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YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

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Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a lecture quoting from the Old Testament, or an atheist quoting its worst parts, would get banned under your regime? Because, at least for the first three examples, you are explicitly including meta-discussions of the subject. It's impossible to create an "objective" standard. Because what you want to rate is meaning , and meaning is subjective, based on context and intent. One of history's most famous photos is o…

You didn't read carefully enough. I said "advocating murder". So no, a lecture or a simple quotation wouldn't result in anything.

No, I read with plenty of care. Which is why I asked you to clarify why meta-discussions are included for the first three examples, but not the last.

I'd also posit that it's impossible to define a clear distinction between a "lecture quoting a text advocating murder" and actually advocating murder.

Just as it is impossible to just say penis->nudity, without losing the vast difference in meaning and effect from a photo of Michelangelo's David to hardcore pornography.

That's because, fundamentally, there just is no such clear delineation. Give me any two photos including a penis, and I'll give you one that is more offensive than one, yet less offensive than the other.

The tech community loves to ignore the long history of these problems, and denigrates everything that can't be expressed as a smart contract as "biased" or "subjective".

But that's ok... In less than 200 years we'll have a great algorithm who will finally render the definitive test of what's porn and what's art: "I'll know it when I see it".

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife runs a "mom vlog" mostly recipes, lifestyle things, how tos, etc. Since late October her content is regularly demonetized with no indications as to what's wrong. Her content is literally some of the most desirable, adfriendly content on YouTube. No idea why they don't have a whitelist for channels with 10 years of a spotless record.

> No idea why they don't have a whitelist for channels with 10 years of a spotless record. Give it 30 seconds of thought, and it'll be blindingly obvious. "Google/Alphabet doesnt have to pay them for the content now." My question, why do they keep using a platform that's screwing them over? Yippee: -3. Evidently stating the emperors new clothes are his birthday suit is bad/wrong.

> "Google/Alphabet doesnt have to pay them for the content now."

When a video is demonetized, only a small subset of advertisers or no advertisers can be shown on that video. If no ads are being shown then neither Google nor the creator are making money (and Google is spending money to host and serve the content), so really this is a lose/lose for both of them.

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#133

Could this be a way to train a demonetization AI model? Given it's Google behind it, I don't think they are expecting to keep a work force to flag videos for the foreseeable future. I think they are probably doing this in parallel with AI and most of the false positives are on that end, which means they hire more people to make a bigger training data set, rinse and repeat.

Yeah, considering Google has been cutting search raters' pay[1], and they tested the waters with automated moderation tools[2] earlier this year, I think it's pretty safe to say their goal is to cut out people from moderation entirely.

[1]: https://arstechnica.com/features/2017/04/the-secret-lives-of...

[2]: https://www.perspectiveapi.com/

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#134
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem with these rules is subjectivity. Something you would consider offensive is probably not from my perspective. In the end it will be a moderator bias galore. I can easily see a Christian mod demonetizing atheist videos, democrat republican, prude free, etc etc etc. I'd like to see a true free speech platform with violence/nudity sectioned off according to the local laws, and then let the advertisers d…

They have a pretty clear set of guidelines for what counts as controversial. I think they do a good job of circumscribing the worst of what they've been funding up to this point, without being too overreaching.

I don't use youtube much, but I know that Joe Rogan's podcasts as well as a bunch of Jiu Jitsu stuff has been demonitized for no real reason. I can't imagine it's going well for other, more dramatic communities if even a combat sport with no striking is seeing a bunch of videos culled in the process.

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#135
There is a compromise that would work for YouTube and its "less desirable" creators.

YouTube can stop monetising those channels with advertising it has sold. That keeps YouTubes normal advertisers happy.

The owners of those channels could instead sources their own advertisers and use the YouTube ad management systems to inject the adverts in to their videos - with YouTube taking a cut of the revenue.

This way everyone is happy, the channel owners get revenue, the advertisers know exactly where their adverts are appearing and YouTube gets a cut too.

