I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next • Hacker News Board

Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next

#21

Post by elicash » Tue, May 26, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

bsder wrote: post #19

gkoberger wrote: post #12

This might not be a popular opinion, but I feel like YouTube is doing their best with a really hard problem. I see a lot of people complaining about things like this, but I also see a lot of people complaining that YouTube/Twitter/etc aren't doing enough to take down false/immoral/illegal content quick enough. [1] It really sucks when a legitimate video is taken down by mistake. But it also really sucks when revenge…

> This might not be a popular opinion, but I feel like YouTube is doing their best with a really hard problem. Of their own making. It's solvable. You throw humans at it. If Google can't deal with this then they shouldn't be allowed to collect money by running ads. Problem solved. And other sites will spring up that might actually be willing to deal with the problem correctly because now YouTube isn't a monopoly anym…

I favor splitting up tech companies (see my comment above).

The one counter-argument I do find interesting, however, is that YouTube BECAUSE of their monopoly status is able to throw far more resources into this than others sites do. We don't notice it on those other sites because (a) far fewer people are making a living there, and (b) they aren't targeted the way YouTube is targeted.

But that nevertheless, that monopoly is the only reason they are able to do as good a job as they do. And even if there was tons of competition and you lowered the stakes of getting booted, starting at zero followers on another site isn't exactly lowering the stakes to a point where it doesn't matter that you got the boot.

I still say split up tech companies. That said, so many industries have monopoly issues and rather than getting 90% of the attention tech companies should probably get more like 10%.

Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next

#22

Post by the_af » Tue, May 26, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

gkoberger wrote: post #17

kemonocode wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only ever resolved favorably if you have enough clout. I understand there simply not being enough manpower on Earth to manually review so many cases, but the balance seems to be so heavily skewed towards automation (which still does a very piss poor job at it) that just feels like there's no human element vetting the final decision at all, and that's the approach which so many people have gripes about, rightfull…

Is that true? I mean, you can also argue it's only ever an issue in the first place if you have enough clout to be targeted. And I haven't seen any proof that people "without clout" aren't able to get it resolved, have you? Even this person isn't exactly a YouTube heavy-hitter, it's a relatively niche channel.

I don't know about YouTube, but I know for a fact some kinds of bans on Facebook can only be reversed if you have a friend inside Facebook that advocates for you and contacts the relevant team. Source: I know because I have such a friend, and only going through him and not through the official appeal channels got stuff unbanned (not mine: I was in turn advocating for friends. Not that it matters). The official channels are often so slow and ineffective -- and often inscrutable -- as to be useless.

Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next

#23

Post by monadic2 » Tue, May 26, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

gkoberger wrote: post #12

This might not be a popular opinion, but I feel like YouTube is doing their best with a really hard problem. I see a lot of people complaining about things like this, but I also see a lot of people complaining that YouTube/Twitter/etc aren't doing enough to take down false/immoral/illegal content quick enough. [1] It really sucks when a legitimate video is taken down by mistake. But it also really sucks when revenge…

> I see a lot of people complaining about things like this, but I also see a lot of people complaining that YouTube/Twitter/etc aren't doing enough to take down false/immoral/illegal content quick enough.

Do you have an example?

These seem like inherently contradictory values. You can either make a safe platform or one that treats its tenants well. Like many of its products, google has not made it clear which set of customers they’re trying to please, pissing off both parties.

Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next

#24

Post by the_af » Tue, May 26, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #13

It seems like the extortionists can keep sending claims until they stumble across a YouTube moderator who guesses wrong and clicks the "this claim was legit" button. Even if 90% of the moderators would get it right eventually your video is going to be down for good. Even humans make mistakes sometimes, so human-in-the-loop isn't a perfect solution. The thing that really doesn't make sense to me is that when a moderat…

> It seems like the extortionists can keep sending claims until they stumble across a YouTube moderator who guesses wrong and clicks the "this claim was legit" button.

This is exactly what happens. At least, with Facebook. It's not that pranksters or trolls can flag your post/account/page and have it automatically blocked or banned; it's that eventually one of the human reviewers will make a mistake. I've seen it happen more than once and the only way to appeal was through back channels (i.e. via a friend working for Facebook).

Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next

#25

Post by vosper » Tue, May 26, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

monadic2 wrote: post #23

gkoberger wrote: post #12

This might not be a popular opinion, but I feel like YouTube is doing their best with a really hard problem. I see a lot of people complaining about things like this, but I also see a lot of people complaining that YouTube/Twitter/etc aren't doing enough to take down false/immoral/illegal content quick enough. [1] It really sucks when a legitimate video is taken down by mistake. But it also really sucks when revenge…

> I see a lot of people complaining about things like this, but I also see a lot of people complaining that YouTube/Twitter/etc aren't doing enough to take down false/immoral/illegal content quick enough. Do you have an example? These seem like inherently contradictory values. You can either make a safe platform or one that treats its tenants well. Like many of its products, google has not made it clear which set of…

> Do you have an example?

LMGTFY

https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+%22not+doing+enough%...

Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next

#26

Post by jimnotgym » Tue, May 26, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

kemonocode wrote: post #16

gkoberger wrote: post #12

This might not be a popular opinion, but I feel like YouTube is doing their best with a really hard problem. I see a lot of people complaining about things like this, but I also see a lot of people complaining that YouTube/Twitter/etc aren't doing enough to take down false/immoral/illegal content quick enough. [1] It really sucks when a legitimate video is taken down by mistake. But it also really sucks when revenge…

It's only ever resolved favorably if you have enough clout. I understand there simply not being enough manpower on Earth to manually review so many cases, but the balance seems to be so heavily skewed towards automation (which still does a very piss poor job at it) that just feels like there's no human element vetting the final decision at all, and that's the approach which so many people have gripes about, rightfull…

> I understand there simply not being enough manpower on Earth to manually review so many cases

This has made me wonder,

1) how many people would this really take to review appeals manually?

