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YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem Is a Business-Model Problem

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Re: YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem Is a Business-Model Problem

#111

Post by ChickeNES »

tu7001 wrote: post #108

Is it a joke? In Poland, for example, Youtube, in wholesale, blocks channels which are criticize on LGBTQUERTY. The question is why the are able to censor content. I don't expect that my supplier turn off gas for me, if he thinks, that I use it to kill people; it's not his business, ot's the matter of law enforcement, the police, etc.

> Is it a joke?

No?

> In Poland, for example, Youtube, in wholesale, blocks channels which are criticize on LGBTQUERTY.

YouTube is US based and hate speech is looked down upon in the US. Don't like it? Find a service not based in the US.

> The question is why the are able to censor content.

It's a private website, they can do whatever they want. Again, find another site if you want hate content.

> I don't expect that my supplier turn off gas for me, if he thinks, that I use it to kill people; it's not his business, ot's the matter of law enforcement, the police, etc.

???

A) if they know you're using it to kill people they would be an accomplice in the eyes of the law

B) they would have every right to refuse service

Re: YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem Is a Business-Model Problem

#112

Post by ejefz »

lukaszkups wrote: post #85

> Specifically, the lawsuit accuses YouTube of filtering, demonetizing, and otherwise limiting videos that deal with LGBTQ identities, making it hard for their creators to reach a wide audience and make money. The suit alleges violations of free-speech protections and civil rights, among other statutes, and seeks class-action status. But the youtube isn't a public institution - it's a private platform - does that app…

I'm sure those people don't have a problem with Twitter or Facebook banning conservatives.

Re: YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem Is a Business-Model Problem

#113

Post by wolfgke »

Mirioron wrote: post #16

The thing is that a lot of us saw this coming. Whenever people complain about how YouTube needs to remove X type of content, they also need to realize that if YouTube actually starts policing that type of content then there will be false positives. Since YouTube will do it algorithmically, the chance that there will be collateral damage is much higher and YouTube takes a long time to reverse decisions they've already…

> For example, YouTube doesn't want violent content. Just having the word "kill" in your title can get the content demonetized, even if the content is about a video game and properly categorized as such. It's been this way for years.

I think that this actully is violent content - so this is actually an example where the algorithm worked fine (which does not contradict your argument that there exist false positives - they are just a lot more subtle).

Re: YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem Is a Business-Model Problem

#114

Post by rewq4321 »

tu7001 wrote: post #108

Is it a joke? In Poland, for example, Youtube, in wholesale, blocks channels which are criticize on LGBTQUERTY. The question is why the are able to censor content. I don't expect that my supplier turn off gas for me, if he thinks, that I use it to kill people; it's not his business, ot's the matter of law enforcement, the police, etc.

> In Poland

A month ago LGBT people were being punched and kicked in the head and had bricks thrown at them while walking down the street for a parade:

https://streamable.com/hflsx

"Fuck off, we will kill you, there is no place for you in society"

https://streamable.com/f1c7c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlXWhSE9kAM

You should be ashamed of your country for the way LGBT people get treated.

Re: YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem Is a Business-Model Problem

#115

Post by ptah »

cromwellian wrote: post #88

There's an assumption if you use human raters, you won't have false negatives or positives, but even human beings disagree over how to categorize speech, what's homophobic, what's legitimate sarcasm or irony, what is violent content. In fact, on top of human raters exhibiting classification problems in the face of ambiguity, there is also the issue of bias. Radiolab on NPR had a great series on Facebook's human censo…

possibly, they should have LGBTQ humans do the rating on what is homophobic etc

Re: YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem Is a Business-Model Problem

#116

Post by goatinaboat »

Mirioron wrote: post #105
goatinaboat wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Given the vast wealth Google etc have accumulated its clear that actually, they could afford to do it, and still make good, but not astounding, profits. The rationale “we can’t make as much money as we’d like to if we followed the law” just won’t wash.

The platform economics change in that case. Right now, anybody can upload content for free and it'll appear very quickly on the channel. If you increase the cost per video by mandating human oversight on videos, then YouTube will probably remove the ability for (most) people to upload videos for free. I don't think that that's preferable for society.

Is what we have now preferable?

Imagine a YouTube that cost $10 to upload a video and $1 per comment. The quality of the content would be much higher and the hate speech would drop to zero. Wouldn’t that be preferable for society?

