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YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

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Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#341

Post by nybble41 »

shkkmo wrote: post #310
s17n wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People talk about creating an appeals process like it's something Google could just snap their fingers and do, like the commenter in this thread who suggested they should just "hire 100000 moderators". The problem is, scaling a human system like this is extremely difficult and human appeals are notoriously weak against social engineering attacks. It's far from clear that a manual review process capable of handling bi…

>It's far from clear that a manual review process capable of handling billions of users and reliably producing the correct outcome is even possible at any kind of plausible cost. I would hope that the reason that scaling is hard is because violators would spam the system. If there really are so many legitimate users losing access, then this is a huge problem that we need to hold companies legally accountable for. Wha…

> … this is a huge problem that we need to hold companies legally accountable for.

Legally accountable for what? They do not owe anyone free access to their service. If you're a paying subscriber then they do owe at least their choice of a refund or continued service until the end of the current subscription period—unless they can demonstrate that you were the one that broke the contract—but they are have no obligation to let you renew, any more than you are obligated to continue subscribing.

Google doesn't have a monopoly on much beyond their own brand and reputation. All the services they offer, including video hosting, can be found elsewhere. If you want to build your income stream on their brand ("Oh, but no one will be able to find me if I host my videos on PeerTube!") you do it on their terms.

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#342

Post by haswell »

dredmorbius wrote: post #331
mcast wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny how Google’s automated system will flag a small video like yours but I see tons of crypto scams on SpaceX imposter live feeds with thousands of viewers

At YouTube (or Facebook, or Twitter) scale, correctly assessing let alone addressing abusive content is a near-intractable problem . One might argue, and I think there's a strong case to do so, that if you can't do a thing viably at scale, then perhaps you should not do it. At the same time, an acknowledgement of the scope of the problem by those criticising practices ... would be a breath of fresh air. (I'm a long-s…

What are you trying to accomplish with this comment?

The intractability of the overall problem is a topic of interest, sure. But this thread is pointing out how poor Google’s current implementation/attempt to solve that problem seems to be. The parent comment adds to the dialog by pointing out that while innocent content is getting removed, truly harmful content still exists and is rampant. Is it piling on? Maybe. But Google is earning the criticism.

This doesn’t imply that the solution is simple, but highlights how broken things are. Google is not the only place people can post user generated content, but they have a growing reputation for handling these issues more poorly than most, which isn’t just dismissible because it’s a hard problem to solve.

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#343

Post by throwaway82931 »

dorfsmay wrote: post #143
throwaway82931 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one option. Another would be that you need to pay for your service on a monthly basis. Some way that for a user to have faith in the appeals process and purchase peace of mind. Just knowing that a backstop is there would help a great deal.

OP mentioned that they are a paid YouTube member, so they do pay monthly for the service.

Yes, you're right. I guess I couldn't let go of the idea that an an appeals process should be scalable for paying customers. I still believe that.

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#344

Post by luma »

whimsicalism wrote: post #317
gwerbret wrote: post #283

Presumably, many Googlers who are directly involved in designing and implementing content moderation are active readers of Hacker News, as is evidenced by the fact that having a story hit the front page is an effective way to solve problems like these. But what I never see is any of those Googlers taking the time to explain why they feel these seemingly-broken approaches are the only ways to solve the problem of mode…

Honestly, what service do you get for free that is also rolled out to billions of people and has better customer service? Hiring individual people to address your issues is going to be hard to scale in a way that allows a free service to be rolled out to billions. I don't work at Google, do work at another company that I have no doubt has the same issue, but not discussing in the context of that company either.

OP did note that he happens to be a YT premium user (for music), so in this situation it isn't a "free" service, they are interacting with a paying customer.

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#345

Post by neysofu »

101008 wrote: post #66
cube00 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the power TODAY to change that. Do it before you lose access. Start with a Google Takeout and get your email out into your own domain as a starting point. Search "self hosting" for more details, even if you have no interest in running your own servers it gives you lots of good ideas to regain more control over your own data.