2) should a publisher be allowed to run a platform that they are unable to curate?

Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next

#27

Post by rrmm » Tue, May 26, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

bsder wrote: post #19

gkoberger wrote: post #12

This might not be a popular opinion, but I feel like YouTube is doing their best with a really hard problem. I see a lot of people complaining about things like this, but I also see a lot of people complaining that YouTube/Twitter/etc aren't doing enough to take down false/immoral/illegal content quick enough. [1] It really sucks when a legitimate video is taken down by mistake. But it also really sucks when revenge…

> This might not be a popular opinion, but I feel like YouTube is doing their best with a really hard problem. Of their own making. It's solvable. You throw humans at it. If Google can't deal with this then they shouldn't be allowed to collect money by running ads. Problem solved. And other sites will spring up that might actually be willing to deal with the problem correctly because now YouTube isn't a monopoly anym…

The main innovation google has seemed to make is to create products that scale with nearly zero customer service overhead. They have half-assed algorithms that mostly do something approximating a thing that might sorta be kind of near almost the right thing. With no recourse. Their success is that they've gotten people to swallow this state of affairs because they're almost the only game in town.

Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next

#28

Post by gkoberger » Tue, May 26, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

monadic2 wrote: post #23

gkoberger wrote: post #12

This might not be a popular opinion, but I feel like YouTube is doing their best with a really hard problem. I see a lot of people complaining about things like this, but I also see a lot of people complaining that YouTube/Twitter/etc aren't doing enough to take down false/immoral/illegal content quick enough. [1] It really sucks when a legitimate video is taken down by mistake. But it also really sucks when revenge…

> I see a lot of people complaining about things like this, but I also see a lot of people complaining that YouTube/Twitter/etc aren't doing enough to take down false/immoral/illegal content quick enough. Do you have an example? These seem like inherently contradictory values. You can either make a safe platform or one that treats its tenants well. Like many of its products, google has not made it clear which set of…

Sure, here's one I just saw today: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-conspiracy-wuhan...

Here's a bunch more:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/youtube-not-doing-enough-...

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/27/671285261/critics-say-youtube...

https://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/story?id=4889745&p...

https://coingeek.com/ripple-calls-out-youtube-for-not-doing-...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-internet-meeting/inter...

Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next

#29

Post by cbanek » Tue, May 26, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

gkoberger wrote: post #12

This might not be a popular opinion, but I feel like YouTube is doing their best with a really hard problem. I see a lot of people complaining about things like this, but I also see a lot of people complaining that YouTube/Twitter/etc aren't doing enough to take down false/immoral/illegal content quick enough. [1] It really sucks when a legitimate video is taken down by mistake. But it also really sucks when revenge…

> YouTube is dealing with two opposing issues, and is constantly doing its best to find a middle ground.

I agree with you that it's a really hard problem, but I don't see this as finding a middle ground. In reality, there are problems on both sides (people posting bad content, and bad actors taking on good content). What I expect from Google is a constantly improving process on making sure bad content is removed, and good content is not. It doesn't seem like Google's process is getting better - if anything it's just swinging back toward blocking content faster. I feel like there have been a few swings, such as back in 2011 when any background music or movie clip might mute or block your video, even when it's fair use, to a more open model a few years later, and now we're swinging back. What I would hope is that they improve over time. And yes, many times I think that involves actual people looking at things, which is expensive in terms of people as well as having to deal with tough content (mental health of those moderators being really tricky, just look at FB). But the amount of arbitrary and poorly worded emails about how you violated the TOS but won't say how. It's obvious that working with people is more expensive than not, and that seems to be what they are doing.

It's always a cat and mouse game, I guess. And Google has fought this type of thing before with trying to fight people gaming search ranking.

Now people arguing over what content should be allowed is obviously a more tricky, moral, problem. But between illegal content and people doing illegal acts like blackmail to valid creators seems pretty similar.

Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next

#30

Post by elicash » Tue, May 26, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

gkoberger wrote: post #17

kemonocode wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only ever resolved favorably if you have enough clout. I understand there simply not being enough manpower on Earth to manually review so many cases, but the balance seems to be so heavily skewed towards automation (which still does a very piss poor job at it) that just feels like there's no human element vetting the final decision at all, and that's the approach which so many people have gripes about, rightfull…

Is that true? I mean, you can also argue it's only ever an issue in the first place if you have enough clout to be targeted. And I haven't seen any proof that people "without clout" aren't able to get it resolved, have you? Even this person isn't exactly a YouTube heavy-hitter, it's a relatively niche channel.

I think there's an extent where "clout" (depending on how you define that) makes sense.

Let's take Joe Rogan as an example, ignoring for now that he's going to Spotify next year. I'd imagine that what happened to this small YouTuber would be impossible to happen to Joe Rogan. He likely has the cell phone number of several people at YouTube. It could even be the case that his account is flagged in a way that only a high-level staffer can take certain actions. So many people are watching him that it'd be a huge problem for YouTube's audience if something were to happen to his channel in error.

It's good service to the YouTube community to give the most popular folks outsized attention. Not even talking PR here, though I'm sure that's just as powerful a force. Just in terms of "how quickly would the audience be affected." Obviously, there are limits to this and it would seriously hurt YouTube's brand if they were known as being bad for small creators.