YouTube bans comments on all videos of children • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#241

Post by ben_w » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:11 PM UTC

Mirioron wrote: post #239

ben_w wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I am objectively wrong, I want my mind to be changed. I expect this to be the case for around 10% of my ‘knowledge’, even on topics I care to educate myself about, and much worse on other issues. Putting a link under the videos isn’t likely to achieve that, but that’s a separate issue. The only problem I have with Google doing this, is that I trust corporations and government about the same — i.e. that both will…

You're missing the point. Most things in life aren't settled as easily as the flat Earth debate. Google could also do this on something that's far more controversial (eg political) and justify it in the same manner. Imagine if Google were against climate change and every video about climate change gets a link to some website that says it's not true. That wouldn't be acceptable, would it? But being okay with Google do…

I refer you to my last paragraph.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#242

Post by dharmab » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:11 PM UTC

40acres wrote: post #221

anonytrary wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't remember any meaningful discussion happening in the comments, it's mostly meme type stuff. That's because you're watching pop-videos. There's a goldmine of educational content on YouTube which breed valuable comments. The problem isn't the concept of commenting, the problem is that shitty content attracts shitty comments.

I've seen a lot of MIT OCW videos on Youtube and also 3Blue1Brown, even then the comments don't have a wealth of information.

A good example I've seen recently is Ronald Finger's Fiero restoration series. It's his first classic car restoration and the comments are full of good tips and friendly warnings about mistakes he makes.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#243

Post by claudiawerner » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:12 PM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #201

claudiawerner wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realise how silly this line of argument is? Why exactly should we (or Google for that matter) not recognise that there are differences in some actions? That some things are good, and some things are bad? In what world do you conceive it to be the same to advertise flat earth theories as legitimate unless you are yourself a flat earther? This idea that because nobody has a monopoly on the truth then we can't ma…

Of course, every authority since the beginning of civilization has carried this mantle in justification for censorship of all sorts. Having Google decide what information can and can't be shared on their platform (read: utility) is a dangerous state of affairs. What new social movement, or recognition of a current injustice will be stifled due a status-quo bias that is codified by such top down control over the media…

The fact that a reason is used (and has been used) to justify censorship unjustly does not mean that the reason itself is invalid, or that there is no such thing as good censorship; most people agree that some censorship (of threats or child pornography etc.) can be a great positive force.

There is no reason behind the idea that because we can't totally differentiate between good and bad where the line is blurry then we can't do anything at all. I'd also question whether free speech is intrinsically valuable, more than other actions are. I have seen no convincing reason to think so.

We can approve of good actions (like putting a Wikipedia link about earth science under a flat earther's video) and disapprove of bad ones (like putting flat earth propaganda underneath a scientific video). I see no issue here.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#244

Post by nilskidoo » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:12 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #232

theNJR wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My conclusion, after writing and thinking about this a lot lately, is that the three mega platforms are unwise, but unavoidable, due to network effects. We are going to have to make a concerted effort to somehow fix this. Hyper-niched communities, like Hacker News, work so well because we are united around shared passions and goals. Mega platforms contain many ideologies which are at odds with each other, constantly…

Facebook et al go out of their way to silo its users into small cliques of influence. On Youtube if you watch gaming videos you get ads for gaming, get recommended gaming, and aren't going to see ads for makeup or power tools. Any open access community will attract hostile actors seeking to usurp it. The problem with Facebook / Youtube / et al is that these corporations are more interested in trying to find a technic…

I bet it's more psychologically-based than that. From collegiate safe spaces to news media bubbles, to the social networking accounts themselves where nobody honestly follows people or ideas they themselves object to, everybody wants their own gated community/echo chamber.

Personally, as big as I am on free speech and anti-censorship, I don't believe that anybody should be allowed to post pix of minors online under any circumstances, even parents harmlessly to their personal FB profiles. UNLESS it's posting old pix of one's self. Otherwise I feel it betrays the privacy rights of those minors. They may well feel differently when they come of legal age, and by all means they can post whatever they like of themselves after the fact, but in the meantime privacy should be the autoset.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#245

Post by Mirioron » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:13 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #62

wutbrodo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The common theme in every discussion about moderation is that Google, Facebook et al have a division of literal wizards who can wave magic wands to enforce arbitrarily nuanced moderation policies at scale. This just isn't in touch with reality, but public opinion and pressure has no incentive to be rational, so blunt, restrictive policies like this one are the only path left open to these companies.

In Google’s latest press release they admit they are pushing out a new classifier which flags 2x more comments, and that they are increasing efforts in this area. I think that the reality is that until very recently there wasn’t a huge bag of money attached the having fantastic moderation tools. I don’t moderate a large YouTube channel, but I will go out on a limb and guess that the tools are rudimentary. Basic thing…

>I think that the reality is that until very recently there wasn’t a huge bag of money attached the having fantastic moderation tools.

