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YouTube AI deletes war crimes evidence as 'extremist material'

middleeasteye.net

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

#52
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part of the information age is arbitration by unreasonable and impenetrable algorithms rather than humans with the capacity to make a judgement call when the rules clearly don't account for the situation at hand. A transparent appeals process staffed by humans who can at least deliver a rationale, including what rule you broke, should be required by law. There's irreparable reputational damage associated wi…

I think the bigger issue is that certain companies have near monopolies in their spaces to start with. For plebs like myself, youtube is really the only viable option I have to distribute video media if I hope to build an audience. The fact that you effectively can't mount an alternative to facebook, youtube, etc due to network effects is the larger disease, and this is one of many symptoms.

Agreed. If competition exists, customer service is one of the angles competitors can improve on to try to gain customers. For instance, one of the top reasons I prefer FastMail over Gmail is that real customer service I get.

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

#53

Since my understanding is that covering up a war crime is itself a war crime under Complicity doctrine, could Google executives get charged for this in The Hague?

I'm willing to bet that in their hundreds and hundreds of pages of terms and conditions there is a paragraph saying that by using their services you give up your right to sue Google for war crimes.

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

#54
YouTube is not a reliable video host, but that's okay. It's a company. Fortunately these videos don't really rely on people finding them by having them recommended by an algorithm as they are merely evidence. I don't see a problem and completely understand why YouTube (especially as it's getting as non-offensive as it can) doesn't want to show war crimes.

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

#55

Why are people storing evidence on Youtube again? Not blaming the victim, but at this point most of Google services have not shown to be reliable, especially if you require some kind of thinking human behind a decision

If you are a rebel in a contested part of the world, submitting videos to youtube takes literally 2 clicks on any cheapest android phone, and then the entire world can watch it. Everything else requires at least a bit of technical expertise which you might not have.

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

#56

Since my understanding is that covering up a war crime is itself a war crime under Complicity doctrine, could Google executives get charged for this in The Hague?

I am not an expert in international law, but you would still have to prove intent, I believe. It's hard to prove intent on an algorithm that very simply is incapable of understanding the significance of its actions.

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

#57

Can't any prosecutor gain access to those videos via subpoena anyways?

What are you talking about? They are deleting entire accounts of people who were filming their cities/districts being bombed by Russians, Assad or US/Coalition. (where there may not be any direct violence to any particular persons visible)

Who will prosecute whom? Primary source historical material is being removed wholesale by some shitty "AI". Account of recent history is being erased. Researchers who want to put some account of history together will have harder job. They will not go to subpoena google to release some material they don't even know google has. People whose lives were destroyed by a dictator will see YouTube erasing evidence of what happened, often times leaving propaganda channels for the regime untouched. It's a disgrace.

I actually came here today to try again to post about this issue, after deleting my Google/YouTube account, because I wholeheartedly disagree with this whole fiasco, that's going on for the last month or so. So I'm glad it's finally discussed.

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

#58
should be required by law

If your videos don't pass the algorithm, post them somewhere else rather than reaching for the government hammer.

Youtube/Google has every right to run their business of posting or denying video content the way they see fit without justifying it to you, free user of their service.

If you think they're making a bad business decision and that there's a need for a video service that gives great explanations when they deny your videos, start such a service.

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

#59
post #47

Screw YouTube's automation across the board. It's horrendous and lazy.

Yeah, forget about beating Go and StarCraft 2 top players. How about making the takedown of YouTube videos actually fair for a change?

Games are still 'easy' in comparison to this sort of topic for AI. Bear in mind, every game they've had an AI play still has a firm set of rules.

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

#60
And, come to think they had me convinced that this was not going to happen for few decades.

I think YouTube went down pretty fast and without fight. The ideological takeover of Facebook and Twitter raged on for few years. I think YouTube was taken over literally overnight. I remember being appreciative of YouTube just a few days back.

Guess, time to cancel my $15 Youtube Red Family membership. Ugh, I really hate ads on YouTube. And I was happy to give my $15 month over month. But, I can't fund Youtube anymore given what they are doing. $15 to Youtube, $10 to NetFlix, $10 to Amazon, with $35 a month, I can sponsor ton of content on Patreon that I like. My subscription list on YouTube is not 35 people long, I think it would work out.

Never ever I thought I would type these words... break up Google and Facebook and Amazon.

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