged.

YouTube will still show other filters in the Upload Date section, including Today, This Week, This Month, and This Year.

A report last month found that over 21% of YouTube videos being shown to new users can be defined as AI slop – careless, low-quality content generated by computer applications and used to farm views and subscriptions or sway political opinion.

The report also looked at the most popular AI slop channels' statistics. Most of the views, 8.45 billion, came from South Korea, followed by Pakistan (5.34 billion) and the US (3.39 billion). Depressingly, the most popular of these channels earn over $4 million per year in ad revenue.

Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't require creators to label AI-generated videos in a way that's searchable or filterable, so you can't filter them in the traditional sense.

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YouTube's updated filters are good news for anyone sick of Shorts

 

[Homerlovesbeer]

Hell yea! I friggin hate "shorts" in my feed!

 

[gigantor21]

So instead of fixing the “Last Hour” filter they just…got rid of it entirely?

 

[OortCloud]

Install Brave - no YouTube adverts, and you can also turn off shorts, and games shelves etc.

 

[PXAbstraction]

I literally use a Chrome extension that hides shorts. It works, but it also makes rendering pages on YouTube super slow. This filter is very welcome by me because shorts are the worst.

 

[opckieran]

I actually like shorts. No way am I getting on TikTok. What I can't stand are AI generated videos created for purposes other than amusement, humor, or entertainment.

 

[mbk34]

What about a filter for removing human generated slop?

 

[guillejp]

So instead of fixing the “Last Hour” filter they just…got rid of it entirely?

Nah, they either didn't want it or considered it useless, and just said that and deleted it.

 

[Vanderlinde]

Install Brave - no YouTube adverts, and you can also turn off shorts, and games shelves etc.

You do know that more then 50% of youtube's traffic is through mobile and their app? And you can't just block ads in the app just as instagram is doing. not even on a DNS level since the apps are connecting through one and the same pipe that provides everything.

 

[victorpaniagua91]

You do know that more then 50% of youtube's traffic is through mobile and their app? And you can't just block ads in the app just as instagram is doing. not even on a DNS level since the apps are connecting through one and the same pipe that provides everything.

I use brave browser on mobile to view youtube, unlike chrome or other browsers on mobile, brave feels smooth and better than the actual youtube app. It does cut all ads and loads fast, does not feel like you are using a browser, I only use brave for youtube, for anything else on mobile I use chrome. You should try it out.

 

[airbornex]

Renaming "Sort by View Count" to "Popularity" is either a smart UX improvement or a very polite way of saying "the algorithm knows better than you."
Probably both.

 

[ZedRM]

I have a browser extension that blocks shorts completely. I never see them.

 

[SpacemanSam]

This is really great news, if it actually works as advertised. I do not EVER use my telePHONE to watch teleVISION; I use my desktop computer with its nice big easily-viewable 27 inch monitor that's permanently mounted in television (I.e. landscape) orientation, or a wall-mounted big-screen TV (also permanently mounted in landscape orientation). A hand-sized telephone screen is way too small to see any detail with 75 year old eyes.

I absolutely HATE trying to watch something which was recorded on a (smart)phone being held like a telePHONE instead of a TV camera so that 75 or 80% of my screen is either completely blank or filled with a blurry magnified copy of the edges of the picture.