'Fiction is outperforming reality': how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Fiction is outperforming reality': how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth

#11

Post by poisonous_dart » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 1:01 AM UTC

I don't know, guys. The world before complex algorithms generating clicks on the Internet was pretty biased and stupid. I don't think autoplay is going to be the thing that destroys our collective intelligence for us.

If we want our society to be less prone to fictitious nonsense, education that encourages critical thinking and a rudimentary of statistics should be encouraged, but that's often not interesting enough to write about for many journalists, nor is it an easy problem to tackle.

Re: 'Fiction is outperforming reality': how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth

#12

Post by roenxi » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 1:01 AM UTC

graeme wrote: post #2

Interesting results. Though I wonder to what extent some of them reflect the outside world. (Not reality. Just what people outside youtube focus on.) The Clintons have been the subject of conspiracy theories since the 90s at least. So, it's not surprising that this would extend on to Youtube. (I haven't made an extensive study of this, but my impression is that the American right wing is prone to conspiracies about p…

> There's an innocent recommendation: people find Trump more engaging.

100% this. There seems a to be a presupposition in the 'fake news' debate that somehow there are right and a wrong choices in politics and anyone making the 'wrong' choice must be re-educated by the powers that be.

I still recall the NSA scandal where it turned out they were indeed spying on everyone; that would undoubtedly have been branded 'fake news' pre-Snowden. One can easily imagine a world where a presidential candidate in favour of winding back the NSA apparatus was shut down, with videos talking about overreach being condemned as conspiracy theories.

The only solutions here are communication and engagement of people with different ideas. Trying to police the truth will not end well; somebody will end up corrupting the systems in ways that end badly.

Re: 'Fiction is outperforming reality': how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth

#13

Post by pulisse » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 1:05 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #12

graeme wrote: post #2

Interesting results. Though I wonder to what extent some of them reflect the outside world. (Not reality. Just what people outside youtube focus on.) The Clintons have been the subject of conspiracy theories since the 90s at least. So, it's not surprising that this would extend on to Youtube. (I haven't made an extensive study of this, but my impression is that the American right wing is prone to conspiracies about p…

> There's an innocent recommendation: people find Trump more engaging. 100% this. There seems a to be a presupposition in the 'fake news' debate that somehow there are right and a wrong choices in politics and anyone making the 'wrong' choice must be re-educated by the powers that be. I still recall the NSA scandal where it turned out they were indeed spying on everyone; that would undoubtedly have been branded 'fake…

Trying to police the truth will not end well; somebody will end up corrupting the systems in ways that end badly.

YouTube's recommendation policy is currently, to a zeroth-order approximation, "push content that gets people riled up". Trying to get them to not follow that policy isn't policing truth; it's asking them to refrain from an affirmative act.

Re: 'Fiction is outperforming reality': how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth

#14

Post by aesto » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 1:07 AM UTC

Don't blame algorithms for human nature. That thing is ultimately just minimizing a loss function and if recommending garbage gets the best results, that's what it will do.

Re: 'Fiction is outperforming reality': how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth

#15

Post by pulisse » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 1:08 AM UTC

firasd wrote: post #9

Youtube personalization is eerily well-tuned from a tech perspective, and has undoubtedly been good for their business. But one of the least expected side-effects of new technology has to be the fact that Youtube’s ‘related videos’ algorithm has given rise to a generation of Flat Earth believers. Despite that, I gotta say, I'm uncomfortable about the series of media 'hits' on Youtube over the past year. It is based…

I want to be able to create a social network without having to highly moderate everything!

No one (in the context of this debate) is asking YouTube to ban videos.

Re: 'Fiction is outperforming reality': how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth

#16

Post by graeme » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 1:22 AM UTC

pulisse wrote: post #5

graeme wrote: post #2

Interesting results. Though I wonder to what extent some of them reflect the outside world. (Not reality. Just what people outside youtube focus on.) The Clintons have been the subject of conspiracy theories since the 90s at least. So, it's not surprising that this would extend on to Youtube. (I haven't made an extensive study of this, but my impression is that the American right wing is prone to conspiracies about p…

But, it does seem as though the recommendation algorithm to some extent mirrors what we see in talk radio and other media segments in America. I'm not sure what you think the significance of that fact is. YouTube's recommendation system is specifically trying to maximize time spent by users watching videos, and what's turned out to be the case is that sensationalistic, politically polarizing, conspiratorial, etc. vid…

I guess I meant Youtube is augmenting an existing tendency within American society, rather than creating a new phenomenon out of whole cloth.

