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YouTube under federal investigation over allegations it violates kids' privacy

washingtonpost.com

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Re: YouTube under federal investigation over allegations it violates kids' privacy

#21

Post by CamperBob2 »

save_ferris wrote: post #13
mr_toad wrote: post #9

The hypocrisy in these articles criticising social media for tracking people when the news sites are stuffed to the gills with trackers is starting to get annoying.

I'm not sure that's an entirely fair comparison to make for a couple reasons: A) nobody pays to read the news anymore, and B) Facebook controls its ad network. If WaPo or any other news publication decided to turn off ads out of moral obligation to prove a point, they'd be digging their own graves. You're essentially arguing that they should commit economic suicide if they truly care about ad tracking. Our culture is…

If WaPo or any other news publication decided to turn off ads out of moral obligation to prove a point, they'd be digging their own graves

Why, at this rate, Jeff Bezos might have to shut the Post down in... 6.3 million years.

Re: YouTube under federal investigation over allegations it violates kids' privacy

#22

Post by noobermin »

RIMR wrote: post #8

I've been looking into this problem too, and you can find more information here: https://twitter.com/MarcusMcFart/status/1137562323512487938

What you posted is quite alarming, but I'm not sure it's related. This is about privacy, not pedophiles.

Re: YouTube under federal investigation over allegations it violates kids' privacy

#23

Post by bloaf »

Youtube is just following its own policy: "[we] specifically prohibit videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age"

So because they cannot justify exclusion of people based on age, they violate everyone's privacy equally.

Re: YouTube under federal investigation over allegations it violates kids' privacy

#24

Post by save_ferris »

mr_toad wrote: post #15
warent wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The journalists aren't the ones making that decision though, so I don't think that speaks to the quality of the article itself.

I’m not sure which is worse, that journalists are unaware of what their own papers are doing, or that they’re keeping quiet about it.

You make it sound like some conspiracy that journalists rely on advertising tech while publishing negative stories about it. Journalists aren't the ones building the CMS features for their publishers. I used to be a developer at a newspaper in 2016, and most of my coworkers on the journalism side didn't understand the business side of the paper, it wasn't their job.

But I'll emphasize my previous point again: newspapers would die without online advertising revenue. Even with online ads, publications around the country are being sold at record low prices and shut down or kneecapped by private equity groups. I highly encourage you to read up on the financial landscape of news in 2019, it's terribly grim.

Massive contraction is occurring the industry, prompting major consolidation of media groups. Companies like Digital First Media acquire large collections of papers and immediately fire half of the newsroom, and this is happening nationwide.[0]

I get that it's so easy to point fingers at news orgs for using online ads, but they didn't really have a choice. When companies like Google and Facebook took control of the distribution and access of content, newspapers became their customers in order to stay alive.

0: https://www.inquirer.com/business/reading-eagle-newspaper-di...

Re: YouTube under federal investigation over allegations it violates kids' privacy

#25

Post by journalism-lol »

save_ferris wrote: post #13
mr_toad wrote: post #9

The hypocrisy in these articles criticising social media for tracking people when the news sites are stuffed to the gills with trackers is starting to get annoying.

I'm not sure that's an entirely fair comparison to make for a couple reasons: A) nobody pays to read the news anymore, and B) Facebook controls its ad network. If WaPo or any other news publication decided to turn off ads out of moral obligation to prove a point, they'd be digging their own graves. You're essentially arguing that they should commit economic suicide if they truly care about ad tracking. Our culture is…

The honest truth is that no one should pay for news anymore, since it's pretty obvious that journalism simply doesn't matter anymore.

Journalism as we know it (knew it) has long since been blown out of the water by 100 different debacles since the 1970's. In fact, journalism never mattered, but it almost seemed to matter in the wake of WWII, because "the good guys" won. Sort of.

( ...or, perhaps more importantly, the really really bad guys lost, and had things been different the aftermath could have gone spectacularly much more terrible)

But we know journalism is long since dead, because we watched a war get launched in Iraq, while Fox News lapped it up, and everyone else stood by and did nothing. So whatever "The News" really is, it's not worth a single penny. It produces no results.

Don't buy it. Don't pay for it. Don't trust it. There is no "fake news" to worry about because even the real news is beyond meaningless and without value.

