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

YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–556 of 556 posts

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#551

Post by eropple »

themacguffinman wrote: post #543
eropple wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way it works is to have these companies hire, and pay for, and care for (see Facebook terminating counseling services, etc. for leaving content-moderation employees) employees to make the decisions to provide a platform that's safe and sane. That's it. That's literally it. That's just...it. You are ultimately correct, in that it will be of relatively higher cost. You are ultimately correct, in the sense that "any…

You speak with such confidence that YouTube is printing enough money to sustain such a massive additional cost but that's unlikely. Don't just take my word for it, the WSJ has reported on this matter [1] because Google doesn't release financial details for YouTube on its own. You've done nothing but rattle off assertions about how YouTube just so profitable and won't shut down, how there's so much money in ad-support…

I didn't say YouTube was "just so profitable." Google is so very profitable and Google won't shut YouTube down because Google derives incredible mindshare value and analytics insight from owning YouTube. YouTube and a similarly not-super-profitable-but-very-useful product--Gmail--get people into the Google ecosystem and facilitate greater understanding and deeper analytics into their userbase in ways that make the things that do make money make more money. To reduce it to a P&L for that single division is bonkers.

And from a brand perspective? To younger people, YouTube is the part of Google that they like. It's not going away if it becomes marginally more expensive to run (and we are talking marginally. Facebook pays $28,800 a head for content moderation, and that's American employees), because all doing so does is open the door for a competitor--and while 2009-me thinks this is crazy to say, I find myself eyeing Microsoft in 2019, though Facebook is also of course a likely contestant--to come take all those eyeballs and all that analytics data.

I promise: it's okay to dare even a megacorporation to blink. We live in a society, they operate under our rules.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#552

Post by themacguffinman »

eropple wrote: post #551
themacguffinman wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You speak with such confidence that YouTube is printing enough money to sustain such a massive additional cost but that's unlikely. Don't just take my word for it, the WSJ has reported on this matter [1] because Google doesn't release financial details for YouTube on its own. You've done nothing but rattle off assertions about how YouTube just so profitable and won't shut down, how there's so much money in ad-support…

I didn't say YouTube was "just so profitable." Google is so very profitable and Google won't shut YouTube down because Google derives incredible mindshare value and analytics insight from owning YouTube. YouTube and a similarly not-super-profitable-but-very-useful product--Gmail--get people into the Google ecosystem and facilitate greater understanding and deeper analytics into their userbase in ways that make the th…

Google doesn't need YouTube to exist in its current form to have a large viewership. It can just as easily turn YouTube into a controlled TV-like platform where content is primarily created by incumbent professionals with little room for anything else. They'll still get incredible viewership. That's where the mainstream lives after all. Smaller content creators aren't particularly profitable or popular, so why bother if all they do is invite the press and people like you to slap them around for having them. I'd say it's already going in that direction.

And from a brand perspective? The linked article in this thread is a global, mainstream news publication burning Google & YouTube's brand by associating them with pedophiles.

Marginally more expensive? Try hundreds of millions a year to employ the thousands of workers to properly vet the 80k+ hours of video content uploaded every single day, with countless more comments. Then get slapped around by the press anyway because those workers aren't paid enough, and they aren't given quite enough mental care because they're still a bit screwed up after watching garbage 8 hours a day, and by the way they shouldn't be watching garbage 8 hours a day because that's awful for a human being to do that, they should do it at a nice 8 hours/week but they should still get paid a lot more because they're doing god's work and market rate wages aren't enough for them.

So what's your plan? Google realizes that hey, they don't need to operate a free global platform for content creators of all sizes at a P&L loss, they can do what everyone else does and make a lot of money, get a lot of mainstream viewership, avoid PR blows like this one...then you get to proclaim victory because youtube.com still exists?

Oh right, if Google stops operating a free global platform for content creators everywhere at a loss, someone else will do it. Like Facebook, which suffers from the exact same issues, is working towards the same AI approach as YouTube, and got slapped by the press after hiring human moderators anyway? Like Amazon, which acquired Twitch and almost immediately applied an AI-based automatic content moderator even more inaccurate and punishing than YouTube's? Like Microsoft, which...uhh what? I'll let you come up with reasons why Microsoft is somehow an appropriate competitor.

