YouTube Struggles To Fight Mobs Weaponizing Their 'Dislike' Button (theverge.com) 317
"YouTube is no stranger to viewers weaponizing the dislike button, as seen by the company's recent Rewind video, but the product development team is working on a way to tackle the issue," writes the Verge.
Suren Enfiajyan shares their report on a new video by Tom Leung, YouTube's director of project management. "Dislike mobs" are the YouTube equivalent to review bombings on Steam -- a group of people who are upset with a certain creator or game decide to execute an organized attack and downvote or negatively review a game or video into oblivion. It's an issue on YouTube as well, and one that creators have spoken out against many times in the past.... Now, the company is planning to experiment with new ways to make it more difficult for organized attacks to be executed. Leung states that these are just "lightly being discussed" right now, and if none of the options are the correct approach, they may hold off until a better idea comes along.
Ironically, Leung's video itself drew 2,654 "dislike" votes -- nearly double its 1,377 upvotes.
Suren Enfiajyan shares their report on a new video by Tom Leung, YouTube's director of project management. "Dislike mobs" are the YouTube equivalent to review bombings on Steam -- a group of people who are upset with a certain creator or game decide to execute an organized attack and downvote or negatively review a game or video into oblivion. It's an issue on YouTube as well, and one that creators have spoken out against many times in the past.... Now, the company is planning to experiment with new ways to make it more difficult for organized attacks to be executed. Leung states that these are just "lightly being discussed" right now, and if none of the options are the correct approach, they may hold off until a better idea comes along.
Ironically, Leung's video itself drew 2,654 "dislike" votes -- nearly double its 1,377 upvotes.
What about the other way (Score:5, Interesting)
What about mobs weaponizing the like button to generate fake data?
Notice how Facebook and you tube never talk about fake impressions when it appears positive?
Re:What about the other way (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a clear connection to 1984 here.
You aren't allowed to be negative. That godawful corporate dross video isn't crap... it's ++ungood.
Doesn't work the other way (Score:5, Interesting)
If you generate fake likes to try to get more people to view the video, that drives the percentage likes up. If that succeeds in getting the video more organic views (by people not affliated with your fake campaign) but those people don't like it, it drives the percentage likes back down. And your video drops back down into obscurity (unless you've got one helluva fake like-generating network). And your campaign to artificially increase how often the video is viewed is unsuccessful (after an initial brief success, how brief depends on the size of your fake campaign).
OTOH, if you generate fake dislikes and try to use the likes vs dislikes ratio to determine which videos are worth watching, then the fake dislikes crater the ratio, and bury the video into obscurity. The video gets fewer organic views (instead of more as with positive-like bombing), making it less able to recover from the fake reviews. And your campaign to bury the video into obscurity is successful.
In other words, a fake like campaign makes it easier for organic viewers to counter the campaign. A fake dislike campaign makes it harder for organic viewers to counter the campaign.
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I guess if you don't comprehend what the word "weapon" means, then that would make some sense.
But it would still be fucking stupid.
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The do delete fake likes, which leads to all kinds of conspiracy theories about them trying to stop certain videos becoming popular.
This is a different problem though. It's not a like farm with hundreds of phones, it's not a spammer with a script. It's a 4chan or Reddit post organising people to go click the dislike button for political reasons.
Re: What about the other way (Score:5, Insightful)
>"It's not a difficult concept to get where freedom of expression rights begin and end - your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."
Speech [and video] doesn't swing fists at your nose. That is not a valid comparison. A better one is "Sticks and Stones..."
You can't have freedom of speech AND "hate speech" laws/rules. Pick one or the other (I am firmly for the former).
Re:Sorry Mark Davis, that's 100% uneducated horses (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, you can have freedom of speech and hate speech laws, because all rights are limited against each other. Where speech is proven to be a contributing factor in violence with that intent, it's illegal. Your false dichotomy doesn't apply.
The problem here isn't the banning of people trying to start violence. The problem is the banning of people who just have differing opinions than those of the social media corporations. For instance Prager University has had more than 30 videos pulled for so called "hate speech". They were nothing of the sort, but wrongly labeled as such. The true problem is that the definition of hate speech is so nebulous that it becomes impossible to actually define it. Best to let free speech be the default, and provide a better argument for that which you don't agree with.
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...which is exactly how the NPCs want it, as they can wield that cudgel against their enemies--or not wield it against their allies--as they see fit, because some animals are more equal than others.
