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YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

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Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#121

Post by neilv »

keiferski wrote: post #19

Frankly, I hope YouTube (and Google in general) dramatically overdo it with the censorship, "curation", and deplatforming of "irresponsible" content, purely so that it forces an independent, non-corporate model to be developed. Having one company be the sole gatekeeper for the overwhelming majority of the web's video content is not a solution.

It's starting to look like we're getting more of a regulatory moat. (In the Warren Buffet sense of "moat", as barrier to competitors.)

An additional concern, at least in US tradition, is when once-again-centralized monopoly venues are being mandated (or given permission?) by politicians to censor or "curate" everyone's speech. I'm pretty sure I was taught in school that we consider that a bad idea here.

I generally favor a healthy amount of decentralization, that the remaining big guys be more common carrier (and stop claiming rights to people's communications), and a renewed individual sense of responsibility towards society (not gaming social media, playing to metrics, manipulating our lesser selves, etc.).

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#122

Post by [deleted] »

luckylion wrote: post #108
minikites wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren't dumb, but I think people have poor information literacy skills, which is linked to the decline in liberal arts education in favor of the emphasis on STEM education. The lack of these skills leads to people being unable to distinguish between "sound argument" vs "intimidate and disconcert" (again, not related to their intelligence, this is a developed skill). https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10858.html…

> People aren't dumb, but I think people have poor information literacy skills, which is linked to the decline in liberal arts education in favor of the emphasis on STEM education. Citation needed. Obviously, people from the humanities believe that they are very important and should be paid a lot to shepherd society, but that's not enough to convince me. Edit: Sorry, due to serial flagging thanks to this I can't repl…

[deleted]

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#123

Post by minikites »

luckylion wrote: post #108
minikites wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren't dumb, but I think people have poor information literacy skills, which is linked to the decline in liberal arts education in favor of the emphasis on STEM education. The lack of these skills leads to people being unable to distinguish between "sound argument" vs "intimidate and disconcert" (again, not related to their intelligence, this is a developed skill). https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10858.html…

> People aren't dumb, but I think people have poor information literacy skills, which is linked to the decline in liberal arts education in favor of the emphasis on STEM education. Citation needed. Obviously, people from the humanities believe that they are very important and should be paid a lot to shepherd society, but that's not enough to convince me. Edit: Sorry, due to serial flagging thanks to this I can't repl…

Given your hostile opening, I'll start by asking what you think that evidence would look like and what you would find convincing.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#124

Post by 4ntonius8lock »

enitihas wrote: post #96
Mirioron wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't. I suspect that that kind of regulatory capture is the point of these laws in the first place.

I don't think so. Most people ( and a lot of people on HN) really believe that online platforms should be able to suppress such unlawful videos. And it's not a completely unreasonable position.

You are right.

Personally, I question how many people would support authoritarianism if we didn't have the regulatory capture environment we currently have. There is such a powerful system of indoctrination in the US.

But then I think of experiments that deal with human nature. Of how 65%~ of people in the milgram experiment gave the dangerous shocks even while hearing people plea... It paints a picture of human nature I guess I want to blame on something 'out there' and not 'in here'.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#125

Post by rchaud »

malloreon wrote: post #119

whatever gets them to stop recommending me BEN SHAPIRO [EVISCERATES / DEMOLISHES / LEAVES SPEECHLESS] LIBERAL [PROFESSOR / SMART PERSON / SPEAKER] OVER [SOMETHING BEN IS CLEARLY WRONG / TROLLING ABOUT] videos.

Majority of my YT view history is music. 90% of my recommended videos are similar genres of music, but there is nearly always some political/culture war/conspiracy video sitting there as well. The other day it was "The REAL truth about the Vietnam War". Super relevant in 2019.

