I think this is called extortion, not blackmail.
The official Hacker News headline-fixing person needs to fix this right now.
I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next
71–80 of 362 posts
Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next
#72This 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 dont feel sorry for them at all. > "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" I dont want these companies touching false/immoral take downs. who are they to decide? sorry, I dont want these people in charge of the moral police. illegal stuff, like revenge porn makes sense. > "YouTube is doing it's best to blend automa…
> HIRE SOME PEOPLE
Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dont feel sorry for them at all. > "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" I dont want these companies touching false/immoral take downs. who are they to decide? sorry, I dont want these people in charge of the moral police. illegal stuff, like revenge porn makes sense. > "YouTube is doing it's best to blend automa…
>HIRE SOME PEOPLE. they have huge margins, it would take very little for these companies to hire some people to review content. Agreed. That's something that's frequently said about Google and Facebook... That their volume is so large, they couldn't possibly do a better job with customer service. Given that they each make billions in profit every quarter, I find it hard to believe that improving customer service is u…
Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
They should hire more humans to do a proper job and provide actual customer service, using their excessive profits. The AI/automation stuff is just cost cutting and its lowering the quality of service.
Three hundred hours of video are uploaded to Youtube every minute [0]. There's no amount of "excessive profit" that can scale humans to review it all. [0] https://merchdope.com/youtube-stats/
A more relevant metric might be how many channels are subjected to community guideline or copyright strikes per day. Hiring humans to individual examine each of these circumstances is probably far more feasible than hiring humans to individually examine every single video.
Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next
#75This 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…
The videos were flagged and reviewed as acceptable several times, then subsequently flagged and reviewed as unacceptable. The inability to prevent scripted attacks like this where an attacker brute forces takedown requests doesn't strike me as "doing their best".
They can defend against DDoS attacks, why can't they do better against fraudulent takedown requests? I think the answer lies in their monopoly status and the fact that creators don't have many other options for getting real traffic outside of YouTube.
Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think they are really doing their best. If other Google's support forums are any indicator of their effort, they are mostly trying to automate the whole process as much as possible which then causes errors like this. Which makes sense from the SV software engineer perspective, but really is unfathomable to the normal user who then has to live in fear if some malicious teenager decides to ruin their channel. I…
> Instead of actually trying to create the best customer service I've worked in high volume customer services. It's not easy for the agents doing the work or the companies operating them. I've worked in multiple call centers dealing with calls and tickets. I've worked in companies in which I dealt with mobile phone bill queries and hardware issues right up to Cisco networking problems and then eventually enterprise g…
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Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ability to transact anonymously online shouldn't be understated.
Transact for what? What am I more likely to need bitcoin for than to pay off some script kiddie?
In theory, anything you'd like without fussing around with bank accounts. In practice, my local head shop has a bit coin ATM. That's about the only legitimate place I've seen that accepts bitcoin.
The biggest problem imo is that its unrooted, its value is purely speculative. At least the USD has the petrodollar system to keep it in check.
Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next
#78This 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…
The videos were flagged and reviewed as acceptable several times, then subsequently flagged and reviewed as unacceptable. The inability to prevent scripted attacks like this where an attacker brute forces takedown requests doesn't strike me as "doing their best". They can defend against DDoS attacks, why can't they do better against fraudulent takedown requests? I think the answer lies in their monopoly status and th…
IMHO if you came up with a workable solution, Google would buy you out in an instant.
Scalable reliable content moderation is one of the next major breakthroughs waiting to be solved. And it's not just Google it's everyone.
Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next
#79Re: I was blackmailed – any YouTuber could be next
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
They should hire more humans to do a proper job and provide actual customer service, using their excessive profits. The AI/automation stuff is just cost cutting and its lowering the quality of service.
Three hundred hours of video are uploaded to Youtube every minute [0]. There's no amount of "excessive profit" that can scale humans to review it all. [0] https://merchdope.com/youtube-stats/
No one's saying not to have algorithms involved at all. Humans don't have to review all of the content, just the stuff the algorithms are unsure about, as well as takedown/review requests.