Senator Warns YouTube Algorithm May Be Open To Manipulation By 'Bad Actors' (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The top-ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee has warned that YouTube's powerful recommendation algorithm may be "optimizing for outrageous, salacious and often fraudulent content" or susceptible to "manipulation by bad actors, including foreign intelligence entities." Senator Mark Warner, of Virginia, made the stark warning after an investigation by the Guardian found that the Google-owned video platform was systematically promoting divisive and conspiratorial videos that were damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign in the months leading up to the 2016 election.

"Companies like YouTube have immense power and influence in shaping the media and content that users see," Warner said. "I've been increasingly concerned that the recommendation engine algorithms behind platforms like YouTube are, at best, intrinsically flawed in optimizing for outrageous, salacious and often fraudulent content." He added: "At worst, they can be highly susceptible to gaming and manipulation by bad actors, including foreign intelligence entities." YouTube's algorithm determines which videos to promote in the "Up next" column beside the video player. The Guardian found that "the algorithm was six times more likely to recommend videos that was damaging to Clinton than Trump, and also tended to amplify wild conspiracy theories about the former secretary of state."

Comments

Republican said the same

[randomErr]

Ok the Republicans said the same about Democratic videos popping up against Trump. So which is real? Can we can the # of times that pro-Trump and pro-Hillary videos actually ran and unique views by person? We never will because it would reveal too much about Google's algorithms.

Re:Republican said the same

[AmiMoJo]

This isn't really a political issue, it's to do with the way that YouTube's algorithms decide what to suggest.

YouTube doesn't just look at the ratio of thumbs up and thumbs down votes, it looks at the amount of "interaction" the video gets. Down votes count as interaction. Watching the whole video counts as interaction, watching 10 seconds of the video counts as (less) interaction. Commenting counts as interaction.

The problem with this is that it tends to push conspiracy theories and other nonsense to the top. The more people argue about it, the more they give it thumbs down and debunk it in the comments, the more visible it becomes.

YouTube isn't unique in this respect of course. It's well understood that social media amplifies stupid. But YouTube is unlike most other social media because it appeals to people who find reading hard or are convinced by an actual person on screen telling them something.

Social media as propaganda tool: Shocker!

[rmdingler]

If we stipulate that (shudder) Youtube, Facebook, and other influential social media outlets are places where political opinion is formed, then they are news sites.

Even if users are unable or unwilling to recognize this fact, folks whose business it is to shape public opinion realize and exploit these forums... including their founders and overseers.

The degree to which your discomfort with this enrages you is in direct proportion to your political bend and who's currently winning hearts and minds.

Re:Social media as propaganda tool: Shocker!

[rmdingler]

There's a difference between having your own opinions and discussing facts about a political issue on a website and outright lying - particularly when the liars are being funded by a foreign government with a particular fondness for vodka.

There is a key difference in what the Russians were able to accomplish in the last American Presidential election and what the US has been able to do meddling in the internal affairs of sovereign nations for generations: the vodka drinkers were not that influential.

Outright lying is troublesome, but not for the morality fail so much as for the number of voters who seem unable to make, or care to make, the distinction... as long as it reinforces their world view.

Re: Social media as propaganda tool: Shocker!

[Mashiki]

Can you point out three instances where CNN lied? Be specific please.

"There are no sanctuary cities in the US." "The police are full of unstable war veterans." "Trump dumps fish food into koi pond, and will kill all the fish." "Trump sets precedent, takes no questions in China." "Nancy Sinatra is upset over Trump using her father's song"(paraphrased)

Are those good enough? Those are all lies, those were all reported as facts by CNN. I also seem to remember something about 3 reporters getting their asses tossed out as well.

Let's give up on fixing Stupid already.

[geekmux]

I'm really getting tired of hearing about how Facebook, YouTube, or any other form of social media is "manipulating the masses". Social Media is supposed to be entertainment, not a fucking source of news, facts, and shit you use to guide you in your life's decisions.

I think we should give up on trying to fix Stupid. Find a way to quarantine it off or something. Colonize a new country of citizens that still believe in common sense, rational thought, and intelligent discourse. One thing is for certain; if we continue to monetize and reward stupidity, you can expect the devolution to continue.

Check the prior

[invalid_user]

Are there more anti-Clinton videos than anti-Trump videos on YouTube? If so, most Bayesian methods will recommend you an anti-Clinton video... unless if you apply a completely partisan bias that enforces equal time for both sides (or even mute out the other side).

In my opinion, the reason there are more anti-Clinton videos on YouTube is simply because there are just too many people who can't find their views represented in the mainstream media. So, if the mainstream media will just stop calling everyone who doesn't echo their agenda an "alt-right", and instead, reason with them, the videos will most likely just go away.

