No Stupid Questions

Greasemonkey with scripts that block key words or channels. This is the only real option next to taking away YouTube from the old bat.

You can't "de-radicalize" your mom because your mom has never been "radicalized" in the first place - if she was, she'd be spray-painting ACAB on the walls and quoting Bakunin or Marx at everyone.

Your mom has been turned into a reactionary - pretty much the opposite of that which is radical. And since you have access to your mom's youtube account, it's radical content that is required to start levering open the cognitive dissonance that right-wing content attempts to paper over.

However, it can't just be any radical content - it has to be radical content that specifically addresses things that are relevant to your mom. I'll use my own mom as an example... she has always been angry about the fact that my (late) father essentially tossed away the family's nest-egg in his obsessive attempts to become a successful business owner - I showed her some videos explaining how this neolib cult of business-ownership was popularized by the likes of Reagan and Thatcher (which she had no difficulty believing because my dad was a rabid right-winger who constantly brought these two fuckheads up in conversation during the 80s) which led to a lot of good conversations.

Obviously, your mom will not be as receptive to new information as mine is - so you may have to be a bit sneakier about it. But I don't see too many other options for you at this point.

If she has no account maybe try to disable youtube from setting cookies. So shell start over every time.

The videos you watch on Youtube influence the ones you're recommended. I once put in a couple of 8 hour cat videos for to entertain a feline friend while I was away, and for a while Youtube kept recommending them to me. I had convinced it that I was a cat.

Get her to watch other videos (or even watch them on her behalf using her account), and also mark the awful ones at Not Interested > I Don't Like This Video using the thumbnail menu. It'll take some concerted effort though.

i'm really sorry to hear that you're going through a difficult time rn. it's a very frustrating situation to be in. i'm sending you a hug and good wishes.

Hey can you post an update at some point, I'm interested to see if you manage to lower the radicalising content.

It may help to not log on to YouTube at all. If she uses Google accounts, set YouTube to always open in a different container where you're not logged in. The recommendations are set by a single id in the cookies which can easily be reset.

I used to watch a lot of controversial/conspiracy/right-wing stuff because I wanted to keep tabs on their crazy. Eventually it all became way too toxic and bad for my mental health but I needed to fix my Youtube feed. There was lots of unsubscribing and channel blocking, but mostly watching of lots of trivial videos was what helped to clean it up.

I don't think downvoting helps, but upvoting does. The algorithm knows people will engage more with content that makes them angry/afraid ... don't let it know when you feel that way.

Maybe scroll through a lot of shorts and then like and subscribe to videos & channels that are less innocuous, or completely trivial (like cooking tips, makeup & fashion for older women, celebrity gossip entertainment, comedy, feel good compilations etc). If you haven't already, definitely subscribe to Daily Dose of Internet. Youtube also seems to like pushing Lo-fi, meditation, and binaural beats (especially at night) ... sub a few of those.

Block those channels who have Rogan or Tate or similar in their video titles. Unsub from the likes of Dr John Campbell & Russell Brand. If she likes news and current affairs, try to find world news channels that are more highly regarded but less likely to be "ultra left" channels that she would recognise from her anti-browsing. Channels like Reuters, AFP, or maybe news stations from other countries (like ABC news in Australia, or CBC and Global News in Canada). Block "Rebel News" and unsub from "News Nation", or anyone else that pushes clickbait headlines. Swap her subscription from "Sky News Australia" (block) to simply "Sky News" - The Australian one is made by NewsCorp (Murdoch) and targets the American right-wing audience, while the other is a legitimate UK news channel which is not owned by Murdoch - she wont notice the subtle difference in the logos, but the content will be dramatically different.

Also, I would recommend a channel called The Why Files ... he does videos on conspiracies, lays out all the conspiracy evidence, and then also lays out any debunking facts. He treats the subjects seriously, so watchers don't feel stupid for believing something, but then does a great job of presenting the debunking facts as well, so viewers get a really balanced presentation about controversial topics.

I hope this is helpful. Good luck.

P.S. If you haven't done so yet, I would recommend watching a documentary called "The Social Dilemma" if you are able to find a copy (it's on Netflix).

Kittens are good. Maybe some BBC stuff? Get her into the nature shows. Damn near anything on BBC Earth should be great for that.

Diy building stuff: Simone Goertz is awesome, as is Laura Kampf.

For some super chill diy, check out SteadyCraftin

ClickSpring builds super cool old shit and is just beautiful to watch.

Either The Action Lab or Steve Mould should work for understanding science.

For fun experiments and sciencey things, Mark Rober is entertaining.

Want something food related? I’ve heard good things about Tasting History (Max Miller), haven’t checked him out myself, though. Or James Hoffman does a great show all about coffee.

Does she knit or crochet? There are hundreds of channels about yarny things - Tiny Fiber Studios does stuff like that.

Or maybe she likes other things. Sashiko Story teaches the art of sashiko (Japanese embroidery). The Violet Unicorn teaches weaving.

How about music? Tim Reynolds is incredible, as is Marcin.

Clearing youtube history and personal ads may help not sure though

Make a new account gor youtube. And take out the one she was using out of the app. ( if its just for loggin into the phone then take it out of the phone althogeter). But like someone said earlier, shes just gonna feel like its getting censored or bored and look for that stuff herself. So you better explain to her in a long talk how the internet media machine works, and how to distinguish facts from fiction. Whitch is gonna be a daunting task but somethimes it works. If she just got into watching youtube videos then its should be a little easyer to talk to her about it.