YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#241

Post by stcredzero » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

rhcom2 wrote: post #238

stcredzero wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This risks making about as much sense as “free guns” I think the US 2nd Amendment is a great thing. People everywhere should have that absolute degree of freedom. That's certainly not the same thing as "free nuclear weapons." We are, however, rightly intolerant of hate speech, especially speech against a segment of the population. The problem we've seen with this, is that rather tame bog-standard Republican positions…

The 2nd amendment isn't absolute though, which you can see through the different gun laws in each state.

The 2nd amendment isn't absolute though, which you can see through the different gun laws in each state.

Those are often states being naughty and infringing. Those are often backdoor attempts to circumvent the 2nd amendment.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#242

Post by Zenst » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

magissima wrote: post #193

Zenst wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deplatforming, blocking, label and dismissing as forms of dealing with `extremes`, is not only a bad solution, but only fuels those extremes - driving them into their own confirmation bubbles and onto more dangerous forms of outletting their opinions. What needs to happen is solid debate, constructivly listening and then disseminating and showing what they are wrong about and why, with proof. As for platforms, deplat…

And yet I've barely heard a peep about Alex Jones since he was deplatformed. It seems to have worked pretty well there.

Hasn't stopped him, just because you don't see him on your timeline, or the mainstream platforms don't mean he's gone away or changed. Just shifted into a conformation bubble with others and with that, less likely to encounter any debate of their mentalities and ideas and as such, enforcing them in their own minds.

This in a way prevents opposing minded people challenging them in debate and sweeping problems under a carpet don't solve the problems. It just shifts it until it grows large enough that the carpet is just not big enough anymore.

However, being exposed to such opposing views can become distressing and whilst sometimes you may be in the mood to debate them, other times you are not. So IMHO putting better controls in the hands of the users, sure can default to settings suitable for children. But banning is not the way in the end. Like films, you have ratings, today we can and should have a more granular rating system akin to dating app choices and give the users the power to do there own censoring above and beyond the laws of the land.

But for many a default of not having to see the ugly sides of life and dealing with those issues, does seem to be a choice many make, albeit for various reasons.

Maybe one day we will all walk around with augmented reality goggles and filter out everything we don't like. But then, just because you can't see a problem - don't mean it's still not a problem. Which is kinda the crux of many problems in the World today.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#243

Post by Zenst » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:56 PM UTC

nafey wrote: post #180

Zenst wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deplatforming, blocking, label and dismissing as forms of dealing with `extremes`, is not only a bad solution, but only fuels those extremes - driving them into their own confirmation bubbles and onto more dangerous forms of outletting their opinions. What needs to happen is solid debate, constructivly listening and then disseminating and showing what they are wrong about and why, with proof. As for platforms, deplat…

What you are discounting are the bad faith actors that use networks provided by YouTube, FB, Twitter etc to disseminate their message. I think a lot of us believe in marketplace of ideas where bad ideas are disproven and people update their beliefs and move on. But we overlook those who are so driven by ideology/emotions that they spread false data willingly to push their agenda. They can recruit like minded and impr…

All very true. Take new papers and some headline story that turns out to be false and a retraction later on is always hidden away. Same with likes and thumbs up on viral stories/videos - even a few hours later that it's proven to be fake without any doubts - the likes and thumbs up on that disprove will always fall short of the attention the original fake did. That in is human nature at play more than technology as the old word "rumours" as well as many others plays testament too. So to find a technological solution is not clear cut.

Sure, there are upsides to banning and deplatforming, maybe they outway the negative aspects.

