YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#211

Post by mdorazio » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 8:31 PM UTC

Hussell wrote: post #194

canada_dry wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Automa…

And multiple that by let's say 50K/year fully burdened cost per employee (assuming locating them in low-cost areas) and we've now added a minimum of $125 million per year in overhead for a service that already probably doesn't make much money.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#212

Post by JudgeWapner » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 8:32 PM UTC

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... )

why are you falsely assuming it all needs to be reviewed? it only needs to be reviewed if it's flagged. each additional flag on the same vid should double the likelihood that the material is objectionable. The question is how much video is actually flagged, and what percentage of those reports are false? Even that's an easy problem to solve, because if the same accounts keep flagging clearly-not-objectionable content they can just be muted.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#213

Post by fzeroracer » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 8:34 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #205

marbletiles wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

(EDIT: 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. In the long run, that works out like the children's story where the young girl gets to decide she'll eat nothing, ever, but peanut butter and jelly. If it's stupid nonsense, then most people eventual…

Contributing all of that to the 'marketplace of ideas' is ultimately a fallacious remark. It cannot be proven or disproven because it casts a net so wide that it reaches absurdity.

It's placing two points far apart in history and trying to point at one thing as being responsible for all of it.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#214

Post by sbov » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 8:35 PM UTC

ABCLAW wrote: post #184

stcredzero wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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. The key part of this is the word arbitrary. You can't take 'anything down for no reason', but you certainly can take things down. Even the most robust version of free speech protections have carve outs. The government can prevent you from branding y…

> they can censure you for shouting fire in a crowded theater

Or lock you up you for spreading anti-war rhetoric, which is what the actual case this quote came from was about.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#215

Post by eropple » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 8:35 PM UTC

zwkrt wrote: post #103

eropple wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK you can do that? Hit the menu on a video recommendation, "Not Interested" -> "Tell Us Why" -> "I'm not interested in this channel". IMO, though, blacklisting has been mostly proven to be insufficient. If you block, say, noted chud Sargon of Akkad, that doesn't mean that another half-dozen "Rationalist" "Thinkers" Who Just Happen To Be Chuds won't be recommended to you as well.

If you are getting suggested these things it's because people with similar viewing habits as you watched them. I get suggested riposte videos to such content without ever seeing the original "bad" video. I'm assuming this is based on my own habits on the site. I would prefer getting neither, but here we are. To claim that blacklisting would be ineffective because there is always more trash is disingenuous. If everyon…

It's well-documented at this point that YouTube's recommendation algorithms enjoy feeding fascist chuddery to people who like things like video games or history, yeah. But I didn't say you shouldn't do it. I do it, because one fewer garbage channel is one more chance for something less garbage. But it certainly seems like it's bailing against the tide.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#216

Post by mdorazio » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 8:36 PM UTC

jvagner wrote: post #62

skilled wrote: post #51

The Trending page has been listing the same people over and over and over again for the last 3 years. It's shameful, pathetic, and makes the platform feel extremely biased. Seriously though. This is unacceptable and overly controlled. Not to mention that those people over the last 3 years post borderline brainwash content without any connection to a real audience. It's pretty sad to see YouTube turn into something li…

The Trending page makes me feel really old, and pretty "get off my lawn" w/r/t what's popular, or being promoted, right now. A lot of the channels I've followed have gone fallow. No new content. That said, I think the arguments around this topic are pretty disingenuous. 1) There's nasty content being uploaded to Youtube -- YouTube isn't making the nasty content. 2) YouTube promotes some content, people are pissed - i…

> b) creators who want to make money.

The only platform I've seen so far for this one to compete with YT outside of porn is Patreon, and the videos that get monetized there without also being posted and/or monetized on YT tend to be... less than wholesome in a lot of cases.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#217

Post by Balgair » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 8:41 PM UTC

skilled wrote: post #51

The Trending page has been listing the same people over and over and over again for the last 3 years. It's shameful, pathetic, and makes the platform feel extremely biased. Seriously though. This is unacceptable and overly controlled. Not to mention that those people over the last 3 years post borderline brainwash content without any connection to a real audience. It's pretty sad to see YouTube turn into something li…

Seriously!

Sorry to de-rail the conversation here, but I feel this exact same way.

How many freaking videos can one person produce about doing their make-up?!

And GMM, my lord, they've eaten every animal's boiled genitals by now, 5 times over.

It's all the same Swedish produced, quick-cut, psuedo-rap music videos, some-guy-with-a-bucket-on-his-head's latest attempts to grasp at 2009's dubstep, or yet another KPop group that comes in with the afternoon's breeze.

Oh look, another movie trailer! It's the 'exclusive' 7th trailer for Marvel's 'Doctor Bong 3: The Mellower'

Harhar, here's yesterday's clips of Late-Nite 'celebrity' interviews via old SNL stars that are 'functional' now.

And the 'Youtube Face' that's on every single freakin' thumbnail. Oh look! Human face making an emotion! Better click!

Gah!

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#218

Post by lancewiggs » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 8:51 PM UTC

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…

This risks making about as much sense as “free guns” or “free nuclear weapons”. While we are tolerant about free speech in New Zealand, and indeed we have amazing access to our politicians, even to the point where the dildo-throwing protestors who targeted the 3rd most powerful politician here was let go immediately.

We are, however, rightly intolerant of hate speech, especially speech against a segment of the population. (We do have our share of racist fools, and our media let their own standards slide too far.) Almost every country has laws on the books like this, including the USA.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#219

Post by nemothekid » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 8:51 PM UTC

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.

>Having one company be the sole gatekeeper for the overwhelming majority of the web's video content is not a solution.

I struggle with this line of thinking because it's not specific enough. YouTube doesn't act as a gatekeeper for most video content. You can upload almost anything you want as long as its not grotesque or copyrighted. What most people mean when they say YouTube acts as a gatekeeper is "will YouTube pay me for the content I upload". And the problem with that is the advertisers, not YouTube - a handful of large advertisers decided they didn't like a lot of the content on YouTube and refused to pay for it. The beef is with the advertisers, not YouTube.

I do have a problem with the videos YouTube decides to promote and surface, but when it becomes to the topic and censorship and deplatforming, the argument almost always boils down to "Proctor and Gamble need to pay me to upload content whether they want to or not", which I find asinine. YouTube is obligated to provide you with a sales team.

Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content

#220

Post by anonymousab » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 8:52 PM UTC

Hussell wrote: post #194

canada_dry wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Automa…

>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)

I think a crucial question is whether the numbers quoted are before or after the current set of automated filtering (content id and any existing mechanisms to catch bad, illegal or offensive content.)

They may already be catching the vast majority of easy and fingerprintable things. They may be at the barrier where false positives increase at a high rate.