YouTube Is Fighting the 'Adpocalypse' With a Less Trigger-Happy Flagging System (theverge.com)

YouTube has rolled out a new algorithm that the company says will more accurately reflect YouTube's guidelines for ad-friendly material and result in fewer videos being flagged as advertiser-friendly. "It will supposedly reduce the number of demonetized listings by 30 percent, so 'millions more videos' will be able to make money off the full range of advertisements," reports The Verge. From the report: A YouTube manager writes that the new algorithm was trained by nearly three months' worth of human reviews, starting after YouTube added a manual appeals process for creators in August. Theoretically, this should narrow the range of false positives -- videos that were incorrectly flagged for promoting drug use, using excessive profanity, highlighting gratuitous violence, or otherwise featuring content that advertisers might find objectionable. It's being applied retroactively, so creators who didn't appeal could still get some old videos remonetized. Google also encourages people to keep appealing potentially incorrect flags, because "this updated system is an improvement, but it's not perfect."

Comments

Simple solution

[Okian Warrior]

is folks flagging stuff as 'controversial' because they disagree with it. Lots of the left wing channels got flagged. But even some science channels got flagged by the anti-climate change folks and the 'intelligent design' crowd.

The simplest solution would be for Google to simply say "all or nothing".

I've never understood why companies want to wade into arguments about what is acceptable speech. It's killing Hollywood, the NFL, CNN, the NYT, the professional lives of many high-profile people, and a whole lot of companies such as Twitter and Kelloggs.

Google could step up and say "It's not our job to regulate speech. If you want to advertize with us, it's all or nothing". It would be simple, easy, and cheap to implement.

As a second choice, they could say "If you want to specify which YouTube videos your ads get served to, give us a list. Otherwise, it's not our job to regulate or even *categorize* speech".

Trying to second-guess what advertizers find objectionable is a foolish goal.

If the advertizers have concerns, it should be their job to police it.

They tried that

[rsilvergun]

it was their old system. It lead to a few adverts showing up on Neo-Nazi channels. The advertisers freaked out thinking they'd be associated with supporting Nazis and pulled their ads. Like it or not youtube, like tv, has to worry about offending people since people who get offended are loud. Annoying, but loud.