I can only describe your comments as wishful thinking. We live in a capitalist democracy, we operate under its rules. You're free to suggest that we as a society choose a different system, but good luck with that. Until that changes, I promise: megacorporations don't blink, they just look away. I think it would be a tremendous loss if one of the most competent members of our society looked away from the project of a free, global video platform for content creators of all sizes, stripes, and beliefs.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#553

Post by eropple »

themacguffinman wrote: post #552
eropple wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say YouTube was "just so profitable." Google is so very profitable and Google won't shut YouTube down because Google derives incredible mindshare value and analytics insight from owning YouTube. YouTube and a similarly not-super-profitable-but-very-useful product--Gmail--get people into the Google ecosystem and facilitate greater understanding and deeper analytics into their userbase in ways that make the th…

Google doesn't need YouTube to exist in its current form to have a large viewership. It can just as easily turn YouTube into a controlled TV-like platform where content is primarily created by incumbent professionals with little room for anything else. They'll still get incredible viewership. That's where the mainstream lives after all. Smaller content creators aren't particularly profitable or popular, so why bother…

Cool. And when that algorithm decides that that thing you don't like is banned beyond appeal, what will you do?

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#554

Post by themacguffinman »

eropple wrote: post #553
themacguffinman wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google doesn't need YouTube to exist in its current form to have a large viewership. It can just as easily turn YouTube into a controlled TV-like platform where content is primarily created by incumbent professionals with little room for anything else. They'll still get incredible viewership. That's where the mainstream lives after all. Smaller content creators aren't particularly profitable or popular, so why bother…

Cool. And when that algorithm decides that that thing you don't like is banned beyond appeal , what will you do?

I would argue against banning those things, even if it's a thing I don't like, like I am now. I argue against the cultural idea that if I don't like it, YouTube needs to get rid of it. If you think something is so bad that it shouldn't be on YouTube, you should go through society's democratic process and get it enshrined into law.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#555

Post by aehtyb »

janitor61 wrote: post #308
zaroth wrote: post #12

The fact that Google is ceding the fight against toxic comments on YouTube is actually pretty shocking. In a company that knows more about you than you can possibly imagine, and more about automated sentiment analysis than anyone in the world, they couldn’t algorithmically determine who should be allowed to post on certain subsets of videos, or devise a system they thought was worth deploying to ensure comments meet…

Google is really a former shell of itself... hell, search doesn't even function correctly for me in Gmail of all things. Google's hands-off algorithmic approach to moderation and support has repeatedly been shown to fail and be easily exploited by nefarious actors. I'd like to see them hire some actual people for once, I think they have the budget for it.

are you by any chance pineapple clock

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#556

Post by odessacubbage »

dbdjfjrjvebd wrote: post #550
odessacubbage wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN has many great qualities, but some of the most important conversations we need to have are too emotional and inherently divisive to be connected to any kind of social currency system. there are times when identity itself is simply too much of a barrier.

I've read this a few times and I don't quite follow what you mean...

the heavily moderated upvote/downvote system of prioritizing content is great when dealing with technical topics that aren't too emotional and don't challenge cultural established norms too heavily. however there are many aspects of life that are too messy, too heated & too shameful to be effectively dealt with in this format. these tend to turn into shadow topics that are better out of sight & out of mind, only discussed behind closed doors where the risk of vulnerability is limited and even then they still carry potential repercussions. in 'real name only' networks there are far too many risks to ever be a real person at all so we cultivate a brand that is the best & most superficial version of ourselves. we hide our pain, our doubts, our regrets. this extends to pseudonymous networks as well and anywhere that a cumulative identity is present. very few people want to be recognized as assholes and no one wants to be a pariah, a victim or a failure even if they really are. in a sense the only time you're really talking to anyone is when you've both stripped your personhood away and have nothing to lose.
Post reply on HN