Tracking YouTube's manipulation of dislikes on the White House's channel

#1

Post by hntroll666 » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 5:04 AM UTC

Tracking YouTube's manipulation of dislikes on the White House's channel
81m.org

Re: Tracking YouTube's manipulation of dislikes on the White House's channel

#2

Post by emayljames » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 5:22 AM UTC

A definite case of the pot (US), calling the kettle (China) black.

Re: Tracking YouTube's manipulation of dislikes on the White House's channel

#3

Post by new_guy » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 5:40 AM UTC

If they are manipulating the data, they're not stupid enough to make it this obvious.

Re: Tracking YouTube's manipulation of dislikes on the White House's channel

#4

Post by aww_dang » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 5:45 AM UTC

Looking forward to an official response from YouTube.

Re: Tracking YouTube's manipulation of dislikes on the White House's channel

#5

Post by aww_dang » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:01 AM UTC

new_guy wrote: post #3

If they are manipulating the data, they're not stupid enough to make it this obvious.

Isn't that implying a more convoluted conspiracy?

Of course they could implement shadow-dislikes to prevent the dislikes from tabulating, but that requires more steps being taken.

Consider the ratio of views to likes/dislikes. Compare that ratio to other videos. It seems about par for the course. Also note that these videos have comments disabled.

Re: Tracking YouTube's manipulation of dislikes on the White House's channel

#6

Post by _fhnu » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:57 AM UTC

In the absence of actually knowing how youtube tabulates likes/dislikes, this website just substitutes a guess and calls it the "real" number. Surely there could be no other reason why these numbers might change other than a conspiracy involving the deep state colluding with the communist youtubistas over at Google.

Seriously though, who gives a fuck about youtube downvotes? This kind of psychotic obsession over internet noise isn't healthy, and if you are spending a lot of time on this kind of stuff you should seek help.

Re: Tracking YouTube's manipulation of dislikes on the White House's channel

#7

Post by hntroll666 » Mon, Apr 26, 2021, 1:56 AM UTC

new_guy wrote: post #3

If they are manipulating the data, they're not stupid enough to make it this obvious.

The first analysis was done by Zoe of phzoe.com, then apparently completely independently reproduced and confirmed by another researcher. YouTube has openly floated the idea of not displaying dislikes, something that has been previously discussed on HN. So it seems like they are manipulating the data, and that it is this obvious, and that they're taking steps to make it less obvious now.

Re: Tracking YouTube's manipulation of dislikes on the White House's channel

#8

Post by hntroll666 » Mon, Apr 26, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

_fhnu wrote: post #6

In the absence of actually knowing how youtube tabulates likes/dislikes, this website just substitutes a guess and calls it the "real" number. Surely there could be no other reason why these numbers might change other than a conspiracy involving the deep state colluding with the communist youtubistas over at Google. Seriously though, who gives a fuck about youtube downvotes? This kind of psychotic obsession over inte…

This site is not "substituting a guess". It is using an official API to get likes and dislikes at regular intervals. If YouTube has some wonderful reason for suddenly deleting hundreds or thousands of dislike clicked in by authenticated users, they should say what it is. Otherwise it looks like an attempt to deceive people. YouTube is displaying misleading lies; this site is displaying something much closer to the truth.