My main fear about that is not doing it properly and my email stop working as expected. For the nature of my job (press) I send a lot of emails to people who don-t know me, asking for interviews, etc. If my email starts to fall into spam folder, my job would be impossible. Gmail gives me that and I don't have to worry about if this person received the email or not.

If your email is that fundamental to your job you should 100% have a custom domain, so that you can switch email provider without causing disruption to your day-to-day job. It shouldn't cost more than ~$60 a year.

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#346

Post by myself248 »

jandrese wrote: post #336
mcast wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny how Google’s automated system will flag a small video like yours but I see tons of crypto scams on SpaceX imposter live feeds with thousands of viewers

This makes sense in a weird way. The spammers have full time jobs figuring out Google's algorithm and how to manipulate it. Regular content creators don't, so they tend to get clobbered by the algorithm. As Google continues to tighten the algorithm to fight spam, eventually the only users who will be able to post are the spammers.

If Google were a solo schlub in their basement writing code because they didn't have time to do manual review, that would be understandable, even excusable.

But last I checked, they were the #5 largest company in the world.

You'd think that an issue that's obvious to literally everyone who uses the platform would also be obvious to even a handful of manual reviewers, and they could take the fight to the spammers a little more aggressively. Just a smidge. Like, one full-time reviewer, since it appears on my feed with devastating regularity, I'd even apply for the job myself, if it meant I could keep that scourge out of my own recommendations.

I'm left to conclude that maybe the #5 largest company in the world can't afford one full-time reviewer?

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#348

Post by throwaway82931 »

rubatuga wrote: post #330
Farow wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the classic. In order for your issue to be resolved you have to make the news. Really sad how this applies to many/most online services.

I guess Kafka forgot to acknowledge the power of complaining on Hacker News.

Google is Kafka at scale. All of the other characters in The Trial besides Josef K have been optimized away and replaced with silicon.

The key insight that made it possible? That responding to front-paged Hacker News complaints doesn't have to scale. This allows them to shaft users in the vast majority of cases which never become high profile.

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#349

Post by nybble41 »

reginold wrote: post #125
101008 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main fear about that is not doing it properly and my email stop working as expected. For the nature of my job (press) I send a lot of emails to people who don-t know me, asking for interviews, etc. If my email starts to fall into spam folder, my job would be impossible. Gmail gives me that and I don't have to worry about if this person received the email or not.

you can somewhat limit the downside just by getting your own domain and setting it up as an email. Even still using this linked to gmail is better than nothing. when things go haywire you still control me@domain.com or whatever so you just take it to another service. I did this, and then a few months felt comfortable enough to move to fastmail. recipients have no idea, it's still me@domain.com, had no problems with d…

I can vouch for Forward Email (https://forwardemail.net/). It's easy to set up if you have your own domain, you can continue using Google Mail if you like (for both receiving and sending), their message size limits are higher than Gmail's, you can set up multiple aliases and (optional) catch-all addresses, and they offer a free tier if cost is an issue. The big advantage of the reasonably-priced paid tier is privacy: paid subscribers don't have to put their real email addresses in the DNS records to configure the forwarding. It also helps to ensure that the service will remain viable into the future.

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#350

Post by necovek »

rmah wrote: post #291
necovek wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a freelancer, you are usually not working with "the public". A bunch of professions require special licensing to be able to deal with the public (supermarkets included, but even one-man professions like public notaries in some countries), and while there is no similar legislation for internet "places", we can easily establish de-facto public services (which most social networks are). So, if you've got an open shop…

In the US anyway, as the parent said, yes you can deny service for any or no reason except for specific protected classes (e.g. sex, race, religion, etc.). You can, for example, deny service to anyone wearing red. Or anyone who is not an adult (or not a child). You can deny service to anyone named Jeeves. There are, of course, edge cases. For example, a shopping mall is a private space but not in and of itself a reta…

Thanks!

If that's the case, we probably need to re-think through those policies if we think that they should not apply equally to "virtual" spaces (like Google/Youtube accounts).

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