Fortunately, I can block channels from my Recommended, but there are hundreds of similar channels out there, so killing one just means it'll be replaced by the next nutjob channel in the queue.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#126

Post by rchaud »

degenerate wrote: post #111
bitL wrote: post #46

Quality content takes time to create; many of the past changes in YouTube algorithms explicitly pushed for churning out low-quality content frequently and rewarded it, while seriously disadvantaging irregular quality content (that moved elsewhere in the meantime). You get what you reward.

This can be seen easily if you go to Youtube and search "fortnite", with every single top video being just over 6 minutes long, full of vapid nothingness related to the title, and perhaps 20-30 seconds of content related to the title it originally baited you into watching. The majority of what can be found through searching/filtering on YouTube is also hot steamy garbage, or large corporate channels. The recommendati…

Kids watch that stuff and don't yet know how to sift through the trash to get to the good videos. They're like us in 2007 when we'd all get Rick Roll'd by blindly clicking on YT links placed on forums.

By setting their KPIs arund "view time", YT created a product which caters almost exclusively to kids and conspiracy nuts, aka the only 2 demographics that have seemingly unlimited time to watch cartoons or people talking into a camera.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#127

Post by stronglikedan »

luckylion wrote: post #98
legohead wrote: post #27

These companies focusing so much on algorithms, when the best solution is to simply use actual humans. I've done a fair amount of work on trying to detect and deal with spammers, fraudulent activity and such. Nothing beats a human eye. My most successful approach has been to filter out the super obvious stuff, then send the rest to a queue that is kept an eye on by humans. A small staff can easily fight back against…

> Nothing beats a human eye. Well, thousands of videos sure beat a human eye. Then you'll need lots and lots of people that watch those videos and make judgement calls, and there will be edge cases, and you will have to give people a chance to challenge those decisions, etc. For a forum with a few hundred posts a day, that's certainly an option. At Youtube's scale with hundreds of hours of video uploaded every minute…

Not to mention the cost of necessary therapy.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#128

Post by pas »

luckylion wrote: post #108
minikites wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren't dumb, but I think people have poor information literacy skills, which is linked to the decline in liberal arts education in favor of the emphasis on STEM education. The lack of these skills leads to people being unable to distinguish between "sound argument" vs "intimidate and disconcert" (again, not related to their intelligence, this is a developed skill). https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10858.html…

> People aren't dumb, but I think people have poor information literacy skills, which is linked to the decline in liberal arts education in favor of the emphasis on STEM education. Citation needed. Obviously, people from the humanities believe that they are very important and should be paid a lot to shepherd society, but that's not enough to convince me. Edit: Sorry, due to serial flagging thanks to this I can't repl…

I don't consider myself from "the humanities", but the lack of applied rationality skills in the general population is dangerously severe. (Look at how populism spread by convincing people via the cheapest of rhetorical appeals to ego and arrogance.)

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#129

Post by stronglikedan »

lilactown wrote: post #117
noego wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are these bad actors doing that requires top-down censorship and marginalization?

Posting videos of death, gore, kiddie porn, targeted bullying, fascist propaganda, trying to incite genocide, rape and other violence. The idea that we should allow sites that are marketed to the general public to be unmoderated is completely ridiculous.

The only things on your list that they should be prohibited by law from showing is kiddie porn, rape, and targeted bullying. People should be able to police themselves from the rest as they see fit, but there's nothing wrong with posting it online.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#130

Post by busterarm »

criley2 wrote: post #86
busterarm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except MCNs sit as a middleman to you getting paid. The Defy Media debacle taught everyone a hard lesson. For those unaware, Defy Media went bust and had taken out substantial loans to operate. A large number of big creators are still unpaid while Defy Media's creditors carve up the company's assets. All those creators are going to get left unpaid.

Fair enough, but to bring this case up without mentioning mandatory union dues and the costs of unionization feels disingenuous. Unions very much are a middle man between labor and management, and the collective bargaining agreement that this potential Creators Union would sign would hamstring a creators freedom in this space pretty significantly as well. Is what it is, both choices have positives and negatives from…

Yeah, but at least unions don't take your entire paycheck up front before giving you your cut.
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