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YouTube Alters Algorithm To Promote News, Penalize Vegas Shooting Conspiracy Theories (usatoday.com)
An anonymous reader quotes USA Today:
YouTube has changed its powerful search algorithm to promote videos from more mainstream news outlets in search results after people looking for details on the Las Vegas shooting were served up conspiracy theories and misinformation. YouTube confirmed the changes Thursday... In the days after the mass shooting, videos abounded on YouTube, some questioning whether the shooting occurred and others claiming law enforcement officials had deceived the public about what really happened...
Public outcry over YouTube videos promoting conspiracy theories is just the latest online flap for the major U.S. Internet companies. Within hours of the attack, Facebook and Google were called out for promoting conspiracy theories... Helping drive YouTube's popularity is the "Up next" column which suggests additional videos to viewers. The Wall Street Journal found incidents this week in which YouTube suggested videos promoting conspiracy theories next to videos from mainstream news sources. YouTube acknowledged issues with the "Up next" algorithm and said it was looking to promote more authoritative results there, too.
At least one video was viewed over a million times, and Slashdot reader Lauren Weinstein writes that "I've received emails from Google users who report YouTube pushing links to some of those trending fake videos directly to their phones as notifications." He's suggesting that from now on, YouTube's top trending videos should be reviewed by actual humans.
Public outcry over YouTube videos promoting conspiracy theories is just the latest online flap for the major U.S. Internet companies. Within hours of the attack, Facebook and Google were called out for promoting conspiracy theories... Helping drive YouTube's popularity is the "Up next" column which suggests additional videos to viewers. The Wall Street Journal found incidents this week in which YouTube suggested videos promoting conspiracy theories next to videos from mainstream news sources. YouTube acknowledged issues with the "Up next" algorithm and said it was looking to promote more authoritative results there, too.
At least one video was viewed over a million times, and Slashdot reader Lauren Weinstein writes that "I've received emails from Google users who report YouTube pushing links to some of those trending fake videos directly to their phones as notifications." He's suggesting that from now on, YouTube's top trending videos should be reviewed by actual humans.
The problem with suppressing conspiracy theories, and promoting "authoritative" sources, is that it makes real conspiracies even easier for the authorities to cover up.
Unless, of course it is CNN or any of the old news outlets, having "experts" speculating for hours.
That's how Google pushes its leftist agenda.
IMHO it's more that old media is used to telling people what to think. That's why people get into journalism these days. They abhor that dissenting views can be spread online and that they are losing control over information. So they push for censorship.
Google is perfectly happy to censor its products to push the approved narrative. They're on the same political side as those media companies. The only conflict is a difference in opinion how radical they should be.
You start questioning the "official" media when what they report don't match your own observation.
That's basically one of the things that fell the communist states. People eventually saw that what they're told by media and politicians does not reflect what they experience. They heard that the plan was fulfilled and overfulfilled yet you could buy nothing in the stores. They heard that they live in the best of all words and saw that everywhere else the world is better.
What's keeping our system afloat is that there is no west showing us how we're being bullshitted.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's not even extremist content anymore. It's pretty much any content that could remotely be considered "offensive" by anyone. No matter what or who, if anyone could have a huwt widdle feeling by looking at your video, you're demonetized.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The K12 system in the US teaches kids to pass tests needed to graduate. They donâ(TM)t teach critical thinking and discernment. Free speech relies on a public capable of thinking critically to discern between a bullshit theory and an alternative explanation backed by evidence.
Do we really want tech companies deciding what material is proscribed? How is that better than government censorship? So called fake news is unavoidable and inseparable from freedom of speech and press. In a free country, people are free to be gullible and stupid. Any effort to actually fix the problem of "fake news" would focus on educating people and promoting critical thinking, but that would also mean not blindly swallowing propaganda and ideology from media, liberals, conservatives, et al, and so is unlikely to gain any traction.
"Public outcry?" More like "mainstream media narrative." Way to tip your hand there Mr. Author.
The mainstream narrative (not public outcry) here has been for censorship/alteration of Internet algorithms to prefer mainstream sources.
This seems an undesirable development to any but those mainstream sources themselves. (from big media's point of view:) "Alright Internet... we acknowledge that you have the people's eyeballs now. Let us use what thrall we still have over the people to convince them that we should be the only ones they can trust online."
Worse, the news these mainstream companies produce is largely "fake" too, with headlines ever-more tabloid-like, begging for views like clickbait links. Plus, they put a blatant political slant on everything. Hearst famously claimed "I make the news," and he was right. He had editorial sway over what people across the nation would discuss that day, based on what he decided to print.
This whole thing is utter rubbish--a dying mainstream media grasping for relevancy. I say let them die.
20 years ago, that might have been a good choice. These days, not so much.
Yes, the conspiracy theories around that shooting are probably out of control. I checked about five videos of it, 2 handy videos from the grounds, 1 short news blurb and 2 conspiracy videos and boy do these guys need to take less of whatever drugs they are taking.
But (and that's a big butt, in the words of Ben Goldacre) the mainstream media is not exactly an impartial, reliable and thorough reporter of news anymore. Too many real journalists have been cut in the name of profits, too much funding diverted from investigation and background checking, too much power given to click counts and advertiser demands.
I won't trust the mainstream media on anything more deep than the basic facts. Too many stories where I know the backgrounds have been reported incorrectly, or shortened in simplified so much that they are barely recognizable. Too much clear bias has been uncovered by media studies. Too much press releases and press conference statements are parrot-like repeated instead of properly checked before reporting.
Putting less weight on conspiracy theories - good. But it's a step too little. The balance should be tilted against all sensationalist and click-bait reporting, including that of mainstream media. Balance should be up on reporting that includes background information, fact-checking and independent investigations. But hey, that would require some actual human judgement and is hard to put into a couple lines of code.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Manipulation of this sort is wrong. I'm not into conspiracies but I know this manipulation is just wrong.
If they can do it they will do it to anything that they don't like. What they don't like is irrelevant.
It is no longer youtube when you don't choose.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Bump stock doesn't kill people, guns kill people. Ban guns!
Guns don't kill people, bullets kill people. Ban bullets! Or at least tax the hell out of them.
Avoid it? You're building the goddamn road to it!
Nope. Humanity has several groups of folks, and allowing those who allow their sociopathy and perversions to dominate because they are mistakenly assuming they are anonymous is a fine example of the tragedy of the commons. While these bits of human excrement are busy acting like the assholes they are, yet way too cowardly to act that way if they were to meet whoever it is they are messing with in person, the actual legitimate participants just go away. Then a group is left with nothing but the trolls and kooks, who lose interest because after ruining a group, they need their new fix.
My best example is the usenet groups. If I might use an example, the rec.radio.amateur.antenna group at one time had some world reknowned experts that you could learn from, and have a conversation with. It was priceless.
But after teh trolls and kooks came on board, some idiot that thinks antennas work by shooting off bits of themselves, and they guy who wants to go into great detail about how they want to fuck the expert's dead mother ended up chasing the experts away. They didn't need that sort of abuse, no matter how much you want to hand it out, AC.
So now we have closed groups, some of which I moderate, which simply don't put up with that. If the AC wants to be a necrophiliac, or believe that hurricanes are God's diarrhea, they can, just not on my watch.
That's why Slashdot's moderation system allows the AC to be as disgusting as they wish. They are not squelched. Unfortunately, in more tightly focused groups, we don't have time for that. Don't like it? Too bad.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.