Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

old.reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 375 posts

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

#301

Post by raphman »

michaelteter wrote: post #291

There's one ad that sounds like Donald Trump (it's an AI voice gen) promoting Donald Trump gold bars. It's not a short ad; I've seen it several times, so one of the times I recorded it. At the end, there's a brief display which says: "Disclaimer. This ad and it's entirety is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Donald Trump or any political party associated with him. The content and views expressed o…

> "It's not a short ad; I've seen it several times, so one of the times I recorded it."

FWIW, YouTube ads are just normal, unlisted videos. You can get their ID by:

- right-clicking on the video while the ad is playing,

- selecting 'Stats for nerds',

- copying the 'Video ID' from the debug info in the top left corner,

- appending this ID to 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v='

This also allows you to see the account associated with the ad and how often this ad has been played already.

For example, here's a (German) scam ad promoting a cheap ceramic heater as having "effectively no energy costs": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WorrpfjAYdc

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

#302

Post by mihirnaik »

I have seen many ads on YouTube, Google Ads, Google Display too. There are similar ads on twitter and LinkedIn too. It seems like they don't have a handle on the quality of ads nowadays. Looking at the advancements in Machine Learning capabilities it's hard to believe they are not able to detect these.

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

#303

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

Ad-free content really is possible, and Amazon is showing us how to do it. (Despite the fact that they themselves host ads.)

Amazon (however unlikely) could viably come out with an ad-free YouTube competitor, backed by Prime subscription dollars. As long as the costs are in order they could let it stew for a decade while it slowly pulls users away from other platforms. Heck Netflix could do the same thing, although they seem to be drawn towards ads, sadly. X.com would probably love to do something similar, but they don't have enough services to match the value of Prime.

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

#305

Post by GuB-42 »

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

But then, it there is no incentive to police the platform, there should be sexual content in ads, and yet, I don't even remember seeing ads for vibrators or other "soft" adult stuff. I don't remember seeing ads for weapons either. There are scams, but not many obvious counterfeits.

To be fair, I block ads, so I don't see many, but the few times I don't have them blocked, they are usually the kind you see on TV: big brand products, blockbuster video games, etc... with the very occasional scam and maybe a few of these fake games. But nothing like what you get on shady sites like porn, torrents, etc... and email spam.

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

#306

Post by amne »

kidsil wrote: post #199

It's striking how history repeats itself. Just like TV and newspapers eventually faced regulations to prevent scam ads, the internet has been in a similar bind for at least a decade. The principles of law should extend to all mediums, yet it seems we're at a stalemate with federal regulations adapting to the digital age. This should've been handled back in 2012.

What do you mean slow to adapt? We have transcended straight to cookie banners!

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

#308

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

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

There was a time before people called websites "platforms". A time before gigantic websites full of thousands of other people's uploaded files, where the websites are used for surveillance and advertising delivery. The operators of these mega websites, posing as so-called "tech" companies, argue they are providing a valuable "service" to web users, valued at a price of zero dollars. Truly they are only interested in providing a service to advertisers. If advertisers stop paying, the operators will be forced to scale back the surveillance as it's too expensive to host peoples' files for free. If people are paying for their own hosting, like they pay for internet access, then third party websites cannot claim ownership to access logs for peoples' files and other metadata that is useful for advertising.

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

#309

Post by ChadNauseam »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #308
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

There was a time before people called websites "platforms". A time before gigantic websites full of thousands of other people's uploaded files, where the websites are used for surveillance and advertising delivery. The operators of these mega websites, posing as so-called "tech" companies, argue they are providing a valuable "service" to web users, valued at a price of zero dollars. Truly they are only interested in…

If they were only providing a service to the advertisers, why would non-advertisers use their site, and even sit through ads?

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

#310

Post by 1905 »

kidsil wrote: post #199

It's striking how history repeats itself. Just like TV and newspapers eventually faced regulations to prevent scam ads, the internet has been in a similar bind for at least a decade. The principles of law should extend to all mediums, yet it seems we're at a stalemate with federal regulations adapting to the digital age. This should've been handled back in 2012.

While KimDotCom was getting raided in New Zealand for "piracy", Youtube knowingly used pirated music and film media to grow its site
Post reply on HN