Really, gets down to constructive debate and critical thinking being installed into our education systems more than what we have today. Which alas seems lacking in many avenues of education still.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#244

Post by stcredzero » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #225

stcredzero wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most quantitative reviews on deplatforming and and other social moderation efforts have shown the opposite. If certain vile people were still on YouTube, then they could be demolished by argument. By deplatforming people off YouTube, you actually manage to give the bad people moral ammunition (the people you'd think the least likely to achieve that) and reduce the legitimacy of the platform. What's been accomplished…

> If certain vile people were still on YouTube, then they could be demolished by argument. If arguments actually demolished positions, we'd see a lot fewer fools, and their adherents. People broadcasting outright lies don't care about arguments. They care about exposure. When they are deplatformed, they quantitatively lose exposure. They get moral outrage, but it's hard to turn moral outrage into viewers... Especiall…

If arguments actually demolished positions, we'd see a lot fewer fools, and their adherents.

We've seen precisely this happen on YouTube. "Unfortunately," from their point of view, the way it worked out went against the political narratives of the people who run YouTube.

People broadcasting outright lies don't care about arguments.

But onlookers who are normal, sensible people do.

They care about exposure. When they are deplatformed, they quantitatively lose exposure.

This is the POV of people who don't believe in objective truth or meritocracy. They think everything is a rigged game, and they think to win, it's just that they have to rig the game their own way.

What you call "exposure" is actually discovery. Biasing discovery by refusing it to certain people is tantamount to censorship in this day and age.

They get moral outrage, but it's hard to turn moral outrage into viewers... Especially when your views are unsympathetic.

Actually, it's very easy to turn Moral Outrage into viewers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

It's funny, but here you are actually precisely describing some of the groups who were discredited and saw their engagement drop on YouTube -- in exactly the opposite situation to people like Sargon of Akkad. His opponents in the "SJW skeptic" circles dropped off, while people like him prospered. Then, instead of arguing, the SJW crowd resorted to namecalling, mis-characterizing what was actually said, and de-platforming.

YouTube is losing credibility to the people who are paying attention, precisely by deplatforming people who are popular (whose political views they don't like, even though they are not extreme and fairly mainstream) and by trying to pick and promote their own "winners" that people do not like.

In the end, it just amounts to dishonesty. In the end, people will be able to see this, and I hope YouTube eventually pays the price for it.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#245

Post by fzeroracer » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 10:00 PM UTC

noego wrote: post #71

CharlesW wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly, it's pretty ridiculous that YouTube is being pressured to police the content on its platform. It's not "ridiculous", it's table stakes. If you ever run an open community, you'll find that bad actors are inevitable.

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

If you have to ask that question, then you've never been a moderator or ran a platform before.

There is a lot of content that is invisible to you, the user, because it ends up being filtered out by moderators because it consists of overt racism, calls to violence, outright trolling, stalking and more. Even as a moderator of a small private platform there was a user that was stalked by someone who would attempt to reregister accounts solely for the purpose of harassing them or finding any personal details that they could dig up about them

Eventually you have to establish a certain level of moderation for your platform or those bad actors can and will chase off all of the other users for one reason or another. This gets worse as a platform scales and the level of malicious content your platform is exposed to grows exponentially.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#246

Post by smegger001 » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 10:23 PM UTC

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.

that is pretty much why I have quit facebook, I was sick of ultraconservative relatives tagging me in these political shitpost linking to Shapiro style videos and conservative political memes. The only reason I still have a account is so my grandmother and sister can see baby pictures of my kid.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#247

Post by noego » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #245

noego wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you have to ask that question, then you've never been a moderator or ran a platform before. There is a lot of content that is invisible to you, the user, because it ends up being filtered out by moderators because it consists of overt racism, calls to violence, outright trolling, stalking and more. Even as a moderator of a small private platform there was a user that was stalked by someone who would attempt to rer…

None of the problems you've raised are related to YouTube's proposed changes in the linked articles. They already have rules against most of the things you mentioned. The proposed changes go far beyond them.

https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/policies/#community-guideli...

> Starting in 2012, YouTube rebuilt its service and business model around “watch time,’’ a measure of how much time users spent viewing footage. A spokeswoman said the change was made to reduce deceptive “clickbait” clips. Critics inside and outside the company said the focus on “watch time” rewarded outlandish and offensive videos.

