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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.'"
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.'"
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
We know that oppressive governments the world round demand the second option. Which should you demand?
"To know who rules you, ask: who am I not allowed to criticize in public? Those are your rulers."
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Yep. "Toxic" has come to mean "disagrees with liberal left-think." Disagree with the cult of human-caused global warming? You're "toxic." Think having a penis makes you a man? You're "toxic." Think "gender" and "sex" are synonyms? You're "toxic." Try to bring facts and logic into a conversation? "Toxic."
The last bastion of left-wing thought is to try and ban all other ideas, because they know that their ideology does not stand up to rational examination. So the only way to survive is to simply ban anyone pointing that out and smearing them as being "toxic."
YouTube could break the echo chamber effect by recommending good quality videos on the same topic. If someone is interested in vaccinations, there's no reason to just recommend conspiracy videos on the topic.
So they admit the videos didn't break the rules, but our feelings were hurt/we disagreed with their political views so we should censor them. Got it.
Notice the use of emotionally charged rhetoric.
"incendiary and toxic content" - subjective and not objective, specifically used to rally people to their viewpoint without questioning the author. After all, you don't want to be toxic, do you?
It seems to be less "don't rock the boat" and more "they're not breaking the rules, tough shit"
Cult of human-caused global warming?
You mean the vast amounts of science, observational evidence and work over decades that points to global warming's validity?
In opposition theres big company shills spewing weaponised lies in the media in order to confuse the issue. Like they did with cigarettes or ddt or shitty diets or lead in gasoline.
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.
Does Rick Rolling count?
I have been watching cat videos on YouTube for 10 years now and it has been a good run. But not they have stated to show the odd dog video now and then.
Thatâ(TM)s extremely offensive and now I am afraid to open the browser because with no warning what so ever, BANG, there it is. A DOG video in my recommended feed.
Meow.
L'Idiot
illegal content
Oops.. That's pretty arbitrary, don't you think? Anything can be made illegal at the drop of a hat. Or has everybody forgotten already?
The only thing that is truly threatened by "toxic" content is mass media and the institutions dependent on its propaganda.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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.
... UsTube.
Not YouTube - "you" might hold unapproved opinions or something. UsTube. Our opinions, not yours.
See, but here's the thing. Irresponsible speech that promotes violence will always lead to suppression. You 4chan jackoffs knew this a long time ago, but thought that it was more important to be edgelords and have lulz than it was to be responsible. So now, you reap the whirlwind and spoil it for everyone. You think it's fun to talk about kids who are slaughtered being "crisis actors" and the height of irony to wear nazi uniforms and then you're shocked...shocked, I tell you...when society comes and slaps you the fuck down and tells you to sit down and shut up. Then, you feign surprise when the real sickos shout out your vidya heroes when they shoot up a church or murder a bunch of school kids like you didn't know it was coming.
Thanks for fucking it up for everyone.
You are welcome on my lawn.
any video with subject matter someone does not agree with. So does this mean youtube is shutting down sine they cannot play any videos without offending someone?
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.
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.
This is an issue of scope, profit margin, and market evaluations.
You know why Steam doesn't hand-pick games to be on their marketplace? Scope of the task. They clean up the biggest disasters, but basically filter feed on whatever pops out of that ecosystem.
Same thing for the Microsoft store, the android marketplace, and large parts of the Apple marketplace.
And those are marketplaces where the profit margins are relatively large.
Well, relatively large, compared to Youtube.
In setting any standards involving an expectation of paid human oversight - including just managing a bunch of volunteers - even at some absurdly low 1 to 1 million ratio, they risk the value they hold in the primary underlying motivation of their bosses: The market value of their platform.
That's the real issue - business stuff like staff responding to DMCA complaints is also expensive, but the market isn't going to lower their stock for that. But having to hire and maintain staff to stand in as referees in effectively political contests... that's going to generate blowback they can't shuffle under some easy cost line in a report.
That's kind of the problem with being a public traded company. The pressures aren't just financial - they are also largely the political fashion sense of the market pushing everyone to play a game of taking the most they can from contracts (customer and employee alike), and then providing that value back as maximal perceived market value.
The irony is that we call it being 'publicly traded' - where it functions mostly to funnel wealth into fewer and fewer private hands in the end.
In the end, our shared retirement accounts get regularly raided and scammed, and the entire market is expected to crash, as if it was a force of nature - because minimal oversight is seen as more expensive and odious than frequent disaster.
That's the shape of the system we make for ourselves.
Ryan Fenton
I think it is fine to ban extremely graphic content, including sex and violence, as you described.
I think it is not fine to ban ideas.
So yes, allow cult recruiting, mentally ill people posting, anorexia promotion. All of that. Yes. Absolutely.
I think the thing is people don't start out wanting to see crazy conspiracy theory stuff. People start out watching one thing and 5 hours later they're doubting vaccines. That's the problem. Back in thr day we never had to worry about this, because you had to actively seek crazy stuff out.
