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YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

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Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#161

Post by prolepunk »

eropple wrote: post #52
bitxbit wrote: post #25

Please just give us the ability to blacklist channels. That’d increase usability by 10x for me.

AFAIK you can do that? Hit the menu on a video recommendation, "Not Interested" -> "Tell Us Why" -> "I'm not interested in this channel". IMO, though, blacklisting has been mostly proven to be insufficient. If you block, say, noted chud Sargon of Akkad, that doesn't mean that another half-dozen "Rationalist" "Thinkers" Who Just Happen To Be Chuds won't be recommended to you as well.

I second that personal blacklisting is insufficient.

I did just that, clicked on "not interested" -> "tell us why" -> Not interested in this channel"

Yet I'm still getting video suggestions from "Charisma on Demand" and the like.

Also this mechanism doesn't account for changing tastes.

I was one interested in a certain gun channel, but after a shooting and particularly deft comments about it by channel owner, I decided to take up interest in literally anything else. Yet the videos from it and the like followed me around for about a year.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#162

Post by stcredzero »

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…

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.

Except when those humans are captured ideologically, then start to warp an even handed policy towards their own ends.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#163

Post by MBCook »

mtgx wrote: post #112
kzcqt wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A site like youtube requires so much CPU/GPU power, storage capacity and bandwidth that it's highly unlikely that a new competitor[] will appear, and completely impossible to decentralise. []If we don't count the likes of Facebook, Microsoft, etc as competitors, since they would manage the site in the same way Google does.

Bandwidth has nothing to do with it. If a site was super-popular, I'm sure they'd get the VC money. That's really not the issue. The issue is getting people to put their videos on other sites, too.

And you don’t think the VCs would drive them to try to keep their content ‘clean’ the way YouTube is?

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#164

Post by seattle_spring »

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.

> 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.

Just like people got what they wished for when Voat was spawned from Reddit?

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#165

Post by jimmy1 »

marbletiles wrote: post #149
stcredzero wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people ( and a lot of people on HN) really believe that online platforms should be able to suppress such unlawful videos. "Such unlawful videos." So basically, the government should be able to declare content "unlawful" and it's okay so long as public sentiment goes along with it? Basically, you've simply thrown out Free Speech. I can understand why someone would find the video of the shooting shocking. Personal…

The Christchurch shooter had no more right of access to a privately-owned live-streaming platform with an audience in the millions than he had right of access to a broadcast TV network. Saying so (which I suspect is what OP intended) is not "throwing out Free Speech" You can tease apart the right to say something with the right to have it signal-boosted along the way, and if you want to save Free Speech you're going…

You conflate regulatory expectation with consumer expectation. Most people don't want to see things they don't like. So they don't tune into channels, (YT or otherwise) that play things they don't like to see. The marke corrects itself over time.

Broadcast stations aren't refusing to show that content because of a law, but because they are making a business decision.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#166

Post by ataturk »

stcredzero wrote: post #138
enitihas wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most people ( and a lot of people on HN) really believe that online platforms should be able to suppress such unlawful videos. "Such unlawful videos." So basically, the government should be able to declare content "unlawful" and it's okay so long as public sentiment goes along with it? Basically, you've simply thrown out Free Speech. I can understand why someone would find the video of the shooting shocking. Personal…

[dead]

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#167

Post by eyeareque »

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…

Humans are expensive, and reviewing horrible content causes mental health issues. I don’t blame them for trying but I agree they aren’t as good and have a long way to go.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#168

Post by themacguffinman »

lilactown wrote: post #139
stronglikedan wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, those should be prohibited by law. I think that genocide should also be on that list. And youtube can (and IMO should) continue to prevent the rest. Death, gore, genocide, fascism, violence, etc. do not belong in general public discourse. There's always some other website to post snuff porn. I don't agree with the way that youtube has applied their guidelines for removing content in general, but I do generally…

> Yeah, those should be prohibited by law

Then try to get it passed. Write to your representative. If it's so obvious that it should be prohibited by law, then you should have no trouble finding support.

