YouTube Says Computers Helped It Pull Down Millions of Objectionable Videos Last Quarter (recode.net)

YouTube says it has successfully trained computers to flag objectionable videos. In the last quarter of 2017, the company reportedly pulled down more than six million of these videos before any users saw them. The news comes from a brief aside in Google CEO Sundar Pichai's scripted remarks during parent company Alphabet's earnings call today. "He said YouTube had pulled down more than six million videos in the last quarter of 2017 after first being flagged by its 'machine systems,' and that 75 percent of those videos 'were removed before receiving a single view,'" reports Recode.

Comments

Kinda defeats the purpose of youtube

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't censuring videos like that kinda of defeat the whole point of youtube? The idea that anybody could post whatever. Now Youtube is filled with commercial businesses. Wish there was a good alternative to post my cat videos on!

Re:Kinda defeats the purpose of youtube

[Chas]

So long as you're good with YouTube regurgitating mainstream media partners at you, it's all good.

Otherwise, the recommended section is utter crap.

And their umpty-quadrillion layers of "subscription" is an exercise in sisyphean bullshit.

Re:Kinda defeats the purpose of youtube

[Anonymous Coward]

This YouTube algorithm has a nasty habit of "flagging" conservatives. For example, recently it "flagged" a discussion between Dave Rubin and Thomas Sowell.

Re:Kinda defeats the purpose of youtube

[Rockoon]

This YouTube algorithm has a nasty habit of "flagging" conservatives. For example, recently it "flagged" a discussion between Dave Rubin and Thomas Sowell.

Only Sowell is a conservative. The channel operator, Rubin, is a liberal (in spite of being called alt-right because he dares to also interview conservatives.)

AI

[110010001000]

This is AI and deep learning. It has destroyed the job market for video reviewers. I know: I used to be one.

Re: AI

[BitterOak]

If a computer can do your job then you are not doing a useful service. You need to value add and offer something a computer cannot do.

I don't disagree with you, but by this logic, in 20 or 30 years, no human will be doing a useful service. Not sure how the economy will work then.

Re:AI

[stephanruby]

You may have been downsized because of this, but don't believe all the hype. AI only helps partially. Youtube still needs human reviewers (even if they're unwilling to pay them).

Remember what prompted the advertiser pullouts last year, youtube was still incapable of filtering very obvious unambiguous swear and racist language from the text subject lines and the text descriptions of its hosted videos. To me, that just means that they didn't care, and/or that they were unwilling to pay for that kind of manual sifting by actual human beings.

Re: AI

[scottrocket]

So instead we should all wallow in an overpopulated cesspool of poverty, disease, and starvation...

The earth cannot sustain infinite human growth. It can't even sustain what we have now. The inequality that you see is a direct result of this. The only solution is mass population control, and it's only logical that the best and brightest should reproduce.

It's been my experience that those with the money - hence, influence (the 1%) - aren't always "the best and the brightest". So now how do we decide who is "the best and the brightest"? "Big gun, big man" usually ends up as the final decider during draconian times, and then we start the whole mess all over again, minus the smarter people (the "best and brightest" intellectually, if not physically) who are the keepers of accurate history. The others will simply "Soviet airbrush" into existence that which they wish to believe.

Re: AI

[Anon-Admin]

The earth cannot sustain infinite human growth.

Well, it looks like you will not be one of the "best and brightest" that gets to reproduce. You are thinking too small, the earth cannot sustain infinite human growth but the fucking universe can.

Hell, disassemble the earth and use the raw materials to make large habitats orbiting the sun. Just the material in the earth is enough to make and support 100,000 x the existing population or we could get to the point where we have a Ecumenopolis first. We are nowhere near that level!

We could continue to expand after disassembling the earth and move on to the other planets. There is lots of raw material and hydrocarbons in the solar system. Add Star lifting to the mix and we are set.

How many of them were false positives?

[Lordpidey]

I remember not too long ago that a LOT of people were wondering why the hell their videos were banned, with something as innocuous as just a TF2 match.

AI is not good enough for detecting hate speech yet.

Re:How many of them were false positives?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's likely not that much.

It's also fairly obvious that that number is inflated. If objectional videos were really being pulled down, ALL of Alex Jones infowars content would never show up.

Rather "objectionable" , includes reaction videos and uploads/re-uploads of television footage that was live not to long ago, before ContentID gets to it. If they have successfully trained AI to be able to tell the difference between a video game and live footage, that would be an amazing breakthrough. That said, most of what is "easy" to block objectionable content is by having the auto-subtitle system pick up violent language.

Re:How many of them were false positives?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hate speech".

I bet you would have been the type to have called the Founding Fathers hate speeches for their anti-British stance back in the day. I understand Youtube is a private company with no reason to uphold anybody's free speech, and that I don't mind... but people like you would give it away that right wholesale without a fight everywhere and help barricade any companies who do want to provide it, and then wonder why in 20 years down the road the ruling political elites have no fear not representing any of your interests.