Today Democrats still have close to the entire mainstream media firmly behind their narrative, and Colbert's show is still the most viewed on YouTube. So why the paranoia?

Remember, strike out their voices, and they will become powerful than you could possibly imagine.

Re:Check the prior

[TheRaven64]

Are there more anti-Clinton videos than anti-Trump videos on YouTube? If so, most Bayesian methods will recommend you an anti-Clinton video... unless if you apply a completely partisan bias that enforces equal time for both sides (or even mute out the other side)

Only if it's an entirely trivial algorithm. More likely, it will take other factors such as number of comments, number of views, and so on into account. Given the information that Google collects, it will probably also take into account the amount of time that people spent watching them, the things that other people geographically close to you watched, the things that other people who read the same kinds of new sources as you read (if they've got Google ads, Google knows whether you prefer an R- or D-leaning news site), what news apps you have installed on your Android phone, how many times the word Trump and Hillary appear in emails that you've sent and received with GMail (and with what modifiers, such as whether 'lying' appears near 'Hillary' or 'treason' appears near 'Trump') and so on.

No shit

[DrXym]

Open up YouTube without logging on and the entire page is just bullshit click bait. People have figured out how to game the algorithm to get their vapid trash onto the front page, generating millions of views in the process.

I'm sure the same thing happens at a smaller scale. Channels know the keywords to use, the video stills to advertise the content, the baiting language to get the views. Once the views go up the ranking algorithm makes the video more prominent, perpetuating the process. And if it can be done for commercial reasons it surely can be done for political or propaganda purposes.

Yes, it is that bad.

[burtosis]

Since it appears we have reached the point where too many Americans believe things like Hillary is running a child sex slave ring on Mars I'd just like to say it's been fun but I think we are well and truly fucked at this point.
This is really just another "failure" like Tey where the problem is just that it is a reflection of how people want to use the technology. The algorithm is "failing" because divisiveness, tribalism, hatred, not challenging people to think and a deep seated pride in willful ignorance fuled by confidence in whatever you believe is real is what the free market wants because that's what people want. The real bad actors are those that don't teach people to think critically from a young age, if you don't know what's real it's not even possible to act in your own self interest - people make choices they never would have if they only had a clear understanding of reality.

Clinton Perjury

[Anonymous Coward]

Video of Gowdy getting Comey to admit under oath that Clinton lied under oath at least 6 times. We call that perjury and it is ILLEGAL. It was referred to the FBI to bring up charges, but Stroke decided to toss that referral in the trash and not follow up, which is not an exoneration but instead an obstruction of justice by Stroke.

So there you go, outright evidence of Clinton being a criminal.

Sign of the times -- or nothing new?

[andrewbaldwin]

As Isaac Asimov said, many years ago...

"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

Social media has its place - entertaining, yes but certainly not informing and enlightening.

Sadly, the comfort zone 'bubble' appeals to those of all political and religious persuasions and, far from being 'social', recent system have been ever more divisive.

Re:Mirrors your attitude

[Cytotoxic]

This is the salient point. The algorithms are customized to the individual, so YouTube, Google, Facebook and other social media platforms are echo chambers.

    So when the guardian writes:

The Guardian found that "the algorithm was six times more likely to recommend videos that was damaging to Clinton than Trump, and also tended to amplify wild conspiracy theories about the former secretary of state."

One must ask, to who? Who is the user that is getting served up this content, and what have they been doing online?

It would be absolutely stunning if a Google company was an overall net negative to the Clinton campaign. Alphabet (Google parent company) Chairman Eric Schmidt worked closely with the Clinton campaign and created the company "The Groundwork" for the purpose. With deep knowledge of the algorithms used by Google and YouTube and a slew of engineers from the companies, The Groundwork has direct ties into the backend at Google.

Claiming that YouTube was manipulated to shill for Trump (overall) would be like claiming that William Randolph Hurst's papers were shilling against his favored candidates. It just doesn't make any sense at all.

In Other New, The Sky Is Blue...

[Pyramid]

Channels about chemistry, logical thinking, social discourse, physics, etc. are demonetized at the drop of a hat, but we have Pewdiepie, menstrual blood "art" and pop stars wearing strap-on dildoes at the top.

Social media is not about liberal notions like free speech, education, science. It's about doing everything possible to keep eyes focused on the stream of shit for as long as possible. The byproduct is the algorithms that select the carefully crafted stream of diarrhea ensure everyone stays in their same lane, comfort bubble.

Discourse, critical thinking are the backbone of western societies. We're in trouble.