I suspect what you'll find instead is that people don't think it should be prohibited by law, and prefer to instead threaten and pressure a more vulnerable and less democratic entity like YouTube into carrying out their unpopular censorship desires.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#169

Post by stcredzero »

marbletiles wrote: post #149
stcredzero wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people ( and a lot of people on HN) really believe that online platforms should be able to suppress such unlawful videos. "Such unlawful videos." So basically, the government should be able to declare content "unlawful" and it's okay so long as public sentiment goes along with it? Basically, you've simply thrown out Free Speech. I can understand why someone would find the video of the shooting shocking. Personal…

The Christchurch shooter had no more right of access to a privately-owned live-streaming platform with an audience in the millions than he had right of access to a broadcast TV network. Saying so (which I suspect is what OP intended) is not "throwing out Free Speech" You can tease apart the right to say something with the right to have it signal-boosted along the way, and if you want to save Free Speech you're going…

no more right of access to a privately-owned live-streaming platform with an audience in the millions than he had right of access to a broadcast TV network

If the government now has the right to say, "piece of content X -- not allowed" arbitrarily and with no process and rational standard, then Free Speech is simply broken. An event of that magnitude is now history. A free society should not be rewriting history. People are still free to not-view and not-read. That right can't practically be infringed. What can be infringed is the right to view and the right to read.

You can tease apart the right to say something with the right to have it signal-boosted along the way

As the internet is currently formulated, "signal boost" is equivalent to discovery. Being able to manipulate discovery for 90% of the population is tantamount to the power of censorship.

if you want to save Free Speech you're going to have to in case we throw the baby out with the bathwater here

In a fair system which truly supports Free Speech, in the end, signal boosting a bad message becomes a good thing. If it's really bad and full of nonsense, then there will be a reaction and backlash which will bury the bad message. What we have in the years leading up to 2019, is a small group of activists supported by a cultural minority (academia+media+tech) who signal boosted messages, including those of bad actors who hijacked activist messages. Then, when the backlash came against the bad actors, there was an artificial campaign of suppression, which encouraged more backlash against the suppression.

Now, we are in a vicious cycle of censorship/suppression supported by government and corporate power versus the backlash to that suppression. If we want it to end, then we can let Free Speech do what it's supposed to, so the backlash can go to where it belongs: Against bad actors hijacking good messages and bad actors with really bad messages.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#170

Post by stcredzero »

enitihas wrote: post #147
stcredzero wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people ( and a lot of people on HN) really believe that online platforms should be able to suppress such unlawful videos. "Such unlawful videos." So basically, the government should be able to declare content "unlawful" and it's okay so long as public sentiment goes along with it? Basically, you've simply thrown out Free Speech. I can understand why someone would find the video of the shooting shocking. Personal…

Nowhere did I say Government should be able to throw out free speech. I am just acknowledging what I have observed. If you think my observations are incorrect, please feel free to go through the relevant HN threads (e.g, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19414591 ) You will find a lot of comments saying such censorship is needed. I agree with you that free speech is important, and I think this contradiction betwee…

Suppressing Free Speech creates more radicalization. If certain radicals are really bad, then more Free Speech ultimately gets rid of them. Suppression just gives them more ammunition. This is the lesson from across just about all of history.

In 2019, governments and big tech have essentially been tricked into replacing societal backlash against nonsense with societal backlash against suppression. What governments and big tech should be doing is protecting the integrity of speech. On a level playing field, Bad Actors will reveal themselves. It's on a tilted playing field where things dysfunction, and the crowd cries foul and declares the game invalid.

In short, in 2019, for governments and big tech to have the Bad Actors fail, they need to stop doing end-runs around the law and principles of Human Rights. They need to stop giving ammunition to Bad Actors by being bad actors themselves.

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