AI is certainly already good enough at replacing your shilling with their own.

Re: How many of them were false positives?

[DNS-and-BIND]

When you silence a man, you only show that you fear what he has to say.

Re:How many of them were false positives?

[Anonymous Coward]

AI is not good enough for detecting hate speech yet.

That would a feat. As far as I'm aware, humans can't do that reliably either.

Re: How many of them were false positives?

[houghi]

Shut up!

Re: How many of them were false positives?

[DRJlaw]

When you silence a man, you only show that you fear what he has to say.

When you tell a man to get off your lawn, you only exert control over your lawn, and the man is free to say his piece elsewhere.

Re: How many of them were false positives?

[eaglesrule]

Now you're bitching, not because you can't say what you want, but because you can't say what you want on somebody else's podium. Get your own. The Daily Stormer could do it, and so can you.

And when independent candidates run for office and can't get their message out for being shadow banned, and the corporatist candidates are always the number one trending subject, you'll be there to finger wag for not bothering to set up their own world-class content distribution system first.

Rules for thee, not for me. Such are the excuses of an authoritarian.

They do stupid shit so you don't have to.

[technosaurus]

Many of the real world science shows get shut down by this crap: King of Random, Cody's Lab, Demolition Ranch to name a few. One of Cody's takedowns was how to make (low quality) gunpowder over the course of a year using your urine. Who can keep up with their terms of use anyhow. Too bad Youtube doesn't spend as much effort on the UI (try and search the comments sometime).

U haters, hos and bots

[harvey the nerd]

Mostly this means Youtube is a Conservative-Libertarian-TeaParty-Trump hater and an RIAA/MPAA ho and bot network.

Define 'Objectionable'

[Anonymous Coward]

YouTube Bans Firearms Demo Videos, Entering the Gun Control Debate

Re:Who Judges??

[BlueStrat]

So, if Google/YouTube had some point of view, or points of view, that they wished to either promote or demote... how do we know if they are protecting us or harming us? I do data science sorts of things as part of my job. I know that very, very minor tweaks to algorithms provide quite different results.

Well, as long as they haven't nuked my '80s retro videos, then I'm good. Ah, Leah!

It's quite possible now to place individuals and groups into internet "algorithm ghettos". Like the Nazis did to Jews in Poland by crowding them into a section of the city and erecting tall walls both to prevent escape and so the people outside the walls didn't see what went on inside, companies like Google, Facebook, and others can place individuals and groups into a digital algorithm ghetto where what they can access is controlled & filtered and what they publish/post/send can be filtered or blocked such that you'd have no way to tell nobody could actually see what you uploaded even to your own website, especially with a well-trained AI tasked with the job. If you call a friend to ask them to verify it the AI will know who you know and listen/monitor the call/message and make it visible to him so you remain unaware that the greater web doesn't know you exist.

This is an extremely dangerous time where how we react or don't right now to control these technologies and the governments and corporations that use them will have very serious and long-lasting consequences for many generations to come around the world.

Strat

Re: Who Judges??

[Reverend Green]

The answer is obvious: Big Brother Google loves us all. If Google wants to enserf us, it's *for our own good*.

googliness

[Reverend Green]

Capitalist stooges sure are proud of mass censorship.

Re:googliness

[DNS-and-BIND]

It would be nice if Google were a capitalist company. But no, they don't practice capitalism, they practice corporatism. Moreover they are super left wing, you can't even say that men and women are different without getting fired and blacklisted throughout the entire IT industry. They keep their own blacklists internally and continually police their workers for signs of thoughtcrime.

Re: It's about the money

[Reverend Green]

It's not what the masses want - it's what their masters want them to see (or not see).

Re:Not As Interesting

[rtb61]

Typical major tech firm failure. That market dominance, rushes to their genitals and they have delusions of total power and promptly start pissing off their customers, only to build up hate and dissension and then wham, they start loosing customers in droves and simply can not get them back. Alta Vista, MYspace, MSN, Yahoo, Lotus Software, all the same end, market dominance, engorged genitals, no blood to the brain, ego dominates over common sense and customer resistance builds whilst arrogance and ego demands it be ignored, until it is too late.

It looks like https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22s... (two for one, heh heh) are the new upcomers, that will dethrone the arrogant egoists. Maps will be the next target, as will Android or oddly enough Android might well fork in an odd way as Google try to force their own proprietary core.

Town Square

[forkfail]

The problem is that YouTube has become the town square for video.

Sure, anyone is free to build their own. The problem is, though, that metaphorically speaking, the only land available is out near the town dump.

When YouTube was assuming this role, they were far more benign to viewpoints that differed from their own. But now that they have a lock on internet video, they know they can control the content. They wrap it up in removing "objectionable" video - but they keep changing the standards of "objectionable". With disturbing increading frequency, "objectionable" is defined to include religious views held by people for thousands of years, exercise of constitutional rights, and advocacy for political positions and candidates that do not meet with the approval of the Alphabet ownership.