Re: YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem Is a Business-Model Problem

#117

Post by mikekchar »

tu7001 wrote: post #108

Is it a joke? In Poland, for example, Youtube, in wholesale, blocks channels which are criticize on LGBTQUERTY. The question is why the are able to censor content. I don't expect that my supplier turn off gas for me, if he thinks, that I use it to kill people; it's not his business, ot's the matter of law enforcement, the police, etc.

Your gas vendor does (I hope) discriminate on the kind of gas that gets piped to you. It doesn't allow all gasses -- only certain gas. They are, in fact, in business to sell that certain gas and not all gasses. They go to a great deal of effort to ensure that you get the special gas, not on some random gas that a producer decided you might like to try.

Vendors always discriminate on what they ship to customers. It is never an open platform. I know it's very confusing, but Youtube literally says that you can only distribute certain kinds of things using their service and that they will block other things. I suppose they don't put it in 40 point font on their front page, but it's also not hard to find: https://www.youtube.com/t/terms (incidentally this came up in Japanese for me, so I suppose it might come up in Polish for you).

When people talk about freedom of speech and censorship, what they are talking about is society's role in gagging you. Generally speaking, usually countries don't force you to carry specific content (ha ha! Unless you are Canadian.... Canadian inside joke...), but likewise nobody is forced to carry all content, or accept all trade that might come their way. You are allowed as a business to choose what you want to do and who you want to do business with -- unless it's with a protected segment of society. That's a pretty basic freedom and someone who clearly values freedom as you do can surely see why it is important.

You might argue (to greater or lesser success) that Youtube is a pubic carrier and should be forced to carry everything for free... I suppose... But I'm betting you'll be in the "lesser success" category there. You might argue that your particular subgroup of people who criticise minority gender issues are worthy of special protection and therefore should have a protected ability to spread your message... I suppose... But seriously, I don't think you'll get very far with any of it.

From my perspective, I just think Youtube is within their rights to do what they want on this kind of issue. We may like it or dislike it, but it's the only sane way to handle it.

Re: YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem Is a Business-Model Problem

#118

Post by philpem »

Fomite wrote: post #78
Mirioron wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the costs of YouTube probably balloon so high that it doesn't matter for creators whether their videos are demonetized or not, because they aren't going to earn anything from them.

We may be hitting the point where societal impact is great enough that people don't necessarily accept "We can't do that at scale" as an out.

Maybe the solution to that is decentralised services.

To use a historical example, it's easier to moderate an IRC channel of 100 people than an IRC network of 10,000.

Re: YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem Is a Business-Model Problem

#119

Post by philpem »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #8

One of the big problems with machine learning algorithms at this time is that they have a hard time figuring out intent. A lot of the terms used by the LGBTQ community, have been used by homophobic people as slurs. Yes it is great that the community is reclaiming those words, but current ML tech has no way of distinguishing when those terms are being used by the community in a respectful manner from where they are us…

You make a good point - even humans have problems with context.

Classic example being that in some areas of the UK, close friends will greet each other with a joking insult. If you don't know they're friends or you don't have the verbal clues to work from (the 'I'm joking' intonation), it looks a lot like the start of a bar fight.

If humans can't get 100% accuracy on this - how can we expect it from business rules, machine learning and so on?

To pinch a line from ST:TNG, "Life is an exercise in exceptions".

Re: YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem Is a Business-Model Problem

#120

Post by AndrewOMartin »

wolfgke wrote: post #113
Mirioron wrote: post #16

The thing is that a lot of us saw this coming. Whenever people complain about how YouTube needs to remove X type of content, they also need to realize that if YouTube actually starts policing that type of content then there will be false positives. Since YouTube will do it algorithmically, the chance that there will be collateral damage is much higher and YouTube takes a long time to reverse decisions they've already…

> For example, YouTube doesn't want violent content. Just having the word "kill" in your title can get the content demonetized, even if the content is about a video game and properly categorized as such. It's been this way for years. I think that this actully is violent content - so this is actually an example where the algorithm worked fine (which does not contradict your argument that there exist false positives -…

This video [1] about how to do the Charleston dance got demonetized, and there only hypothesis is because it had "Charleston" in the title a mere year-and-a-bit after the Charleston church shooting.

That's not exactly subtle.

I understand there could be other reasons for being demonetised, but it's hard to see what it could be in a very very inoffensive video about how to do a vintage dance.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdgCq1IGmsY

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