So explain Christianity?
OK, I'm not actually anti-Christian, but I hope you get my point? 100 years ago we had seances all over the place as mediums made a killing. We had utopias and cults aplenty. YouTube isn't anything special here. Humans gonna human.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
A society that can't take edgelords in stride is pretty damn useless. Maybe the answer is to realize that humor, tasteless or otherwise, is unimportant, and let is pass.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Lol, it's always the "alt-right" isn't it? Because with the left, dissenting views are *always* welcome.
YouTube already demotes you if you swear and ensures popular videos with "toxic" behavior never trend or get recommended. The problem is even videos as inane as PewDiePies latest congratulations song can get 22 million views in a day but still not hit trending because some arbitrarily decided nothing he creates can hit the trending list. Meanwhile Stephen Colbert can say trump is sucking Putin's cock and that video gets recommended because "if it's okay for tv it's okay for YouTube." You absolutely don't want to be on the wrong end of a reviewer defining you and that is what happens all the time. Numerous people are claimed to be "toxic" even just for not liking a brand or something other people like, as if just not loving something is a crime. You can never let a small group of people or even an algorithm define toxicity ir some people will always be shut up and left silent.
Seems we should all be able to agree that the climate changed from 2 mile deep glaciers covering 2/3rds of North America to a relatively glacier free US and Canada by the time Columbus got here in 1492. That's a whopping amount of climate change and dwarfs the few degrees C (or less) were discussing now.
Has climate changed? Yes. Is man made climate change statistically significant? I doubt it.
Either way, i'll take warmer days over a return to miles deep ice in the US.
I think it's pretty clear. Stuff like child porn and "hey, let's go to so-and-so's house and fuck them up". Not really arbitrary.
Alrighty then, so who do YOU think should run the world??
I'll do it.
Sure, go ahead and pretend there's no middle ground.
> The problem is they make money by showing us stuff the worst part of our nature likes, and they do this, because it hooks people.
Sensationalism gets people watching? Color me shocked! /sarcasm
The mainstream media and other "news" does the same stupid shit. Because, sadly, controversy sells. It is the same reason for the artificial manufactured drama in "Reality Shows".
Maybe part of the problem is that there is no "Good News" channel that focuses on positive, empowering people instead of the negative, bullshit ?
The bigger problem is YouTube censoring anyone who doesn't agree with their political agenda. This is a dangerous slippery slope.
Really? Fewer than 8K hate crimes per year in a country of 330M people, and you see a problem? Out of ~1.1M violent crimes, mind you....
It should also be noted that violent crime rates have fallen by ~1/3 over the last three decades.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
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.
You're saying "censor the edgelords to make sure we get the racists". Nope. I'm saying "don't censor the racists either". The solution to "bad speech" is more speech. Freedom: it's important.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
If you pick single clear examples, yeah, it's not arbitrary. Why would you think it would be? Here you go, draw the line:
1) John is like a pretzel with no salt.
2) John is ugly.
3) John is fugly.
4) John's mom wished she would have aborted him.
5) If John died, would anyone care?
6) Any day that John gets hurt is a good day.
7) I cheer on anyone who punches someone like John.
8) Would be nice if someone would go over and fuck John up.
9) If John does that again, I'm going to kick his ass.
10) I'm buying a beer for the first person to kick John in the nuts.
11) Anyone up for kicking John's ass?
12) Lets all meet at 10am tomorrow morning at John's house and teach him a thing or two.
13) The John beatdown party for tomorrow is on! 12 confirmed participants.
14) [image of gun] John, I'm coming for you.
Feel free to envision a vast spectrum for child porn as well, with differing amounts of clothes and levels of sexual innuendo through actual sex, with stick figures to uncanny valley 3D to photo-realistic 3D to real children.
If you don't think it's going to be arbitrary, I don't think you've thought about it hard enough. And you don't realize that most everyone is going to have a different line than you'll have.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Society interprets hateful edgelords as damage and routes around them.
...hence the need for speech codes in places like university campuses**, right?
** It should be noted that a university is precisely the place where ideas noble and stupid, concepts altruistic and hateful... all of this should be debated openly, in an environment that encourages clear logic, reason, and rhetoric. Alas, there seems to be a lack of that on most campuses these days. Probably because people go around calling every idea that makes them uncomfortable "hateful" and suchlike, without even trying to do anything beyond generalization and stereotype.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
So what makes a victim of any other similar crime less valued and less harmed than the victim of a "hate crime"?
In a world where equal rule of law is supreme, motive should only determine guilt or innocence, and not severity.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
If libertarians == fascists then the terms right wing and far right does not mean anything anymore.
One can be far right (small, limited government) and not be racist.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
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.
There's a needed distinction between "discourse acceptable in polite society" and "legal discourse allowed on common carriers". Let the edgelords and the pornographers and everyone else the finger-wagging moral scolds hate have their place. .
