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YouTube AI deletes war crimes evidence as 'extremist material'

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Re: YouTube AI deletes war crimes evidence as 'extremist material'

#41

Post by TuringTest »

mschuster91 wrote: post #12

Once again, the only hope for customer service seems to be a (social) media shitstorm. Seriously, Google, Twitter and FB massively need to ramp up their customer service and not externalize the costs of a lack of support onto society any more. And there are many "costs": people being actively harrassed and intimidated, sometimes so far they are afraid leaving their house, due to hate speech or doxxing, a loss of hist…

> Google, Twitter and FB massively need to ramp up their customer service

This is not going to happen; the whole point of their businesses based on offering free massive online services is that they are dirt-cheap by being run mostly automatically.

No, the only way to fix the problem in those juggernauts, and protect the tiny individuals from getting caught and squashed in their wheels, is the mechanism that governments use to protect citizens from the worst effects of bureaucracy: having an ombudsman. A semi-independent service to receive complaints of severe abuse by the main service, and for which the primary goal is protecting users, not reducing costs.

In some sense, this is how their PR department operates: they'll bring human attention and put all the required effort to fix an unjust situation, to clean the image of the company. The difference is that now the unjust situation needs to become a scandal, as you said, and an ombudsman would be required to examine all applications (either to accept them or reject them) as part of their official definition.

Re: YouTube AI deletes war crimes evidence as 'extremist material'

#42

Post by userbinator »

Yes, I could see how that classifies as "extremist material", but that's no reason to delete them...

IMHO the gradual increase of (self-)censorship in the popular Internet is worrying --- one of the most compelling things about the Internet as it existed was that, from the safety of your own home, you could see and experience things that would otherwise be impossible to access. Now it seems it's turned into a massively commercialised effort of "curating" content so that it doesn't offend anyone, and only results in more profits for advertisers.

Re: YouTube AI deletes war crimes evidence as 'extremist material'

#44

Post by carapace »

pottersbasilisk wrote: post #33

Perhaps its time for google and youtube to be regulated.

"Nationalize Google!" Okay, no, that would be turning the knob to 11.

I upvoted you because I was like, "Yeah, maybe some regulation might be good." Then I thought about who would be doing the regulating and now I'm much less enthusiastic. :-/

Still, it does seem like there should be a bit more, uh, community input into how these vast silos are administered.

Re: YouTube AI deletes war crimes evidence as 'extremist material'

#45

Post by giancarlostoro »

jacobr wrote: post #2

Also see this Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/896358097320636416 > Ironically, by deleting years old opposition channels YouTube is doing more damage to Syrian history than ISIS could ever hope to achieve > Also gone are the dozens of playlists of videos from Syria I created, including dozens of chemical attacks in playlists by date > Keep in mind in many cases these are the only copies of the…

That is a little insane... Makes me wish there was some sort of website that archived specific YouTube videos marked as historical or criminal evidence or some sort of qualification, as long as they don't abuse copyright just to make sure if places like YouTube delete them they can remain. Or a service that uploads to multiple video streaming sources at once (though I imagine these might violate the TOS of YouTube for w/e reason).

Kind of sad where you have video evidence being deleted by YouTube. It would be nice if they allowed some sort of option for political type videos like these to actually be uploaded by users, especially if the original uploader was killed, to be downloaded with metadata (upload date to youtube, youtuber username, etc) so anyone can reupload it elsewhere.

Another case where I wish TPB had made their own YouTube clone already. I'm sure they would of not taken down these sort of videos.

Wondering where Wikileaks is in these sort of cases? Do they download these sort of videos? That begs the question: why don't they? It seems right up their own alley. I don't always agree with them, nor do I digest their content but at the very least for a site like theirs it would make sense for them to archive YouTube and other politically sensitive videos no?

Re: YouTube AI deletes war crimes evidence as 'extremist material'

#46

Post by mtgx »

I remember when I used to like - no, love - almost anything Google did.

That seems like such a long time ago. Since then my attitude has changed to being mostly hostile towards Google, with every such event.

Google should have never entered the "content game" and should have remained a neutral search and distribution (YouTube) platform. Once it went down the path of being a content company, it started "compromising" in all sorts of ways that were terrible for its users.

I wonder if the higher-ups have even noticed this change in attitude towards them, and if they did, then they've probably decided that making money is more important even if they become the Comcast of the internet (most hated company).

Re: YouTube AI deletes war crimes evidence as 'extremist material'

#48

Post by mschuster91 »

TuringTest wrote: post #41
mschuster91 wrote: post #12

Once again, the only hope for customer service seems to be a (social) media shitstorm. Seriously, Google, Twitter and FB massively need to ramp up their customer service and not externalize the costs of a lack of support onto society any more. And there are many "costs": people being actively harrassed and intimidated, sometimes so far they are afraid leaving their house, due to hate speech or doxxing, a loss of hist…

> Google, Twitter and FB massively need to ramp up their customer service This is not going to happen; the whole point of their businesses based on offering free massive online services is that they are dirt-cheap by being run mostly automatically. No, the only way to fix the problem in those juggernauts, and protect the tiny individuals from getting caught and squashed in their wheels, is the mechanism that governme…

> No, the only way to fix the problem in those juggernauts, and protect the tiny individuals from getting caught and squashed in their wheels, is the mechanism that governments use to protect citizens from the worst effects of bureaucracy: having an ombudsman. A semi-independent service to receive complaints of severe abuse by the main service, and for which the primary goal is protecting users, not reducing costs.

Yeah but who would finance the ombudsman? To service a country like Germany, I'd bet it needs around 2.000 FTE minimum (Facebook alone is opening a new, additional 500 FTE centre right now, and that's just for deleting the worst of the worst hate speech and porn). That's around 5M € per month.

Having it paid for by taxpayers is the true manifestation of cost externalization, having it paid for by the services quickly leads down to "do whatever $company wants", and having it paid for by users leads to service only for those who can afford it while leaving the poor and most vulnerable persons in the rain.

Re: YouTube AI deletes war crimes evidence as 'extremist material'

#49

Post by wbl »

ballenf wrote: post #30
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #8

It was folly to think that YouTube would be a safe place to document war crimes. YouTube is a distribution channel, not a preservation channel. Its ease of use certainly makes it an attractive option to upload things quickly, but anything of historical significance should have the video raws immediately turned over to a human rights organization for preservation.

Youtube used to be a distribution channel but it slowly became an ad delivery tool with content along for the ride. Like 99% of other free (and even some paid) internet sites. Either way, totally agree that it's a tragic situation. The only sympathy I have for Google is that trying to separate the good vs. "evil" (as in "Don't be evil.") content is a monumental task that machine learning will probably never be capabl…

It's hopeless for people. Is that footage of ISIS burning a prisoner alive evidence of war crimes or propaganda? How about both! Ban child nudity and depictions of cruelty to children: you've just banned a Pulitzer prize winning photograph from the Vietnam war.

Re: YouTube AI deletes war crimes evidence as 'extremist material'

#50

Post by mtgx »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #7

To be fair, YouTube is under no obligation to some greater good; it's just a video hosting service. Expecting it to "preserve footage" and any footage at that, is a strange expectation.

Yes, but the more people realize what an awful platform YouTube is for them to keep their videos, the better.
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