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I was responding in context to a post about so-called hate speech videos on YouTube and his comparing that to "swinging a fist in my face". Those are obviously not comparable.
You are correct about inciting of violence against individuals, but that goes beyond "hate speech". Stating your opinions on something or supporting certain legislation is not inciting violence... yet the "left" would often label those as "hate speech".
So in that regard, I am correct. You can't have "hate speech" banned and still ha
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>"No you aren't."
Um, yes I am.
Re: What about the other way (Score:2)
It was a bit more complex than that which if you actually bothered to look into it you'd know
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Well, sarcasm can be more affecting, and not detected as hate speech, so suck on that.
But look how many people throw out so much hate against Trump, but its ok with that.
Yeah... its subtle hatred, demeaning, or belittling.
Look at Islam, they hate lots of things too.
Re: What about the other way (Score:4, Insightful)
"hate speech" = anything a Corporate Progressive nazi asshole disagrees with.
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Hate speech is completely legal. You bought far left propaganda.
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Of course it is. Stalin showed us quite well how intersectional style "no hate speech" rule set works and what it does to people and the nation. Russia before 1917 was one of the most democratic states in Europe, well on course to become a genuinely good place to live, a rapid progress from one of the worst places to live in in middle 1800s. Then far left got in power, instituted very specific rule sets which corrupted the people and the nation to end up with what was the single most horrifying genocidal ev
Re: What about the other way (Score:2)
Christ you're a moron
Re: What about the other way (Score:3)
Hate speech is not illegal in the USA, and there is certainly no law that forces people taking down that content.
Hate speech is a European thing, because unfortunately we didn't manage to have freedom of speech there. The one thing the USA did better.
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The world which YouTube publishers choose to publish their videos to. That implies a consent to the laws.
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Where Facebook is headquartered is irrelevant (and not just because this thread is about YouTube and not Facebook). The publishers of the videos accept the jurisdiction of the countries they choose to publish to. If they want to not publish across borders, they can mark their videos as not to be available elsewhere. If they don't, they accept that they have to follow the laws, and Youtube has an obligation to take them down if they are illegal.
Re: What about the other way (Score:2)
Or, you know, they could stand up for freedom of speech and core American values.
If some repressive shithole wants to ban anything offensive to their small minded sensibilities; or if some Euro-peon Corporate Progressive nazis want to ban political speech - then they'll just have to block the whole service. Let's make them do their own clumsy repression, instead of doing it for them.
Re: What about the other way (Score:2)
Piss off homophobe
fake followers (Score:2)
I doubt that many "famous" Youtubers actually have very many followers at all. Rather, Alphabet/Youtube pretends they have millions of followers as an excuse to give them front page billing.
The purpose is to force feed their audience a steaming crock of brain-rotting antisocial pro-evil schlock. Remember, YouTube is now run by a bunch of scoundrels who formerly worked in the TV industry.
When considering the actions of an overtly evil company like Alphabet, it's always safe to assume malice and deceit.
Hmm, how odd! (Score:2)
Gee, the "creators" don't like the "dislike" button? But they are A-OK with the "like" button? That's stunning, who would have guessed?
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If you are getting vote bombed, then this can be attributed to the measurement system working as designed. Moving to a star rating wont save your content, either.
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This is all about Gillette (Score:2, Interesting)
and the 10-to-1 ratio of dislikes that their incredibly offensive new advertisement generated.
I would love to know how many downvotes and negative comments were deleted by Gillette.
Would rather see YouTube end the sort of cheating that Gillette embraces.
Re:This is all about Gillette (Score:4, Interesting)
It was a good commercial, if a bit late to the game.
No it wasn't.
1. "Masculinity" is not the problem. It is lack of masculinity. Boys raised in female headed households, without a strong male role model, are more likely to grow up to be violent and abusive toward women.
2. "Online bullying" is attributed to "toxic masculinity", but is actually almost entirely a female-on-female phenomena.
3. In the commercial, nearly all the "bad" males are white. Nearly all the "good" males are black. Why does race need to used so prominently?
4. A "bad/white" man steps toward a woman, apparently to initiate a conversation. A "good/black" man stops him, because talking to women is toxic. Really?
5. Here's a nice butt photo [flickr.com] of some "pit babes" in another Gillette commercial, shamelessly exploiting women's bodies to sell razor blades. They aren't preaching from the moral high ground.
Toxic Masculinty (Score:2, Offtopic)
The far left love to divide people into classes of victims, except for white men, who make up oppressing patriarchy.