YouTube's engine is currently ranking content based on the amount of time other users are spending actively watching that content. Unwanted videos are already de-prioritized by the current algorithm. The proposed changes are explicitly intended to de-prioritize videos that people are actively watching.

It remains to be seen how they will measure "quality". If they find a bias-free way to measure it, I'm all for it. Most likely though, it will be driven by top-down notions of "outlandishness" and "offensiveness", as opposed to bottom-up user engagement.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#248

Post by fzeroracer » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

noego wrote: post #247

fzeroracer wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to ask that question, then you've never been a moderator or ran a platform before. There is a lot of content that is invisible to you, the user, because it ends up being filtered out by moderators because it consists of overt racism, calls to violence, outright trolling, stalking and more. Even as a moderator of a small private platform there was a user that was stalked by someone who would attempt to rer…

None of the problems you've raised are related to YouTube's proposed changes in the linked articles. They already have rules against most of the things you mentioned. The proposed changes go far beyond them. https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/policies/#community-guideli... > Starting in 2012, YouTube rebuilt its service and business model around “watch time,’’ a measure of how much time users spent viewing footage. A s…

You asked what kind of bad actors an open platform might have to deal with and I gave you an example with a very small platform.

Now you scale that up to match YouTube and it becomes a nightmare. YouTube is being pressured to take action by it's users because what's happening is exactly what I was talking about: They have bad actors taking advantage of your platform. That's where Elsagate came from or the more recent reveal of pedophiles using the platform to groom kids.

There is no unbiased way of solving this problem. Because you have to establish certain things as being bad for your platform, which means you are going to be biased against them. Youtubes reaction is in turn them trying to solve issues at scale when they clearly didn't consider how the platform would scale in the first place.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#249

Post by noego » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 11:19 PM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #248

noego wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the problems you've raised are related to YouTube's proposed changes in the linked articles. They already have rules against most of the things you mentioned. The proposed changes go far beyond them. https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/policies/#community-guideli... > Starting in 2012, YouTube rebuilt its service and business model around “watch time,’’ a measure of how much time users spent viewing footage. A s…

You asked what kind of bad actors an open platform might have to deal with and I gave you an example with a very small platform. Now you scale that up to match YouTube and it becomes a nightmare. YouTube is being pressured to take action by it's users because what's happening is exactly what I was talking about: They have bad actors taking advantage of your platform. That's where Elsagate came from or the more recent…

The "bad actors" that you're referring to on YouTube aren't harassing anyone or inciting violence or breaking the YouTube community guidelines in any way. They are simply espousing opinions that you dislike and disagree with.

Sure, YouTube is allowed to do anything they want. But suppressing an open marketplace of ideas isn't in society's best interests. If unpopular opinions were suppressed in the past, the movements for women's rights and gay rights and civil rights would have faced a massive setback. And let's not even get into the question of whether it's in society's best interests for a handful of corporations to arbitrarily decide how to censor the marketplace of ideas.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#250

Post by fzeroracer » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 11:29 PM UTC

noego wrote: post #249

fzeroracer wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You asked what kind of bad actors an open platform might have to deal with and I gave you an example with a very small platform. Now you scale that up to match YouTube and it becomes a nightmare. YouTube is being pressured to take action by it's users because what's happening is exactly what I was talking about: They have bad actors taking advantage of your platform. That's where Elsagate came from or the more recent…

The "bad actors" that you're referring to on YouTube aren't harassing anyone or inciting violence or breaking the YouTube community guidelines in any way. They are simply espousing opinions that you dislike and disagree with. Sure, YouTube is allowed to do anything they want. But suppressing an open marketplace of ideas isn't in society's best interests. If unpopular opinions were suppressed in the past, the movement…

I'd like you to take a minute and go visit sites like Voat or Gab. Just, hover around there for a bit if you haven't. Those are sites that are exactly what you want: A pure and open marketplace of ideas without any sort of censorship or rules. This is to prove a point.

Which is that an open marketplace of ideas has no value in itself, because the marketplace can be very easily taken over by bad actors if you don't exert some control over your userbase.