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#136
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem with these rules is subjectivity. Something you would consider offensive is probably not from my perspective. In the end it will be a moderator bias galore. I can easily see a Christian mod demonetizing atheist videos, democrat republican, prude free, etc etc etc. I'd like to see a true free speech platform with violence/nudity sectioned off according to the local laws, and then let the advertisers d…

That makes sense. The problem is that at the end of the day the decision will have to be made either by algorithms or by people. Algorithms are less nuanced, hard to write, and will often fail, people are expensive and biased. With the amount of videos youtube has to process, and without an almost human-level AI, I don't think there's a perfect solution. Algorithms flagging videos for review, and then humans making d…

> Algorithms are less nuanced, hard to write, and will often fail, people are expensive and biased.

Algorithms have a fantastic property of repeatability which means that it is

(a) possible to adjust them over time

(b) possible to identify what exactly happened

(c) blind to the context and inputs outside of the algorithm

That's exactly what is needed.

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#137
post #32

Google is an American company. Their "rules" are extremely embedded in a US culture. Unfortunately YouTube is a product that is consumed worldwide. Many of the regions where it has a dominant market share for web VoD do have cultural palates that are very different from the US. I feel Google should embrace their international position and be less biased in it's reasoning.

So, what is your suggestion here? Should they run with the most open interpretation (i.e. allow anything that is socially acceptable somewhere on earth) or most strict interpretation (i.e. limit stuff that might be offensive somewhere on earth)? Both approaches look rather impossible to me: the former would mean allowing stuff that might even be illegal in the U.S., the latter would mean that e.g. all videos showing…

Well, they already have a system for "this video is not available in your country", driven by the music licensing.

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#138
post #30

Google is an American company. Their "rules" are extremely embedded in a US culture. Unfortunately YouTube is a product that is consumed worldwide. Many of the regions where it has a dominant market share for web VoD do have cultural palates that are very different from the US. I feel Google should embrace their international position and be less biased in it's reasoning.

What culture-specific reasonings are you referring to, exactly?

For example, in Germany, public TV channels (e.g. the ARD), showing a 90 minute movie containing a minute of nudity before an implied sex act in a movie targeted at teens, broadcast at prime time (20:15) is not unusual, and won't lead to complaints (see: the first 5 Minutes of "Mein Sohn Helen").

In the US, this would spark an outrage.

Most German public TV channels try to upload all content to YouTube, but sometimes some videos aren't available there due to YouTube's restrictions.

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#139
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strict rules for tagging would just run into the same problems as strict rules for demonetization. LGBT groups won't be any happier to see their content publicly branded "sexually explicit" than just demonetized.

By strict rules I also mean objective and unbiased. Penis/vagina -> nudity (even if it's medical or educational). "Fuck" -> cursing (even if it's about the etymology of the word). Advocating murder of group X -> ban (even if you're quoting a religious text). If these rules are strict and clear, we have a chance of creating a legal-like system. Otherwise it's subjective chaos with everyone pissed off.

> Advocating murder of group X -> ban (even if you're quoting a religious text).

An alarming number of social justice advocates have been equating words with violence. Canadian Bill C-16 (now law) is particularly troubling because under the Ontario Human Rights Code it makes debate over gender neutral pronouns a punishable offense. It seems to me that the folks at YouTube are, necessarily, responding with the most "conservative" policies to avoid "controversy" (i.e. boycotts).

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#140
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense. The problem is that at the end of the day the decision will have to be made either by algorithms or by people. Algorithms are less nuanced, hard to write, and will often fail, people are expensive and biased. With the amount of videos youtube has to process, and without an almost human-level AI, I don't think there's a perfect solution. Algorithms flagging videos for review, and then humans making d…

> Algorithms are less nuanced, hard to write, and will often fail, people are expensive and biased. Algorithms have a fantastic property of repeatability which means that it is (a) possible to adjust them over time (b) possible to identify what exactly happened (c) blind to the context and inputs outside of the algorithm That's exactly what is needed.

> Algorithms [allow to] identify what exactly happened

"This video was demonetized because at the 1:15 mark, there is a patch of light dirt that our neural network classified as naked skin with a 70% confidence."

Oh, you meant you were going to do image recognition without any sort of machine learning?

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