> You can't even ban specific channels from being shown to you
Yes, you can. Click the video's 3-dot menu > Don't recommend channel. Though I have noticed that this only blocks them from showing up in the feed, not in the recommendations sidebar. I also have to run uBlock to hide shorts, already-watched videos, subscriber-only stuff...ain't saying the YT experience is good, not by any stretch of the imagination.
You can click a button that makes a strong "suggestion" to the algorithim, which they will honor for as long as they feel like.
I went through this a few years ago when the channel of a large far right "news" broadcaster kept being jammed on my front page, and the best I could do was keep hitting the button and have it it "temporarily" be removed from my front page before it would inevitably show up again months down the line.
Perhaps it is not deliberate, and merely incompetence. Either way resolved on desktop with an addon because if I wanted to gamble, i'd go to a casino.
Yes, this is true. I did notice that a bunch of channels I knew I had blocked started showing up again, but in my case it took 2-3 years. If it only lasts months for you, it's much less useful.
To be fair, it is entirely possible it works better today, than it did then. I was just so aggrivated at the time, thinking each time I had resolved it, only for it to appear again that I just gave up!
Yes, you can. Click the video's 3-dot menu > Don't recommend channel. Though I have noticed that this only blocks them from showing up in the feed, not in the recommendations sidebar. I also have to run uBlock to hide shorts, already-watched videos, subscriber-only stuff...ain't saying the YT experience is good, not by any stretch of the imagination.