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YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

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Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#191

Post by luckylion »

fireattack wrote: post #151
luckylion wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Trending page has been listing the same people over and over and over again for the last 3 years. Skytube (android app for YT that I like because it allows shutting off the screen while playing) does call it "Recommended", and that feels more accurate. I agree that the Trending page is terrible. When I was more active on youtube, I hid it from my browser because I often couldn't resist the temptation to open it…

Not sure what you mean by "Skytube [...] does call it ('Trending') 'recommended'", because YouTube have both "Recommended" and "Trending" and they're two different things. Does Skytube not distinguish them?

No, Skytube doesn't use YT's subscription and recommendations. You locally set your subscriptions and the app checks for updates occasionally or when forced, no account required, no server-side profile (well, they could, I'm sure you stick out like a colorful bird using that client), no YT-defined sorting of what might interest you. And it has a bookmark & download function built in. I'm somewhat of a fan as you can tell, there's more on https://skytube-app.com/ and you can install it via F-Droid.

They do have a Trending page as well, but I don't know how that's calculated. It's very random, has nothing in common with YT's Trending page, and I don't use it.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#192

Post by kadendogthing »

Zenst wrote: post #67
nafey wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would actually be glad if some of the more extreme and irresponsible opinions are deplatformed. It cant be argued that Youtube is expected to platform all range of opinions. There is however a strong likelihood of this being exploited by Youtube for its own purposes.

Deplatforming, blocking, label and dismissing as forms of dealing with `extremes`, is not only a bad solution, but only fuels those extremes - driving them into their own confirmation bubbles and onto more dangerous forms of outletting their opinions. What needs to happen is solid debate, constructivly listening and then disseminating and showing what they are wrong about and why, with proof. As for platforms, deplat…

> is not only a bad solution, but only fuels those extremes

Where is the proof for this? This is an often repeated talking point when it comes to "censorship" or what not, but if anything we've seen that not doing anything leads to very predictable, very preventable, bad outcomes. We're just on the shore of unrestricted self-publishing and yet we're seeing the effects that these channels of information have had on our society.

I think this is often a case of people assuming that everyone is a good-faith, rational actor. And that's simply not the case in any sizable society or community.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#193

Post by magissima »

Zenst wrote: post #67
nafey wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would actually be glad if some of the more extreme and irresponsible opinions are deplatformed. It cant be argued that Youtube is expected to platform all range of opinions. There is however a strong likelihood of this being exploited by Youtube for its own purposes.

Deplatforming, blocking, label and dismissing as forms of dealing with `extremes`, is not only a bad solution, but only fuels those extremes - driving them into their own confirmation bubbles and onto more dangerous forms of outletting their opinions. What needs to happen is solid debate, constructivly listening and then disseminating and showing what they are wrong about and why, with proof. As for platforms, deplat…

And yet I've barely heard a peep about Alex Jones since he was deplatformed. It seems to have worked pretty well there.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#194

Post by Hussell »

canada_dry wrote: post #186
legohead wrote: post #27

These companies focusing so much on algorithms, when the best solution is to simply use actual humans. I've done a fair amount of work on trying to detect and deal with spammers, fraudulent activity and such. Nothing beats a human eye. My most successful approach has been to filter out the super obvious stuff, then send the rest to a queue that is kept an eye on by humans. A small staff can easily fight back against…

> best solution is to simply use actual humans Gee, how many humans might it take to review the >400 hours of video uploaded every minute? (source: https://www.tubefilter.com/2015/07/26/youtube-400-hours-cont... )

400 hours/minute is 24,000 minutes of video per minute, or 241,920,000 minutes of video per week. Assuming a human can review 8 hours of video per day, 5 days a week (too high, but not by much), and that YouTube engineers can create an algorithm that automatically marks 95% of video (probably low, 95% correct labelling is easy to get; 99% is usually necessary to outdo humans), then you would need 5,040 humans.

