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YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

bbc.co.uk

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Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#71

Post by rtkwe »

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…

Note this is ONLY for videos featuring minors not general videos. Really big difference I think and doesn't mean they're giving up on all comments. Really is seems like an harder problem than general toxic videos. From the reporting it seemed like the whole thing was just comments linking to other videos (not sure anywhere had examples) which is perfectly innocent and the line between that and being part of this pedo comment ring is a matter of exactly where in the video the link leads.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#73

Post by jerf »

_skel wrote: post #11

Social media scandals like this one are a reminder that there are larger numbers of closet pedophiles, racists, Nazi sympathizers, and conspiracy theorists in our societies than many people realized. Social media gives them a means to discover each other and collaborate, but they were always there. I agree with Youtube’s move here, but the root cause of the problem is that our societies are worse than we thought they…

"Social media scandals like this one are a reminder that there are larger numbers of closet pedophiles, racists, Nazi sympathizers, and conspiracy theorists in our societies than many people realized."

No, they really don't. Unless you thought there were zero or something. You have no evidence that would allow you to place a number on those categories just from reading these stories, other than a lower bound somewhere in the dozens. (It really doesn't take many bad actors to make stories like this.)

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#74

Post by goshx »

dragonwriter wrote: post #27
goshx wrote: post #16

To ban comments is an important step IMHO, but how about putting the people making the comments behind bars? They will keep watching these videos.

> Ban comments is an important step IMHO, but how about putting the people making the comments behind bars? That's...out of YouTube’s legal authority. > They will keep watching these videos. Watching the videos itself is neither illegal nor harmful to anyone, even if it may correlates with conduct that is either or both.

Sadly, you are probably right.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#75

Post by MBCook »

golemotron wrote: post #5
minimaxir wrote: post #2

Official statement: https://youtube-creators.googleblog.com/2019/02/more-updates... It's not "all". > A small number of creators will be able to keep comments enabled on these types of videos. These channels will be required to actively moderate their comments, beyond just using our moderation tools, and demonstrate a low risk of predatory behavior. We will work with them directly and our goal is to grow this number…

YouTube steadily moves toward the TV station model.

Honestly is it so bad if most videos end up turning off comments in the future?

I use a blocker to hide comments and don’t seem to miss much. Let people discuss videos on other sites like twitter or reddit.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#76

Post by tclancy »

saagarjha wrote: post #3

> YouTube told the BBC it would use algorithms to detect which videos contained children. I guess we will have to see how well this works out. I can foresee someone's legitimate video having its comments suddenly removed causing uproar…

Nah, it's not like corporations weaponized DMCA or anything the last time YouTube went through one of these uproars.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#77

Post by kzrdude »

ceejayoz wrote: post #15
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…

I can't think of having ever seen a comment on YouTube that made the commenting feature seem worthwhile.

Most channels that I find worthy of subscription have decent comments. Informed or funny or intelligent and also with decency.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#78

Post by krapp »

squirrelicus wrote: post #56
Phenix88be wrote: post #49

I don't know how to feel about this. The concept of "commenting on web page" is old, but with so much people connected to internet, do we really need a comment section on all pages ? From my point of view, comments are most of the time irrelevant, especially on Youtube. HN would be the exception. Comments involves a lots of energy to moderate for no value most of the time. I know it's nice to have feedback when you c…

My thoughts were along the same lines. Why exactly are comments allowed on YouTube at all? Literally all humans are aware that YouTube comments are a cesspool.

Comments, on most sites, are a Skinner box to keep users around and engaged in order to improve channel and ad visbility.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#79

Post by derefr »

notJim wrote: post #60
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…

I think it's actually a pretty hard problem. > ensure comments meet a basic level of decency Decency is famously difficult to define [0]. One person's idea of decency is another's idea of "free and open debate", is another's idea of alternative culture, etc. And the truly bad actors are using throwaway accounts anyway, or will start as soon as you start banning them. I think active moderation and community curation i…

> And the truly bad actors are using throwaway accounts anyway

Have you tried to make a throwaway Google account lately? It's kind of useless to do so. Not so much in the sign-up, but due to the fact that accounts with no history and no clear ties to a physical identity have nothing "vouching" for them, so constantly trip the "Are you a robot?" checks. (And, I imagine, {email, comments, Google Docs shares, etc.} from such accounts also are invisibly thresholded lower on any spam filters they are run through. This is why people write viruses to take over people's existing Google accounts—accounts without "reputation" are kind of worthless for doing anything public-visible.)

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#80

Post by MBCook »

Phenix88be wrote: post #49

I don't know how to feel about this. The concept of "commenting on web page" is old, but with so much people connected to internet, do we really need a comment section on all pages ? From my point of view, comments are most of the time irrelevant, especially on Youtube. HN would be the exception. Comments involves a lots of energy to moderate for no value most of the time. I know it's nice to have feedback when you c…

You can get your feedback on Twitter, or your subreddit, or your website.

Is it so critical that it’s directly on YouTube? Maybe that extra friction will improve the comments measurably.

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