Uh, spam? Spam has a pretty damn massive bag of money attached to it and nobody has managed to get it right. Every single spam filter catches a ridiculous amount of false-positives and spam is far easier to classify than what's required here. Youtube catches a ridiculous amount of comments as false positives in their spam filter. I can't imagine this new category is going to be any better.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#246

Post by derefr » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:13 PM UTC

est31 wrote: post #227

derefr wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let people discuss videos on other sites like twitter or reddit. Yes, exactly. I've never understood why content-host sites seem to think attaching first-party comment hosting directly to hosted content is a good idea. Why not just host what you host, and then let aggregator/discussion sites (various subreddits, various private forums, Usenet, Slack/Discord groups, etc.†) link to your thing-that-you host and host c…

There's been a video on yt about a real airline pilot reviewing the sully movie [0]. The comment section is filled with people from the field, pilots, turbine technicians, etc. Even Sully's Co-pilot Jeff Skiles HIMSELF commented on the video. While there are usually tons of low quality "upvote this comment if watching in 2019" things, this thread was wonderful. And I think if the comments were hosted on a different s…

Were there any valuable comments that weren't root-level (or that wouldn't have been made as root-level comments if it were impossible to reply to comments)?

I ask because I feel like you're describing the same sort of system I am in my sibling reply below:

> But really, if content creators want to get "feedback", they just need a thing that's essentially like email—a separate private channel between them and each audience-member—but where you can easily forward a whole email thread, after the fact, to the content host, and it'll appear below the content in an FAQs section. Sort of like how reviews work in some digital storefronts.

If all such comments were submitted knowing they'd just be treated as "private feedback" by default, with the moderator having the option to promote such feedback to appearing as a public "comment" [which, yes, isn't that different from "comments with pre-moderation", except for different expectations on commentors' parts], do you think that (valuable!) thread still could have happened?

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#247

Post by mhuffman » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:13 PM UTC

... yet they are still perfectly willing to allow content from children to generate revenue off of them!

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#248

Post by m23khan » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:14 PM UTC

drak0n1c wrote: post #165

m23khan wrote: post #151

As a Father of very young kids, I think this is nothing short of emergency. Not only commenting on kids videos should be banned, also youtube should heavily vet and tag all their kids related videos -- these days kids are hooked on watching cartoons and poems on youtube and a lot of times, there are really garbage videos targeting kids just showing little girls buying and playing with make ups, cleaning houses and le…

People said the same about the chat rooms we used when we were kids. You could argue that those had much more potential than Youtube comments to lead to actual physical harm. In some cases, bad things really happened. Chris Hansen made a show about it, and police used chat rooms to find pedophiles. But were internet chat rooms ever an "emergency"? Where do we draw the line with bans? There are family-friendly content…

its not only stereotypical or extreme behavior in kids video which I am talking about, its also about banning videos (and people who make them) which really are harming kids today.

Imagine if your kid really enjoys watching crap youtube shows like “Emma Pretend Play”, “Nastya and Baby”, and “Ryan toys review”, what exactly are they telling the kids? That money is meaningless and buy buy buy?

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#249

Post by pkaye » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:14 PM UTC

post_break wrote: post #140

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know they're an advertising company? Unless you're offering ways to improve their predation on consumers I can't imagine they'd care to hear what you have to say.

No I'm talking about Jake Paul and the likes telling kids they literally won't be cool unless they buy his merch or attend his "events".

That is where parents should do their job.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#250

Post by clucas » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:18 PM UTC

Mirioron wrote: post #210

Barrin92 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It won’t ever go away, it will just be hidden. deplatforming is an effective strategy to reduce the spread of malicious content for several reasons, in the case of youtube because it reduces the incentive to monetize and spread harmful content. To say that you'd rather be a exposed to pedophilia in youtube comments than to remove them is a little bit like saying you'd like to stay in contact with the marburg virus.

I agree! Since Hacker News could also potentially be such a way to disseminate bad information we should remove all comments here too. See the problem? That's basically what you're justifying.

There are logical stopping points on the way from "all comments should be allowed" to "no comments should be allowed."

One such stopping point could be "no comments should be allowed on media with certain features that overwhelmingly tend to attract morally reprehensible comments." Another such stopping point could be "all comments should be allowed, except those which the community has decided have no merit."

In fact, (almost?) all worthwhile online communities are somewhere between the two extremes you seem to advocate. They don't always call it "deplatforming," which may be where you're getting hung up, but comment moderation is everywhere, and it does work.

Now, if you want to say that Youtube could handle this particular type of comment moderation in a better way, I think there are plenty of arguments to be made. But the choice isn't "all comments" or "no comments."