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YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

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Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#221

Post by bschne »

albedoa wrote: post #45
bschne wrote: post #19

Ironically Twitter/X, for all its recent criticism, comes out ahead on this stuff: at least there they get community notes saying it’s a scam fairly quickly

You cannot be serious. It is a daily meme that Twitter ads are all scams now because all of the legitimate advertisers are leaving. That's why it is an interesting , news-worthy event when a community note is attached to an ad.

I am serious! In an ideal world, Twitter/X would have more legitimate advertisers to keep the platform running, and also would have adequate content moderation that quickly got rid of the scams, through some combination of tech and human oversight. They are, and I am not debating that, doing pretty badly at that currently -- I get a few of the scam ads daily, ranging from misleading freemium games (sketchy) to sites faking local news publications and public figures to advertise financial scams (downright criminal fraud wherever you decide to draw that line).

But, looked at separately, allowing users to put notes under paid-for (!) ads pointing out issues with them is pretty remarkable. Tech gets a lot of flak for bowing to advertisers in the name of $$$, but here it is the users who have some power to set misleading ads straight, with zero influence by the advertiser in question. That is laudable, even if in an ideal world this would be unnecessary, or at least less load-bearing in terms of preventing fraud!

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#222

Post by smcin »

klvino wrote: post #202
mywacaday wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the Irish Tánaiste (US VP equivalent) and former Taoiseach (President equivalent) has to go to court and looses when he tries to find out from google who is advertising using his identity you know the whole think is a sham that has to be protected at all costs, https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2023/12/06/tanai...

In contrast. A third party created a bogus profile of a global brand and began releasing unfavorable content as though they were the brand. The global brand leveraged their relationship with Google to shutdown the profile (which could be labeled as satirical). Google went on to provide the private account and contact info of the third party posting. It was discovered the third-party was a subcontractor/vendor to the…

Does either of you have a link, or screenshot? Hard to tell otherwise whether it was a scam ad promoting financial products online, or satire (that sounds dubious), or both.

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#223

Post by mikrotikker »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #171
dspillett wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd think that creators making people want to use the site would be important YouTube's audience size and advertising metrics have long since gone through the point where individual creators or groups of them matter little. If a creator walks off the platform there are more who will fill the place, in search of potential monetisation, so youtube will still have somewhere to hang adverts off. An advertiser leaving…

It's quite obvious they either have advertiser problems or their ad serving algorithm sucks. I get so many repeats in stuff I'm not interested in at all, and completely unrelated to what I watch. I don't know if it's a matter of those ads bidding the highest or what. But YouTube's ability to show something I'm interested in is worse than even what the daytime TV ads were back in the day.

That's kinda good it means whatever privacy steps you're taking are working

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#224

Post by alacode »

Vrondi wrote: post #215
JanneVee wrote: post #46

As it turns out there is a whole category in YouTubes ad system for Get-Rich-Quick schemes, as detailed out in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkhGJUTW3ag&t=1031s (timestamped at the relevant time). Just today I saw my elderly father click on a YouTube ad link for a crypto scam copying Swedish televisions web layout he was reading it and I saw it at the corner of my eye. He has adblock installed, he disabl…

Install uBlock Origin on Firefox for him. Educate him not to click ads. Ever. If you emphasize long enough that clicking an ad can lose him his bank account and entire identity, it can sink in. I've spent years on this with my parents. "Yes, Dad, YouTube is out to get you, because they want money from advertisers, and they are happily selling your safety to advertisers."

I'm in my early 60's, I guess when I was young I'd have called me elderly. I however, have been a technologist since I was around 9 years old, got it from my Dad. I'd say most my age even if not into technology aren't averse to it or unaware of it. But, there are definitely some elderly who really don't get technology at all and there are some in their 20's who are the same way. Those individuals need to be protected. The onus should be on the corporation more than the individual; not solely on the individual.

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#225

Post by neop1x »

anilakar wrote: post #26

...nor scammy AI generated videos. This morning I came across a bit clickbaity and alarmist netsec video in my feed. Watched it for a minute before I started to wonder why the otherwise completely natural voice said "asterisk" between all sentences. Then I realized it was narrating a markdown bullet list.

The amount of fake and useless generated videos exploded after Google removed dislike numbers.

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#226

Post by rollcat »

ForkMeOnTinder wrote: post #71
passwordoops wrote: post #5

They're all like that. A whole back I reported an obvious real estate scam using Wayne Gretzky and some Blue Jays player (I'm in Canada). The reply was it didn't break any policy. When ads are the primary source of revenue, there's zero incentive to police the platform

It's even worse: the incentive is to police the creators, not the advertisers. Youtube will bend over backwards for advertisers whose "brand safety" team doesn't want their product to appear next to a swear word, and demonetize/strike/etc those creators. But the ad content itself isn't policed nearly as relentlessly.

True, and it's so ironic when the situation reverses...

Of the ads that recently slipped through my adblockers, one was a xenophobic piece of Hungarian propaganda against illegal immigrants. It was shown in the middle of a Minecraft video (a game without binary gender); that was made by a disabled person; to people living in a city where ~50% of the population was born elsewhere. Google does have all of that context, and yet this is what their ad selection algorithm picks.

This is one among many reasons why I have absolutely zero moral reservations about blocking YouTube ads. (inb4 ad money: I do support creators directly, as my budget allows.)

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#227

Post by simion314 »

verdverm wrote: post #126
JanneVee wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically I'm supposed to pay protection money? Yeah, I don't give into extortion...

You can see it as extortion or... Paying for a product instead of being the product. Huge quality of life improvement. How is it different from paying for Netflix and similar?

It is also hilarious that the FBI also recommends using ad block. I might be sorry for smaller companies but Google contributed to this scams and now even the FBI is against their scheme.

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#228

Post by mr_mitm »

iteratethis wrote: post #87
ren_engineer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

between the scam ads and their war on adblock it really seems like Google is scraping for every penny they can

Yep, it's a high interest rate phenomenon. Investors want to see profitability. But it's also a problem unique to trillion dollar companies: finding growth. If you have a money printer of $280B per year, how do you find growth that moves the needle? For new product development, you'd need to launch a product that brings in revenue of say $20B, otherwise it's just not that interesting. Imagine how hard it is to launch…

Why do they have to grow, though? Can't they just be profitable? They can just pay out dividends like coca cola, no?

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#229

Post by CamperBob2 »

wredue wrote: post #151
verdverm wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see it as extortion or... Paying for a product instead of being the product. Huge quality of life improvement. How is it different from paying for Netflix and similar?

[flagged]

I dislike ads. But when I do see them, I'd prefer they were relevant to my interests. I might order an ADF4377 evaluation board, but I'm not going to be buying any feminine hygiene products or timeshares in Phoenix.

So as far as I'm concerned, they can spy all they want. That horse left the stable years ago anyway. Just don't waste my time with ads on YouTube, and we won't have any beef. So far Google has held up their end of the bargain; we'll see if that remains true going forward.

Re: YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

#230

Post by epgui »

sonicanatidae wrote: post #204
epgui wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk about a great example of David Hume’s “is-ought problem”.

We're really delving into sophistry now? Hume argued the fine lines between logical vs analytical derivatives and while he had a firm stance, others didn't and still don't agree wholly. Let's take his claim that reason does not stir emotions enough to cause moral actions. That's great and arguable, but why then would he immediately move to, reason can only excite our emotions if it informs us about the world. That's…

The point I’m making is that evidence of “how the world is” has no bearing on “how the world should be”.

Facts don’t give rise to values, the two are independent.

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