Re: YouTube under federal investigation over allegations it violates kids' privacy

#26

Post by warent »

briandear wrote: post #18
warent wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The journalists aren't the ones making that decision though, so I don't think that speaks to the quality of the article itself.

The “just following orders” argument? Journalists know good and well what their websites are doing if they themselves are supposedly experts on reporting on this sort of thing. They expect employees at Google et al to go against their masters yet they are hypocrites because they don’t go against theirs.

No, that's something completely different.

These writers aren't actively implementing the advertising software. They're not "following orders" in anything with respect to ad tracking simply by being a contributor on the platform. At worst, they're complicit by working for the company that utilizes it. Frankly though we all complicit in this stuff one way or another even if there's the illusion that we aren't by some degree of separation.

(EDIT: Deleted irrelevant argument)

Re: YouTube under federal investigation over allegations it violates kids' privacy

#27

Post by wwweston »

mr_toad wrote: post #15
warent wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The journalists aren't the ones making that decision though, so I don't think that speaks to the quality of the article itself.

I’m not sure which is worse, that journalists are unaware of what their own papers are doing, or that they’re keeping quiet about it.

In fact, maybe all journalists everywhere should just focus on investigating the organizations they write/work for, and stop talking about anything else until those places are paragons above criticism, right?

Maybe next up: only debt-free people/orgs are allowed to talk about deficits?

(Sure, journalism, like most other professions, can use introspection, including the topic of how tracking works, but if there's any case that something needs to be said every time the topic of tracking comes up -- and it's not clear that it is -- that should largely be an editorial call.)

Re: YouTube under federal investigation over allegations it violates kids' privacy

#28

Post by colechristensen »

verroq wrote: post #20
fyoving wrote: post #3

The author keeps conflating the "hate speech" talking points with what this investigation is actually about, it's like they can't help but pad the article with all their google grievances. It sounds like this is due to COPPA complaints because a lot of kids watch youtube videos and apparently they are not supposed to, but if youtube was found culpable then everyone would because COPPA is a mess.

I don't see how this is youtube's fault at all. It's not their problem that kids are violating TOS. Maybe parents shouldn't let youtube babysit their children.

I am experiencing quite a bit of the opposite from "let youtube babysit their children" in many different parents that treat video like some sort of poison which is a curiosity to me (I am not a parent).

I have been thinking more about dopamine or motivation and satisfaction in myself. I get it, satisfying that craving with any one thing too much is bad. Having satisfaction for that craving always on demand is bad. That satisfaction comes in many forms some which people say are "bad for you" some "good for you" some people disagree (in any category: exercising, eating, socializing, mind altering substances, television, youtube, social media, work, video games, reading, etc.)

Not very many people get a high from boredom, so a good measure of it probably fits in a good life, but that has its limits too.

Whenever I hear too many people have the same opinion about something "bad for you" that can't be explained without hand-waving I get very suspicious.

Re: YouTube under federal investigation over allegations it violates kids' privacy

#29

Post by colechristensen »

save_ferris wrote: post #13
mr_toad wrote: post #9

The hypocrisy in these articles criticising social media for tracking people when the news sites are stuffed to the gills with trackers is starting to get annoying.

I'm not sure that's an entirely fair comparison to make for a couple reasons: A) nobody pays to read the news anymore, and B) Facebook controls its ad network. If WaPo or any other news publication decided to turn off ads out of moral obligation to prove a point, they'd be digging their own graves. You're essentially arguing that they should commit economic suicide if they truly care about ad tracking. Our culture is…

>nobody pays to read the news anymore

I pay for several, quite a few people do.

Re: YouTube under federal investigation over allegations it violates kids' privacy

#30

Post by wolco »

save_ferris wrote: post #24
mr_toad wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure which is worse, that journalists are unaware of what their own papers are doing, or that they’re keeping quiet about it.

You make it sound like some conspiracy that journalists rely on advertising tech while publishing negative stories about it. Journalists aren't the ones building the CMS features for their publishers. I used to be a developer at a newspaper in 2016, and most of my coworkers on the journalism side didn't understand the business side of the paper, it wasn't their job. But I'll emphasize my previous point again: newspap…

Journalists publishing stories around ad tracking should be aware of that they are doing the same thing.

The user would be better off privacy-wise by not reading the article.

They could still have ads but why add tracking?

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