Live data from Hacker News

YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

nyu.edu

61–70 of 75 posts

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#61
I'm not skeptical because of what Youtube shows me, or doesn't show me. Youtube is becoming nigh unwatchable with ads every two minutes.

Am skeptical because:

I always question agendas, and lately, I'm being told not to question this election outcome by Uniparty Dems & Repubs along with the MSM

The MSM has done an excellent job of Uniparty political advocacy and discounting issues raised.

For the last 20 years or so, the hacker community of which I am one, has said that computer voting machines were inherently insecure. Except in 2020 for some reason.

The weird disappearing story about the USPS contracted trucker Jesse Morgan ballot shipment with from state to state

What I saw on broadcast news with huge leads being flipped by late night ballot drops

The weirdness of late night ballot stuffing into machines recorded in GA after the monitors were told to go hom.

The complete strangeness of removing one political party from observing election tallies

The already published Get out the Vote campaigns funded by Zuckerbucks that went overwhelmingly to specific party dominated areas

The interviews, and published canvassing in various states that did not match election results with frankly strange reports of folks living at houses not theirs

Deliberate attempts to change voting laws to maximize mail-in voting

Failed efforts to clean up voting rolls.

Weakening of vote integrity processes around signature matching

Delayed vote tallying intended to provide time for vote manipulation.

Secretaries of State deliberately changing the rules last minute to favor the Uniparty, despite the clear language of the US Constitution around Legislature controlling it

The reports of ghost voters in multiple locations in swing states that appear to have never existed, living out of commercial addresses and property lacking housing

The counts of ballots exceeding registered voters

Lack of consequences for people voting in areas in which they not citizens

Data that confirms that certain states were awarded more population, and congressional representation, in the Census, than to which they were entitled

The statement that the then candidate Biden made in a freudian slip, "We're in a situation where we have put together, and you guys did it for President Obama's administration before this, we have put together, I think, the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics"

The idea that Biden suddenly became infinitely more popular than Silver Tongued Charismatic leaders like Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, who I thought were the most popular recent presidents, while hiding out in his basement and not giving much press. Where I live, there was a sea of support for Obama in road signs, on T shirts, everywhere. I saw nothing like that for Biden

The overall tepid support for Biden, and lack of signs of support for him, despite living in a Deep Deep Blue area, which I could easily compare with

Since I work in computer security focused on strong identity & authentication and proper security configurations, it is difficult to convince me that insecure processes, badly maintained voter rolls, and unauditable black box systems, that were not configured to secure standards, are going to actually result in a good outcome (just to name a few of the problems).

I'm not going to get into a heated defense of above, posting a thousand links or all that like I regularly do. I just have a well formed opinion at this point that the fix was definitely in. As it probably has been in for a great number of recent elections.

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#62
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they really want that, though, or do they simply get more excited by it? Let's take a more striking example: someone trying to avoid wallowing in a pit of despair and grief over a loved one dying. I feel like many such people would tell you they are actively wanting to and even trying to avoid triggers for such, but once they run into one it pulls at them and they start to fall down a rabbit hole where a few hours…

I agree with you that clicks and view time do not necessarily equate to desired content, but I disagree with you that Google uses those parameters because they're "evil". They make money when people continue using their products, regardless of whether that's because they're being sucked into a rabbit hole of engaging things they don't want, or because they're being sucked into a rabbit hole of things they actually do…

FWIW, my position is today (and has been for many years now) that recommendation systems are inherently problematic, so you aren't exactly trapping me in some kind of contradiction or paradox here by asking me "but how else could it be done?!"... I'd argue that some things simply shouldn't be done.

In the case of social networks, I think they served a positive function to both society and the people who used them back when they didn't have the recommendation algorithms, and your feeds were curated by you choosing to follow people explicitly; this, however, was not profitable, so we are now here.

If you are to do it, then yes: I think you probably need to do what TikTok is doing, and have humans heavily involved in the recommendation system in a way that attempts to put a hand on the wheel rather than the Google way to approach problems with algorithms on top of algorithms and no humans anywhere.

