White House YouTube Dislike Manipulation • Hacker News Board

Re: White House YouTube Dislike Manipulation

#21

Post by ardy42 » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #17

marcinzm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably bots, people who do nothing but dislike videos, Indian sweatshops that are human bot farms, dislikes driven by social media posts calling for users to add dislikes, etc.

> people who do nothing but dislike videos > dislikes driven by social media posts calling for users to add dislikes this is not spam. how does youtube knows which dislikes are driven by 'social media post' ? > Indian sweatshops that are human bot farms someone is paying sweatshops to dislike whitehouse youtube? How do you know this ?

>> people who do nothing but dislike videos

>> dislikes driven by social media posts calling for users to add dislikes

> this is not spam. Also how you think youtube knows if a certain user is disliking because they read a social media post ?

I believe Reddit calls similar activity "brigading," and it's against the rules there.

Re: White House YouTube Dislike Manipulation

#22

Post by cecja » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

II2II wrote: post #7

formerly_proven wrote: post #2

Totally not dislike bots.

As bad as it looks, it could be an automated attempt to protect the system from manipulation. As such, I find the author's conspiratorial tone somewhat unjustified. (For example, the comment about 1 am probably has little to do with doing it when people are unlikely to notice it and more to do when maintenance is done.)

The author is doing research on one point of a system and is ignoring the whole rest of the system ie. youtube. It's pseudo science at it's best and and should be banned from hn.

Re: White House YouTube Dislike Manipulation

#23

Post by cecja » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

pcf wrote: post #11

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #5

This website also contains climate change denial and scare quotes around the word scientist. We should be more skeptical of sites like this.

This is whataboutism and trying to discredit the researcher. Either analyse and critique the very concrete work displayed here, or don't say anything at all.

What research? He cherry picks one popular channel on youtube which gets dislike bombed and presents it as a conspiracy. You are spreading FUD this is no research this is just pseudo science with an agenda.

Re: White House YouTube Dislike Manipulation

#24

Post by marcinzm » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #17

marcinzm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably bots, people who do nothing but dislike videos, Indian sweatshops that are human bot farms, dislikes driven by social media posts calling for users to add dislikes, etc.

> people who do nothing but dislike videos > dislikes driven by social media posts calling for users to add dislikes this is not spam. how does youtube knows which dislikes are driven by 'social media post' ? > Indian sweatshops that are human bot farms someone is paying sweatshops to dislike whitehouse youtube? How do you know this ?

>this is not spam.

Dislikes are there to help human users of Youtube (and the AI recommender systems of Google) not to be some sort of god given metric of anything. Spam is anything which makes dislikes less useful as metric for those things. Users who dislike everything aren't a useful metric.

>Also how you think youtube knows which dislikes are driven by 'social media post' ?

A sudden jump in dislikes with a referal tag of . Probably mixed with their knowledge of those user's other Youtube browsing behaviors. And Google's absurd knowledge of your internet browsing behaviors via its massive analytics network. I'm sure there's whole teams doing nothing but this at Youtube and I suspect they have very sophisticated methods at this point.

Re: White House YouTube Dislike Manipulation

#25

Post by dominotw » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:30 PM UTC

uberswe wrote: post #20

dominotw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a large quantity of spam dislikes what exactly is a 'spam dislike' . I don't see how thats a valid explanation.

One way I have seen this done in the past is that you have contest sites. As a user you gain x number of entries for every action you take. One of these actions can be to go in and like or dislike a video for example. Sometimes the sites can even check that the action was performed. Someone wanting more entries might create lots of fake accounts. I'm sure there are many other ways to do this but that is one example o…

But what would someone get out of paying ppl to dislike whitehouse videos ?

Re: White House YouTube Dislike Manipulation

#26

Post by ardy42 » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:30 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #25

uberswe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way I have seen this done in the past is that you have contest sites. As a user you gain x number of entries for every action you take. One of these actions can be to go in and like or dislike a video for example. Sometimes the sites can even check that the action was performed. Someone wanting more entries might create lots of fake accounts. I'm sure there are many other ways to do this but that is one example o…

But what would someone get out of paying ppl to dislike whitehouse videos ?