That’s why the ad was so terrible. I didn’t see it aimed at individuals, but at all white men.
Unfortunately, these lefty nut jobs occupy the entire humanities departments, which spills into the education departments. The effect of this is having primary school children, who used to at least get some Sunday school, now being told they are gender fluid snowflakes that to feel out the
Re: Toxic Masculinty (Score:2)
Nah. Traditional religions - all of them! - have demonstrated themselves evolutionarily fit. By the simple (but very difficult to achieve) fact of surviving for several hundred or more years.
Corporate Progressivism, on the other hand, is a death cult. It's unlikely to survive a generation, much less a millennium.
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1. "Masculinity" is not the problem. It is lack of masculinity. Boys raised in female headed households, without a strong male role model, are more likely to grow up to be violent and abusive toward women.
This is incorrect. The strongest correlation for violent abusers is that they themselves were violently abused.
2. "Online bullying" is attributed to "toxic masculinity", but is actually almost entirely a female-on-female phenomena.
While not "almost entirely", it does indeed to be overrepresented.
My guess as to why is that women have a biological drive towards establishing a pecking order, and establishing a pecking order tends to involve pecking.
Re:This is all about Gillette (Score:4, Insightful)
80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes –14 times the average. (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26)
Vast majority of serial murderers are also created by single mothers abusing their kids.
https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
Funny how that is rarely mentioned in those PSAs.
Re: This is all about Gillette (Score:2)
The goal here is to render the mass of people supine and obedient. It has nothing whatsoever to do with protecting the weak and the innocent.
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>"They aren't preaching from the moral high ground."
Indeed not. But the real issue is that they shouldn't be preaching AT ALL. This whole political/social justice thing with companies is ridiculous. I am guessing that most people, like me, want to buy products based on the PRODUCT. How the product works, its price, customer service, reliability, accuracy, features, warranty, etc. I don't want to have to analyze each product to see if the company who made it is in support or not of my personal politi
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I don't want to have to analyze each product to see if the company who made it is in support or not of my personal political stances,
The end point of this is why DeBeers continues to exist. I mean who wants to bother snalyzing a product to see if the company involved supports literal slave labour? I don't care! I just want my shit!
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No it wasn't [a good commercial]...
Here's some interesting reporting. (it's biased of course, coming from Gillette/P&G, but it's the only data I could find).
https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
sales following the ad’s release remain largely unchanged, revealed Jon Moeller, chief financial officer at Procter and Gamble (P&G), which owns Gillette...
a survey of 2,000 American adults conducted by brand intelligence firm Morning Consult found that 61 per cent of viewers reacted positively to Gillette’s ad...
71 per cent said they shared the brand’s values after watching it.
https://morningconsult.com/for... [morningconsult.com]
Before watching the commercial, 42 percent of consumers said they agreed Gillette “shared their values.” After watching, that figure jumped to 71 percent...
Asked to rate how positively they felt about the ad... 61 percent gave it high marks, 23 percent were more neutral and 17 percent gave the commercial low marks. Gillette customers were slightly more likely than the average consumer to have a positive reaction...
Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club customers are more likely to buy Gillette after watching.
Given the background -- that in the previous years Gillette had been badly losing market share to Harry's and Dollar Shave Club, and had been forced to cut prices to stay in the game -- then it seems like this commercial squarely hit the mark for what Gillette wanted to achieve, and without downsides.
It's also very clear that the 10-1 ratio of dislikes to likes on youtube isn't repre
Re: This is all about Gillette (Score:3, Insightful)
One week after the ad, there was a nation wide 35% discount on all their products. Posters everywhere (EU country).
I have three blades left which I will use quickly and switch.
The ad was one of the most revolting things I've seen....right when my nephew had his nth anxiety/anger/suicidal crisis. 27 yrs old, brought up by tyrannical mother, away from 'toxic masculinity', never left to solve his problems alone....the very thing the ad encouraged. The boy is a wreck. Guess if he turned bitter, confused and agg
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As far as I can tell, based on the angry people who hate the ad here, the people who hated it are raving nutcases hellbent on misinterpreting it to the greatest extent possible.
brought up by tyrannical mother, away from 'toxic masculinity', never left to solve his problems alone....the very thing the ad encouraged.
There was no such thing encouraged in the ad. That's you absolutely 100% making shit up. At NO pint did the ad say that abusive mothers were better than fathers. I think you need to examine your
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We saw how wrong polls can be with the last American presidential election.