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The fact that FOX News didn't have to act sensationalist relative to its counterparts but instead took a route of acting relatively meek and just reacting to the left, and this got them into the current state where they of all outlets are more trusted than past trusted left-leaning outlets, should instead of inviting scorn push you to do some introspective activities and turn on some light bulbs. But i guess stupid people do as stupid people keep doing.
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Gosh, you're so close to understanding my point. We get speech codes on campus because edgelords thought irresponsible speech was the height of cleverness and society will eventually say, "enough".
Speech codes are bad. But they are what society is going to do when people don't know how to fucking behave responsibly. If you want to be an edgelord, you have to be prepared to accept the consequences. But just be aware that everybody ends up paying for your fun, because when the suppression of speech comes, it comes for everyone. We all experience your consequences. Your running with scissors ends up with us all getting an eye put out.
You are welcome on my lawn.
that Hate Crime is increasing while the rest of violent crime decreases. Here's the article you're probably referencing. Since it was the 1st hit on google.
We fought hard to delegitimize organized violence against minorities in this country. There was widespread anti-black terrorism committed with impunity right up until the 70s (and the occasional incident in the 80s and 90s).
It's not that Americans evolved some higher form of intelligence or empathy. We're the same folk we were 40 years ago minus a chunk of bigotry. What I'm saying is that it would be effortless for us to regress back to the KKK days. I'm a white dude and I do not want that.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Your comment is insightful, as modded. However, I'd answer by saying that everything in the real world is on a spectrum and unless you want to exist all the way on the end of the spectrum (which is often an argument to absurdity) then you have to draw a line somewhere. The line is going to be somewhat arbitrary and will somewhat conform to "community standards". If you don't like it then don't live in that community or stay and try to push the standards your way (not being an a-hole there, just realistic). The way to not change community standards is to insist on 100% purity and extremes in everything. Instead, push for realistic changes and push the line a little at a time -- that's how many good social changes have occurred. And for those firebrands out there who say they should have whatever they want, whenever they want -- the "community" can push back a lot harder than you can if provoked enough.
However, hate crimes have been spiking
Not really. There was a "spike" in 2016 but the increase came about because of increased hate crime against white people (marginal effect) and because of an increase of reporting agencies participating with the FBI to gather the statistics (big effect). Since after the election the trend has been going down.
Should we just take people being murdered because of these internet clowns in stride?
You shouldn't use an anecdote to base your opinion. By all metrics and by all statistics it isn't as bad as the media or you portray it.
That's a lot of words to say that you like censorship. I don't.
The solution for "bad speech" is more speech. Don't like speakers that "radicalize" people? Present a more compelling argument. Should be easy: after all, you're right and they're wrong, yes? But if you insult instead of argue, and the radicals welcome people and validate them, you're going to lose.
Some social norms are bad. We need the ability to "radicalize" people away from those. And it's not your job to choose.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Motive and state of mind have always been part of legal determinations. If I shoot you dead, the severity of the punishment will vary wildly depending on my motive, from
'I'm a dumbass who doesn't know how to handle a gun'
through
'I shot you because you punched me'
to
'I've hated you a long time and I've been planning to shoot you all week'.
As for hate crimes, the theory behind that is nothing to do with the 'value' of the victim. It's addressing the secondary effects; punching people hurts those I punch and is assault, but punching people because they're Jewish causes harm in the Jewish community, causing them to live in fear, increasing marginalization and generally causing wider social harm beyond the immediate act. This is analogous to terrorism. If I kill 10 people purely to watch them die, then I'm a plain vanilla mass murderer. But if I kill 10 people because they're infidels and I want to bring on the global caliphate then that elevates me to a terrorist, and brings with it a commensurate increase in the resources wielded against me and in the severity of the response. That's why we call it 'terrorism', the harm caused is much wider than the immediate effects of the act.
----------------------
Once you incite violence, you've crossed the line.
Or you could actually ask for supporting data like a reasonable person instead of calling me a liar. Now, that you have supporting data; Am I still a liar or are you the one in a fantasy because everything you said is bullshit.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime...
https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime...
6121 in 2016.
5850 in 2015.
This is the 4% total hate crime incident spike talked about for 2016.
3489 in 2016 were racially motivated
3310 in 2015 were racially motivated
This is a 5% to describe the racially motivated spike many news outlets were talking about for 2016.
Of those racially motivated attacks the largest single share increase year over was anti-white motivations with a +107 increase. That was the largest "spike" in any other specific hate crime incident. But it is hardly a spike and that is why I said it had a "marginal effect".
The "spike" often reported by news and partisans is a simplistic view of the data that doesn't go into the details. Keep in mind that even the FBI cautions people from making simplistic year to year comparisons without careful analysis. Partly because the methodology changes which has a larger impact on the data which is why I said "big effect".