Re: 'Fiction is outperforming reality': how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth

#17

Post by CandidlyFake » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 1:28 AM UTC

firasd wrote: post #9

Youtube personalization is eerily well-tuned from a tech perspective, and has undoubtedly been good for their business. But one of the least expected side-effects of new technology has to be the fact that Youtube’s ‘related videos’ algorithm has given rise to a generation of Flat Earth believers. Despite that, I gotta say, I'm uncomfortable about the series of media 'hits' on Youtube over the past year. It is based…

> Youtube’s ‘related videos’ algorithm has given rise to a generation of Flat Earth believers.

That's nonsense. There have been flat earthers long before youtube and there will be flat earthers long after. Also, the amount of flat earthers is so insignificant, but of course the media has to exploit that to push their agenda.

The guardian and the news media caused far more damage with their fake campus rape culture nonsense than silly flat earth videos.

> Despite that, I gotta say, I'm uncomfortable about the series of media 'hits' on Youtube over the past year.

The media has been attacking youtube, facebook and social media because it is marginalizing their effectiveness.

The news industry was used to having a captive audience to whom it force fed propaganda. What to read, what to think, how to vote, who to believe, etc were their domain.

Social media is allowing people to co-opt that system and seek out what they want to read, watch, etc.

I'm awestruck at how coordinated the supposed "independent" and disparate news companies are working together in this propaganda campaign. And how british media and our media are working in tandem.

Also, if anyone has the time, it would be interesting to see how many "anti social media" stories have been on HN. I'm guessing we've had an anti social media story on the frontpage of HN everyday for the past year.

It's ridiculous.

Re: 'Fiction is outperforming reality': how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth

#18

Post by i_feel_great » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 1:28 AM UTC

poisonous_dart wrote: post #11

I don't know, guys. The world before complex algorithms generating clicks on the Internet was pretty biased and stupid. I don't think autoplay is going to be the thing that destroys our collective intelligence for us. If we want our society to be less prone to fictitious nonsense, education that encourages critical thinking and a rudimentary of statistics should be encouraged, but that's often not interesting enough…

"If we want our society to be less prone to fictitious nonsense, education that encourages critical thinking and a rudimentary of statistics should be encouraged,"

That's the chicken right there. The egg is: the more people look at this stuff, the less critical thinking they are going to do.

Re: 'Fiction is outperforming reality': how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth

#19

Post by skywhopper » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 1:37 AM UTC

poisonous_dart wrote: post #11

I don't know, guys. The world before complex algorithms generating clicks on the Internet was pretty biased and stupid. I don't think autoplay is going to be the thing that destroys our collective intelligence for us. If we want our society to be less prone to fictitious nonsense, education that encourages critical thinking and a rudimentary of statistics should be encouraged, but that's often not interesting enough…

I would say that we should start by critiquing the implicit claim by Google, Facebook, Waymo, and others that new means of computational statistical analysis can serve as a reasonable replacement for human intuition and judgment. Turns out some of the world’s most valuable companies are betting on lots of poor assumptions and easily-gamed algorithms, and we’re just starting to see the fallout of our failure to call BS on the ever-louder hype machine.

I certainly agree that deep learning has delivered some impressive results, but the acceptance by VCs and the media that his new wave of AI will bring a revolution in Internet time to established real-world infrastructure and processes is a major failure of basic critical thinking on a broad scale.

Re: 'Fiction is outperforming reality': how YouTube's algorithm distorts truth

#20

Post by XorNot » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 1:41 AM UTC

pulisse wrote: post #5

graeme wrote: post #2

Interesting results. Though I wonder to what extent some of them reflect the outside world. (Not reality. Just what people outside youtube focus on.) The Clintons have been the subject of conspiracy theories since the 90s at least. So, it's not surprising that this would extend on to Youtube. (I haven't made an extensive study of this, but my impression is that the American right wing is prone to conspiracies about p…

But, it does seem as though the recommendation algorithm to some extent mirrors what we see in talk radio and other media segments in America. I'm not sure what you think the significance of that fact is. YouTube's recommendation system is specifically trying to maximize time spent by users watching videos, and what's turned out to be the case is that sensationalistic, politically polarizing, conspiratorial, etc. vid…

It's to some extent self-destructive for YouTube - the I've noticed that when looking for entertainment I wind up being rapidly bored by the recommendations because they're only ever a mirror of exactly what I've seen before - they're not an attempt to challenge or expand on my preferences.

Which of course is what you get from blind correlation driven user feedback - "did you like this?" - if I'm not sure because I'm now exploring outside my comfort zone then that goes back into the algorithm as "no".