Indeed we saw that polls were 2-5% off the actual result: https://projects.fivethirtyeig... [fivethirtyeight.com]
If that's the accuracy you're comparing to, I think you're reinforcing my point!
Re: This is all about Gillette (Score:4, Insightful)
5: isn't "mending your ways" a good thing?
Mending is good if done appropriately.
Appropriate: We were wrong to use wiggling women's butts to market our blades. WE were part of the problem.
Inappropriate: If you have a penis, YOU are the problem. Because we say so.
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Appropriate: We were wrong to use wiggling women's butts to market our blades. WE were part of the problem.
Good job that wasn't exactly how the ad actually started. In your rage-watch you didn't notice that the old gillette fratured as the ver first thing.
Inappropriate: If you have a penis, YOU are the problem. Because we say so.
Good job the ad didn't say that. I mean it was full of examples of men doing the right thing, calling out other men etc etc etc.
What's interesting is that you're so angry about it.
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Trivial to find these things, there are many many more of each all the way from summaries to many cited academic papers.
1:
https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/Psychological-Effects-On-Men-Growing-Up-Without-A-Father
2:
http://www.cybercrimejournal.com/marcumetal2012janijcc.pdf
http://sciencenordic.com/girls-gravitate-toward-online-bullying
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Actually objectively it was a very bad commercial. Sales went down after it aired due to massive boycotts.
Citation needed.
The only report I could find was from P&G who said "sales haven't budged". (of course they're not a disinterested party; but I couldn't find anything else). https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/23... [cnn.com]
In other related sales reports https://www.gq.com/story/gille... [gq.com]
Nike’s revenues leapt after unveiling its campaign starring Colin Kaepernick, Patagonia posted massive sales after directly attacking President Trump
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"Don't be evil" was cancelled a long time ago.
Anyone that participates discredits themselves (Score:3)
If you participate in two or there such rallies then your account becomes flagged as an activist and as such discounted as new accounts under six months old are. It's like throwing your credibility away.
Re: Anyone that participates discredits themselves (Score:3)
Vote against the Narrative - lose your vote!
But .. Rewind truly sucked.... (Score:4, Insightful)
A very bad example of 'weaponizing' the dislike button. YouTube rewind truly sucked the big one. Some of those that participated said as much, although they were careful in their choice of words so they wouldn't bite the hand that feeds them.
And .. I don't care. I have never let the number of dislikes dissuade me from watching something. And since I rarely watch anything in 'trending', I would say the number of likes or views a video gets is also not relevant.
The only ego being bruised is that of the creator.
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I couldn't finish the Rewind video because it was that bad. It seemed justified and that is ignoring the total fact it had nothing to do with actual YouTube stars.
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Gotta agree with that one, sometimes one just has to look at a car crash to see how bad it is.
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Re: But .. Rewind truly sucked.... (Score:2)
I agree about Youtube.
But on RT, I use the negative critics (not the public's) as a recommendation. See Orvile versus Ghostbusters 2016 for an example.
The world has turned upside down.....
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It was doing okay
I found out about it from the BBC who were acknowledging that it's a fucking mess.
Since then I've seen it and written to Gilette to let them know they're sexist shits that don't want my custom.
I mean, fucking berating men for telling women to smile? Shit, I get told to smile all the fucking time by women that are inexplicably pissed off that I'm not walking around with a fake shit grin on my face all the time. Smiling fucking hurts, and my default expression lacks one.
Here's a hint Gilette and women: Give m
The problem is the same as any social media (Score:4, Insightful)
When idiots and people with bad intent are given as loud a voice as people with expertise and good intention, the result is anarchy, schemes like Bitcoin, and unqualified people getting elected to public office. The only ways to combat it are to teach critical thinking skills and start requiring some basic qualifications other than having access to a computer, to gain access to platforms that amplify a person's influence.
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When idiots and people with bad intent are given as loud a voice as people with expertise and good intention
That's kind of the point of democracy though, isn't it? "One man, one vote", remember? Else, deciding who should get the loud voice, and whose voices should be stifled is a straight way to authoritarianism. Over the years, there were lots of people who thought like you (and there still are) - except maybe, replacing "expertise and good intention" with "good breeding", "wealth", "religion", "sex", "race" or others.
, the result is anarchy, schemes like Bitcoin, and unqualified people getting elected to public office.
