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Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?

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Re: Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?

#21
post #6

Many will disagree, but this is the result of holding the plataforms accountable for what the users upload. The traffic is so inmense that they have to resort to shitty algorithms. Because given Google's (any big tech company really) lack of morals, I don't believe they'd care to censor anything at all.

This is very true and the main point people brought against the EU's article 17(the "upload filter") mandating a scan of all user-generated content for copyrighted material that was put in place by oh so many very well paid(and not just by the EU), conservative MEPs that have no clue about technology. Countries are struggling hard to put this into local law right now since it has to be by July this year - and as it t…

> it's basically impossible to do so.

Well, not true. I built whole company that does exactly this. It's disappointing that YouTube is used as the standard of what technology can do and how these systems can work.

We built system with the creator as a first class citizen. This means they are able to claim exceptions (as defined by law) before any action is taken. They are also able to utilize outside arbiters (WIPO, ...) free of charge to make independent decisions when there is an issue.

This are just few highlights. But the reality is that just because YouTube built shitty system doesn't mean the whole Internet has to copy it.

Re: Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?

#23
post #12

Bizarre. Anyway, I did a quick check of their website, and they have a really interesting list of "censored" stories: https://www.projectcensored.org/category/the-top-25-censored... (I've not seen any of the usual right wing free speech faction stand up for these...)

"The top "Censored" news stories are identified through the Campus Affiliates Program, a collaborative effort between faculty and students at many colleges and universities."

Since college faculty often skews 10:1 or better democrat, I don't find that too surprising.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Censored

Re: Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?

#24
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true and the main point people brought against the EU's article 17(the "upload filter") mandating a scan of all user-generated content for copyrighted material that was put in place by oh so many very well paid(and not just by the EU), conservative MEPs that have no clue about technology. Countries are struggling hard to put this into local law right now since it has to be by July this year - and as it t…

Retroactive Laws, at odds with reality, put into legislation by MEPs who are mostly even less able then their domestic parliament's party-colleagues and whose "consituency" usually doesn't even know who they are – Another example of the inherent flaws of the European Union. Guess VPN-Serversi within the evil Brexit Kingdom are going to be in high demand.

I'm very concerned for e.g. YouTube and the vast amount of content already on there, since they will most likely apply the more aggressive filtering worldwide - maybe solutions like Peertube instances that are clearly labeled "not for EU citizens" will become a thing if it really pans out the way it looks to be at the moment.

Re: Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?

#25

Many will disagree, but this is the result of holding the plataforms accountable for what the users upload. The traffic is so inmense that they have to resort to shitty algorithms. Because given Google's (any big tech company really) lack of morals, I don't believe they'd care to censor anything at all.

My pet theory is that both Google and Facebook need to create training set data for their proprietary AI content moderation algos.

The content moderation algorithm is optimizing for three variables simultaneously - maximum number of videos hosted, maximum number of views, minimum number of lawsuits/negative press articles written/anti-Big Tech tweets.

The algorithm can't know if its truly maximizing the first two without letting the last one trigger every so often.

We are just witnessing/participating in the live dataset they are testing on.

Re: Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?

#26
post #11

We use it basically as a public platform but it's really a private one that has deep conflicts of interest. To me this shows the need for public platforms with open systems for distribution and moderation. Some possible approaches are out there. I hope people will support them. And if they find content they don't like, study the history of political dissent and political speech, and learn about ways of improving open…

if you open up moderation then you'll get Tyranny of the Majority[1]. But in the internet age it would actually be tyranny-of-the-people-with-a-chip-on-their-shoulder-and-time-to-burn.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

Re: Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?

#27
post #6

Many will disagree, but this is the result of holding the plataforms accountable for what the users upload. The traffic is so inmense that they have to resort to shitty algorithms. Because given Google's (any big tech company really) lack of morals, I don't believe they'd care to censor anything at all.

This is very true and the main point people brought against the EU's article 17(the "upload filter") mandating a scan of all user-generated content for copyrighted material that was put in place by oh so many very well paid(and not just by the EU), conservative MEPs that have no clue about technology. Countries are struggling hard to put this into local law right now since it has to be by July this year - and as it t…

For those who want to keep tabs on the topic: Julia Reda, German EU MEP, is quite a critic reference on this topic – a good blog to follow. https://juliareda.eu/eu-copyright-reform/censorship-machines...

Re: Academic media censorship conference censored by YouTube?

#30
post #21
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true and the main point people brought against the EU's article 17(the "upload filter") mandating a scan of all user-generated content for copyrighted material that was put in place by oh so many very well paid(and not just by the EU), conservative MEPs that have no clue about technology. Countries are struggling hard to put this into local law right now since it has to be by July this year - and as it t…

> it's basically impossible to do so. Well, not true. I built whole company that does exactly this. It's disappointing that YouTube is used as the standard of what technology can do and how these systems can work. We built system with the creator as a first class citizen. This means they are able to claim exceptions (as defined by law) before any action is taken. They are also able to utilize outside arbiters (WIPO,…

It's nice that there's ways to make this friendlier for creators, but wouldn't most bigger services rather block and build a cheap system in-house than rely on a SaaS/b2b product, if you don't give it away for free or price very competitively? Are they actually open to implement better systems? Hope it's alright to ask this, it's obviously a very important thing that will be coming up for all of us in the future.

Good luck with your work!

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