> But what would someone get out of paying ppl to dislike whitehouse videos ?

Propaganda.

Re: White House YouTube Dislike Manipulation

#27

Post by sandworm101 » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

smcl wrote: post #18

For a while YouTube didn’t report the exact number of views, likes and dislikes. So someone viewing a video would only getting an approximate value for each or with a deliberate small +/- offset. Is it possible that’s what’s going on here? I find it hard to believe YT is engaging in “manipulation” of a stat that frankly doesn’t really matter if you’re an account like the White House.

>> of a stat that frankly doesn’t really matter if you’re an account like the White House.

I don't agree. I think these numbers matter more than we realize. I believe that many politicians today are using Twitter/Youtube/Facebook likes as modern Gallup polls. Manipulation of the numbers could result in actual policy changes.

Say there is a video about net neutrality, or the breakup of the social media giants. I honestly think all sorts of people in government will be looking to the popularly, or lack thereof, as a gauge of public support for the content of the video. So, imho, manipulation of likes/dislikes is becoming very serious.

Re: White House YouTube Dislike Manipulation

#28

Post by logifail » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

marcinzm wrote: post #14

dominotw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a large quantity of spam dislikes what exactly is a 'spam dislike' . I don't see how thats a valid explanation.

Probably bots, people who do nothing but dislike videos, Indian sweatshops that are human bot farms, dislikes driven by social media posts calling for users to add dislikes, etc.

> dislikes driven by social media posts

(Disclosure: I live outside the USA, I'm not politically active, I have no horse in this race)

It's clear from the way that many people write that if "their side" is doing something it's almost certainly the best of reasons and if "the other side" is doing something it's for the worst of reasons.

From the HN guidelines: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

How can we reintroduce good faith into everyone's interactions with the political class? Right now it seems it's perfectly OK to assume the worst possible interpretation of anything a politician says*

When did the world get like this? How do we fix it?

* if s/he isn't from your party. If s/he is from your party, of course you assume the best interpretation.

Re: White House YouTube Dislike Manipulation

#29

Post by smcl » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #27

smcl wrote: post #18

For a while YouTube didn’t report the exact number of views, likes and dislikes. So someone viewing a video would only getting an approximate value for each or with a deliberate small +/- offset. Is it possible that’s what’s going on here? I find it hard to believe YT is engaging in “manipulation” of a stat that frankly doesn’t really matter if you’re an account like the White House.

>> of a stat that frankly doesn’t really matter if you’re an account like the White House. I don't agree. I think these numbers matter more than we realize. I believe that many politicians today are using Twitter/Youtube/Facebook likes as modern Gallup polls. Manipulation of the numbers could result in actual policy changes. Say there is a video about net neutrality, or the breakup of the social media giants. I hones…

I think you are mistaken if you believe anyone in government cares about number of likes and dislikes on any YouTube videos and uses this to base their position on any given policy.

Even if they cared about traditional old-school polls you’d probably have Medicare for All, the USA would be completely out of Iraq and Afghanistan and you’d be able to buy Cannabis legally. I doubt they’d ignore the known popularity of these things but suddenly care about social media likes and dislikes.

Re: White House YouTube Dislike Manipulation

#30

Post by marcinzm » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

logifail wrote: post #28

marcinzm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably bots, people who do nothing but dislike videos, Indian sweatshops that are human bot farms, dislikes driven by social media posts calling for users to add dislikes, etc.

> dislikes driven by social media posts (Disclosure: I live outside the USA, I'm not politically active, I have no horse in this race) It's clear from the way that many people write that if "their side" is doing something it's almost certainly the best of reasons and if "the other side" is doing something it's for the worst of reasons. From the HN guidelines: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation…

This is nothing new in terms of US politics and political candidates gladly fan the flames:

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2019/07/11/a-short-his...

edit: And if I remember in Rome a politician was literally killed by a mob of his opponent's constituents so this has been going on for thousands of years.