The uBlock Filter Hiding YouTube Shorts—and the Attention Resistance Movement

A growing community of developers is repurposing ad-blocking software to combat algorithmic addiction, with custom uBlock Origin filters now eliminating YouTube Shorts from millions of browsers worldwide. This grassroots movement represents a deliberate pushback against the attention economy—reclaiming cognitive autonomy through technical countermeasures designed to restore intentional media consumption.

What Is the Attention Resistance Movement?

The attention resistance movement comprises technologists, researchers, and everyday users who recognize that the modern internet is architected not for human flourishing but for engagement extraction. As documented by Princeton University researcher Jonathan Mayer, today’s platforms operate as “surveillance business models” that monetize user attention through algorithmic recommendation systems designed to maximize time-on-site metrics.¹

💡 KEY INSIGHT: The term “attention economy” was coined by Nobel laureate Herbert Simon in 1971, who observed that “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” Today’s platforms have industrialized this scarcity, turning cognitive focus into a harvested resource.

YouTube Shorts—Google’s TikTok competitor launched globally on July 13, 2021—epitomizes this architecture. With over 100 billion daily views as of November 2025, the platform delivers “short bursts of thrills” that researchers from Guizhou University and Western Michigan University have linked to addictive behavior patterns.² The format’s vertical video design, infinite scroll mechanism, and algorithmic personalization create what Dr. Anna Lembke of Stanford University describes as “powerful stimuli triggering dopamine surges akin to other addictive behaviors.”³

The resistance movement emerged organically from this recognition. Rather than waiting for regulatory intervention or corporate goodwill, technically proficient users began developing and sharing tools to systematically strip away the mechanisms of manipulation.

How Does the YouTube Shorts uBlock Filter Work?

uBlock Origin, created by developer Raymond Hill (gorhill) and first released on June 23, 2014, is a free and open-source content-filtering extension available for Firefox and Chromium-based browsers.⁴ With over 29 million active Chrome users and 10 million Firefox users as of December 2025, it stands as the most popular ad-blocking extension on Firefox.⁵

The extension’s power lies in its support for custom cosmetic filters—CSS-based rules that visually remove webpage elements before they render. Users hiding YouTube Shorts typically employ filters such as:

youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer
youtube.com##ytd-rich-shelf-renderer
youtube.com##a[href^="/shorts/"]

These filters target the DOM elements responsible for Shorts carousels, shelf recommendations, and direct links to Shorts content. The element picker feature—accessible via the eye-dropper icon in uBlock’s popup menu—allows users to interactively select and permanently remove page elements without writing code.⁶

⚠️ TECHNICAL NOTE: As of March 2025, Google began disabling Manifest V2 extensions in Chrome, including the full-featured uBlock Origin. Users on Chrome must now choose between switching to Firefox (where uBlock Origin works best) or using uBlock Origin Lite—a Manifest V3-compliant version with reduced functionality.⁷

Why Does This Matter? The Stakes of Cognitive Autonomy

The significance of this movement extends far beyond YouTube Shorts. According to Pew Research Center data from June 2025, 84% of U.S. adults use YouTube, making it the most widely used social media platform in the country.⁸ When users regain control over their interface, they reclaim hours previously surrendered to algorithmic curation.

Research published in Computers in Human Behavior found that short-form video consumption correlates with “shorter attention spans and slower cognitive processing” among young adults.⁹ A 2017 neuroimaging study by He, Turel, and Bechara demonstrated that excessive social media use can reduce gray matter in brain regions responsible for attention and impulse control.¹⁰

The resistance movement represents a form of “digital self-defense”—users weaponizing the same technical knowledge that builds engagement engines to dismantle them. As Helen Nissenbaum and Daniel Howe, creators of the AdNauseam extension, observed: “A browser that plays favorites to advance its owner’s interests effectively chokes out innovative, independent developers, while shrinking the options for individuals to shape their online experiences.”¹¹

Comparison: Attention Resistance Tools

The Manifest V3 Conflict: Platforms vs. Users

Google’s Manifest V3 extension specification, fully implemented in March 2025, represents the latest battleground in this conflict. The Electronic Frontier Foundation characterized the changes as “Deceitful and Threatening,” noting that the restrictions primarily harm “privacy-protective tracker blockers” while Google’s own trackers remain present on 75% of the top one million websites.¹²

According to research from Goethe University Frankfurt, uBlock Origin Lite—designed for Manifest V3 compliance—manages to bypass most restrictions but experiences “cosmetic filters over 20% less effective” compared to its predecessor.¹³ This degradation is not accidental; it reflects the fundamental conflict between a browser vendor that operates one of the world’s largest advertising networks and extensions designed to block that advertising.

🔍 THE BOTTOM LINE: Raymond Hill, uBlock Origin’s creator, maintains that the extension “works best on Firefox” due to that browser’s continued support for the webRequest API and other capabilities restricted in Chromium-based browsers under Manifest V3.¹⁴

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Will using uBlock Origin to block YouTube Shorts violate YouTube’s Terms of Service?

A: No. Content filtering through browser extensions operates entirely on the client side—on your own device. YouTube cannot detect whether you’ve applied cosmetic filters, and no terms of service prohibit modifying how content renders in your own browser.

Q: Can I block Shorts on the YouTube mobile app?

A: The YouTube mobile app offers limited control. You can select “Not interested” on individual Shorts, but there is no native toggle to disable the feature entirely. Third-party YouTube clients like NewPipe (Android) provide more control but violate YouTube’s Terms of Service.

Q: Does blocking Shorts affect YouTube’s recommendation algorithm?

A: Yes, indirectly. When you don’t click on or engage with Shorts content, YouTube’s algorithm receives fewer signals about your preferences for that format. Combined with actively selecting “Not interested” on Shorts thumbnails, this can reduce their prominence in your recommendations over time.

Q: Is there a performance benefit to blocking YouTube Shorts?

A: Yes. Research published in Technologies found that uBlock Origin reduces web page load times by 28.5%, with potential global energy savings exceeding $1.8 billion if widely adopted.¹⁵ Blocking resource-intensive Shorts carousels further reduces bandwidth consumption and page weight.

Q: Why won’t Google let users disable Shorts entirely?

A: Shorts generates over 100 billion daily views and represents YouTube’s primary competitive response to TikTok. As The Financial Times reported, some YouTube staff have expressed concern that Shorts may “cannibalize” long-form content, but the platform continues prioritizing the format due to its engagement metrics.¹⁶

The Broader Implications

The attention resistance movement signals a maturation in how users conceptualize their relationship with technology. Where early internet adoption emphasized unfettered access, the current moment recognizes that unlimited access to algorithmically optimized content is not synonymous with freedom—it often represents its opposite.

Australia’s November 2024 ban on social media for users under 16, the introduction of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) in the U.S. Senate, and growing regulatory scrutiny of Meta all reflect broader societal recognition that attention extraction carries real harms.¹⁷ But regulation moves slowly, and corporations adapt faster than legislation.

Technical countermeasures like uBlock Origin filters offer immediate, individualized protection. They represent what the Center for Humane Technology calls “humane design”—interfaces that respect human attention rather than exploit it.

For now, the arms race continues. As platforms develop ever more sophisticated engagement mechanisms, the resistance community responds with increasingly refined blocking techniques. The uBlock Origin filter hiding YouTube Shorts is not merely a utility—it’s a declaration of cognitive independence in an age of algorithmic determinism.