Automatically labelling 97.5% would halve that. If employees can only review 6 hours of video per work-day, then it would increase by a third. Both, you'd need 3,360 humans.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#195

Post by [deleted] »

stcredzero wrote: post #169
marbletiles wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Christchurch shooter had no more right of access to a privately-owned live-streaming platform with an audience in the millions than he had right of access to a broadcast TV network. Saying so (which I suspect is what OP intended) is not "throwing out Free Speech" You can tease apart the right to say something with the right to have it signal-boosted along the way, and if you want to save Free Speech you're going…

no more right of access to a privately-owned live-streaming platform with an audience in the millions than he had right of access to a broadcast TV network If the government now has the right to say, "piece of content X -- not allowed" arbitrarily and with no process and rational standard, then Free Speech is simply broken. An event of that magnitude is now history. A free society should not be rewriting history. Peo…

[deleted]

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#196

Post by hombre_fatal »

seattle_spring wrote: post #164
keiferski wrote: post #19

Frankly, I hope YouTube (and Google in general) dramatically overdo it with the censorship, "curation", and deplatforming of "irresponsible" content, purely so that it forces an independent, non-corporate model to be developed. Having one company be the sole gatekeeper for the overwhelming majority of the web's video content is not a solution.

> Frankly, I hope YouTube (and Google in general) dramatically overdo it with the censorship, "curation", and deplatforming of "irresponsible" content, purely so that it forces an independent, non-corporate model to be developed. Just like people got what they wished for when Voat was spawned from Reddit?

Voat isn't just what you get with no censorship. It's what you get when you're a new alternative to a large incumbent: you are populated almost 100% by people banned by the incumbent. Nobody else has a reason to join your platform. It's a phenomenon that makes it even harder to compete with an incumbent social network.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#197

Post by JohnFen »

commandlinefan wrote: post #175
JohnFen wrote: post #171

Yeah, we'll see how well that goes. I can't help but suspect that YouTube's definition of "quality" and mine are not quite the same.

YouTube's (and Google's) management has been very openly left-leaning, so it's not a stretch to imagine that "quality" as defined by their editors will also be left-leaning or at least not right-leaning... so, yeah.

From my perspective "quality" is unrelated to political bent.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#198

Post by JudgeWapner »

seattle_spring wrote: post #164
keiferski wrote: post #19

Frankly, I hope YouTube (and Google in general) dramatically overdo it with the censorship, "curation", and deplatforming of "irresponsible" content, purely so that it forces an independent, non-corporate model to be developed. Having one company be the sole gatekeeper for the overwhelming majority of the web's video content is not a solution.

> Frankly, I hope YouTube (and Google in general) dramatically overdo it with the censorship, "curation", and deplatforming of "irresponsible" content, purely so that it forces an independent, non-corporate model to be developed. Just like people got what they wished for when Voat was spawned from Reddit?

Actually it acted as a grease trap[1] that had the effect of sanitizing reddit for the rest of us. Maybe not "what they wished for", but a positive effect nonetheless.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grease_trap

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#199

Post by jimmy1 »

marbletiles wrote: post #189
jimmy1 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You conflate regulatory expectation with consumer expectation. Most people don't want to see things they don't like. So they don't tune into channels, (YT or otherwise) that play things they don't like to see. The marke corrects itself over time. Broadcast stations aren't refusing to show that content because of a law, but because they are making a business decision.

I think the problem is exactly the opposite: people are now getting way too much of the content they can’t help but like, and that in way too many cases turns out to be deliberately polarising and extreme content. The marketplace of ideas no more leads to good content choices than the marketplace of food leads to healthy eating.

We give content personalization far too much credit for the modern issue of both social and political polarization, it is much more fundamental. We've had "filter bubbles" since the dawn of civilization -- in fact it's where those concepts come from: tribal thinking / group thinking.

The mistake I see made time and time again is when we believe we are more rational than we really are! It's an evolutionary battle we are fighting, and evolution had a big head start.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#200

Post by BigBlueBanjo »

marbletiles wrote: post #189
jimmy1 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You conflate regulatory expectation with consumer expectation. Most people don't want to see things they don't like. So they don't tune into channels, (YT or otherwise) that play things they don't like to see. The marke corrects itself over time. Broadcast stations aren't refusing to show that content because of a law, but because they are making a business decision.

I think the problem is exactly the opposite: people are now getting way too much of the content they can’t help but like, and that in way too many cases turns out to be deliberately polarising and extreme content. The marketplace of ideas no more leads to good content choices than the marketplace of food leads to healthy eating.

You can argue that when given a choice, many people make the wrong one. However this is better than having the government make the wrong choice for you.
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