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#63
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agreed with you up until this point: > And that's Google: the people at Google that work on this software are evil. This is an asinine assertion. The people at Google that work on this are the same as you and I, motivated by precisely the same incentives. They're no different from the people at Microsoft or Amazon or Apple or Netflix, and many of them probably worked at those companies previously. The upper managem…

> This is an asinine assertion. The people at Google that work on this are the same as you and I, motivated by precisely the same incentives. I have on multiple occasions been given the opportunity to make a lot of money by doing the things that people at companies like Google and Apple do. I have also on numerous occasions been given the opportunity to be hired by these companies to work against the interests I've b…

[deleted]

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#64
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they really want that, though, or do they simply get more excited by it? Let's take a more striking example: someone trying to avoid wallowing in a pit of despair and grief over a loved one dying. I feel like many such people would tell you they are actively wanting to and even trying to avoid triggers for such, but once they run into one it pulls at them and they start to fall down a rabbit hole where a few hours…

I agree with you that clicks and view time do not necessarily equate to desired content, but I disagree with you that Google uses those parameters because they're "evil". They make money when people continue using their products, regardless of whether that's because they're being sucked into a rabbit hole of engaging things they don't want, or because they're being sucked into a rabbit hole of things they actually do…

"They don't recommend people anti-democratic indoctrination videos because they actually want you to become anti-democratic; they recommend them because they don't care, and just want to make money" is not a solid argument against them being evil.

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#65
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agreed with you up until this point: > And that's Google: the people at Google that work on this software are evil. This is an asinine assertion. The people at Google that work on this are the same as you and I, motivated by precisely the same incentives. They're no different from the people at Microsoft or Amazon or Apple or Netflix, and many of them probably worked at those companies previously. The upper managem…

> This is an asinine assertion. The people at Google that work on this are the same as you and I, motivated by precisely the same incentives. I have on multiple occasions been given the opportunity to make a lot of money by doing the things that people at companies like Google and Apple do. I have also on numerous occasions been given the opportunity to be hired by these companies to work against the interests I've b…

[deleted]

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't. It sounds like a way to stop otherwise normal-minded folks from slipping down a YouTube-encouraged rabbithole of things that are demonstrably untrue.

I am not at all trying to delve into the topic of the legitimacy of the 2020 election. So, my next question is not an assertion that fraud took place. When you say "demonstrably untrue", who determines such things? It is usually not the case that one side is entirely and wholly untrue. Losing a court case or having one be dismissed on procedural grounds does not mean the defense or prosecution had no merit whatsoever…

> When you say "demonstrably untrue", who determines such things?

Do you believe in objective reality?

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#68

I'm not skeptical because of what Youtube shows me, or doesn't show me. Youtube is becoming nigh unwatchable with ads every two minutes. Am skeptical because: I always question agendas, and lately, I'm being told not to question this election outcome by Uniparty Dems & Repubs along with the MSM The MSM has done an excellent job of Uniparty political advocacy and discounting issues raised. For the last 20 years or so,…

> The idea that Biden suddenly became infinitely more popular than Silver Tongued Charismatic leaders like Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, who I thought were the most popular recent presidents, while hiding out in his basement and not giving much press. Where I live, there was a sea of support for Obama in road signs, on T shirts, everywhere. I saw nothing like that for Biden

That's because people were mostly voting against Trump than voting for Biden. Biden was never super popular; Trump is one of the most hated men on the planet.

Otoh Biden did campaign like crazy, so maybe you just weren't paying attention.

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah YT is a drug pusher. In the worse of ways I notice that the moment I watch a video slightly "off center" it goes full slippery slope on my recommendations. No kidding "Ah but this is what it should do". No, it shouldn't To not give a political example, this is like chasing and knocking on people's doors at dinner time with a full McD meal because you had a frozen yogurt in the afternoon

That's a poor analogy. You're going to the website, it's not coming to you, and you're given recommendations, not having them load and play the videos for you automatically. This is more like you buy a frozen yogurt at McDonald's in the afternoon, and when you return to McDonald's, the cashier asks if you'd like a McFlurry this time, and maybe to try a Big Mac combo?

> not having them load and play the videos for you automatically

Well, but YT does exactly that with Autoplay (and the recommendations are based on the last video seen)

Re: YouTube More Likely to Direct Election-Fraud Videos to Users Already Skeptical

#70
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are doing exactly what they were designed and should do. That is showing the user type of content they are interested in. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

The "problem" (if it's real, which I think it is) is that youtube's recommendations don't show you more "skepticism" content, but will continually try to push you further down rabbit holes. It works great if you are learning and suddenly interested in woodworking, but if you don't trust government, it's just going to take you to all the crazy people saying (((they))) are trying to keep you down and that's why your li…

And it's worth noting (so I have been informed by multiple reputable sources) that the triple-parentheses construction is a common antisemitic dogwhistle—that is, the "they" there is implicitly "the Jews".
Post reply on HN