YouTube Executives Ignored Warnings, Letting Toxic Videos Run Rampant (bloomberg.com)

Proposals to change recommendations and curb conspiracies on YouTube were sacrificed for engagement, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing Google employees. From the report: In recent years, scores of people inside YouTube and Google, its owner, raised concerns about the mass of false, incendiary and toxic content that the world's largest video site surfaced and spread. One employee wanted to flag troubling videos, which fell just short of the hate speech rules, and stop recommending them to viewers. Another wanted to track these videos in a spreadsheet to chart their popularity. A third, fretful of the spread of "alt-right" video bloggers, created an internal vertical that showed just how popular they were. Each time they got the same basic response: Don't rock the boat.

The company spent years chasing one business goal above others: "Engagement," a measure of the views, time spent and interactions with online videos. Conversations with over twenty people who work at, or recently left, YouTube reveal a corporate leadership unable or unwilling to act on these internal alarms for fear of throttling engagement. Wojcicki would "never put her fingers on the scale," said one person who worked for her. "Her view was, 'My job is to run the company, not deal with this.'"

Comments

Collectivists took over Universities.

[Anonymous Coward]

It used to be the case that a higher education was good for exposing young minds to challenging ideas, and thereby teaching them to stare with resolve into the deep abyss that is existence, and to rebut bad arguments with good arguments.

However, collectivist authoritarians (namely Marxists) began their "long march" through the Institutions of the West; in the Universities, they started curbing speech by setting up "safe spaces", and then once the "safe" space spread across most of a campus, they started designating "free-speech zones" to mark those pockets of the university that are explicitly no longer "safe" from triggering ideas. Then, the started calling some speech "hate speech", so that they could regulated the "free speech" zones, and now students (read: children) at these institutions regularly prevent cordial lectures by any means necessary, including yelling, chanting, storming stages, and piling chairs up where an unwanted speaker might which to make his pulpit.

We're doomed.

Re:Collectivists took over Universities.

[Anonymous Coward]

As an actual Marxist, I fucking wish Marxism was spreading throughout universities, but alas it isn't at all.
What is spreading though universities is consumer ideology. People treating their degrees as commodities, demanding "consumer satisfaction" from their time at university.
Institutes of learning have been invaded by the market, with everything valuable worthy and fun driven out.

All that shit you wrote has no basis in reality, and shows you've never been within 10km of a university ever, but as a Marxist I want everyone to have that opportunity. We should be spending the surplus of society on enabling everyone to reach their highest potential, regardless of economic background. Even you.

Re:um

[Anonymous Coward]

Beheading videos from the worldview that must not be named, of course, are fine.

I'll sit right here while you post evidence of this claim. You know, links to all those beheading videos currently on Youtube.

So basically ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

... UsTube.

Not YouTube - "you" might hold unapproved opinions or something. UsTube. Our opinions, not yours.

Re: Good

[pudge]

There is a potential difference between not-promotion, and censoring. There is definitely an expressed desire among some to censor, ban, block objectionable content like videos promoting pizzagate and other nonsense. I think that is insane.

But refusing to promote some content, that is a potentially different story, depending on how it is done.

Oh noes, white power!

[MikeRT]

The other night, my 4 year old was watching an age-appropriate channel and you know what trailer they played?

Pet Sematary

I can explain 95% of all of the white power stuff away easily. I cannot easily explain away a demon-possessed zombie cat from Hell to a pre-schooler who is nearly at bed time.

Priorities? It'd be nice if they actually had some.

Predictable

[eaglesrule]

Trump was never supposed to get elected. Brexit was never supposed to happen. Mainstream corporate media could no longer be relied upon to adequately shape public opinion. Something had to be done.

Pewdiepie became a nazi to be used as the excuse for the adpocolypse. Alex Jones was the lowest hanging fruit to be plucked and deplatformed. CNN videos went from 100 views to 100K views as independent journalists and commentators were pushed down. "trusted flaggers" such as the ADL and SPLC were brought on as the shadow inquisition. Still, it's not enough.

This is the future of Youtube.

Re: "Toxic Videos" Please!

[GLMDesigns]

Sounds like ANTIFA to me.

Re:Good

[WaffleMonster]

Indeed. Which standard do you, gentle Slashdot read, want:

* Videos that people want to put up, and that people want to see; or
* A curated selection of videos that are best for you, as judged by your betters

My own perspective is that something fundamental is missed when arguments are framed in this way. I believe underlying issue is piss poor governance. The tech industry generally is royally failing for selfish reasons to create structures where positive rather than negative outcomes are reinforced.

Governance doesn't have to be tyrannical. Governing power doesn't have to be centralized in any meaningful way or in any way related to those holding actual positions of governing authority in the real world.

The only necessary ingredient is that systems be designed to reinforce good rather than rewarding bad behavior.

What would eBay be like without buyer and seller feedback? Seems likely the answer is total cesspool of unchecked corruption as bad actors are rewarded for predatory behavior. Without feedback to provide incentive for good behavior and express earned reputation eBay for as flawed as is would quickly devolve into a Wal-Mart or Amazon "marketplace" or worse.

Without moderation system to reinforce good behavior everyone on this site would be buried alive in Nazi ASCII art and APKs.

The problem that needs solving is piss poor governance. How to create a governance model where interest in corporate profit does not actively promote bad behavior.

What's wrong with Muslim recruitment videos?

[rsilvergun]

Or did you mean terrorists? The sad thing is you got modded up +5 with that little Freudian slip. Or did you mean videos recruiting to Islam? Ok, should we pull the 700 club's channel?

Anyway, terrorists videos get pulled when reported, Linda Sarsour seems to just advocate for Palestine (I don't know that much about here, but I couldn't find anything antisemitic there), Pallywood is a pretty controversial concept in and of itself and Communists are generally a pretty peaceable bunch on YouTube, certainly not what I'd called Toxic.

Also, anyone else notice that whenever anyone says "incendiary & toxic" people's thoughts immediately turn to the Alt-Right? I'm not trying to troll here, it's just a fact (facts don't care about you're feelings... ok, I'm trolling a little with that last one :) ).

I will say this: If I follow the far left rabbit hole all the way down I find a few anarchists yelling "Punch Nazis". If I follow the alt-right rabbit hole down I end up at a white ethno-state with hints of genocide. What I'm saying is the two are not even remotely equivalent.