A very similar argument (BECAUSE it is unwise to risk the good we already have for the evil w
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>"saw an idea being discussed at some point: the ballot would have a couple a questions related to the item being voted"
I haven't seen such a proposal before, but have often wondered about something just like that. If you can't at least perform some EXTREMELY basic relevant function, like perhaps naming the candidates, then what exact valid criteria is being used to choose who to vote for? For example, when I vote, if there is a referendum that I didn't know about and didn't really understand, I simpl
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The solution is to educate people and teach them to think rationally and not out of fear or of anger. It is not easy to do, otherwise we would not have been failing at this for the past decades.
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When idiots and people with bad intent are given as loud a voice as people with expertise and good intention, the result is anarchy,
No; no it fucking isn't: the result is reality. Proof: you're clearly an idiot with a loud enough voice that I'm responding to you right now... and there's no anarchy here, just baseless leaps of idiocy.
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The original comment didn't mention Trump, so really you're the one tying it to him.
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Do you think Trump is unqualified?
The like button gets brigaded as well (Score:3)
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The web was a very different place back then. What worked then may not work now.
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Google rose to prominence by showing the web as it was without fear or favour.
I don't understand whay blinkered rewriting of history can actually put forwards this idea.
Google won because their filtering of the tsunami of shit was much much better than everyone else. They won precisely becuase they were filtering and doing it very carefully and with clever algorithms.
This gave them considerable advantage over then-competitors who hand-indexed
No, proper search engines existed the nlike hotbot, but they were
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Google would consistently return more results than altavista, which I believe was the top search engine before them. So filtering doesn't explain it.
At the time, the reason you could get better results from google isn't because google themselves were pre-filtering the index, but because they offered better search operators so that more advanced users could request a narrower set of results. It wasn't until around `06 or so that they started turning those features off, and replacing them with their own filte
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Google would consistently return more results than altavista, which I believe was the top search engine before them. So filtering doesn't explain it.
That's not how I remember it. I always favoured hotbot myself. The sheer number of results were never the problem, the quantity of porn and other junk mixed in with the results was.
At the time, the reason you could get better results from google isn't because google themselves were pre-filtering the index, but because they offered better search operators so tha
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No, people used google because
1) The other search engines were all trying to steer users to category-based searches so that they could promote listings, and it was hard for users to actually search for what they wanted
2) Google had a simple, clean website without a bunch of noise or cruft.
3) Google only had text ads
4) Advertisers didn't trust the old online ad companies, for real reasons, and google offered transparency and analytics.
5) Google invested more in indexing the internet, when others mostly just
Calling Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
YouTube's problem is that they *still* don't get it. They have no idea why their platform works, treat content creators like numbers, and think PC mumbo-jumbo is actually going to be respected outside left-wing echo chambers and pressure groups.
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The subject matter is so banal that the idea of "universal condemnation" is absurd.
The only reason something that banal could even be the victim of organized groups is that the organized groups had already turned in to crazy mobs that didn't know why they were hating on things in the first place, so didn't notice that the victim was something so boring and unimportant.
What youtube doesn't get is that the threshold to hate things is really low online, and dislike buttons don't have much positive value.
Maybe it just sucks? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not weaponized if the videos actually do suck.
...laura
First you want, then you don't (Score:2)
First you want the opinion of your peers on your content, and when they don't like it, now you don't want their opinion?
Look, it's an all or nothing situation, IMHO. Take both buttons away and never report likes/dislikes on anything ever again, or leave it be.
Not entirely a new problem. (Score:5, Informative)
One of the factors leading to the Digg's decline in popularity was a scandal involving a group known as the "Digg Patriots." Political campaigners* who used a combination of organised disliking and an understanding of the Digg site operation to manipulate it. By monitoring the feed of submissions, they were able to identify any upcoming story which reflected badly on their political stances, or which might be used to support opposing stances - and then message an alert to the group to collectively vote against that submission long before it could reach the front page feed.
If you watch enough youtube videos relating to politics or religion, you will eventually come across stories of the semi-organised mobs on there - when a moderately prominent youtuber with a few thousand subscribers asks them to go and dislike a video by someone else, either because of a disagreement over an issue or over a personal dispute. Some of the mob will take it further and look for excuses to submit inappropriate content alerts too - which, given that youtube is almost entirely automated in that regard, can be very difficult to challenge.
*Their political alignment is not important for this example, only their methods.
It works BOTH way (Score:2)
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Even easier and just as accurate to acknowledge that "Activists exist."
As long as you're harvesting all my personal data (Score:2)
YouTubes Rewind Video Was God Awful (Score:3)
It fell flat not because of weaponized dislike but because it was horrible and tried to push what the people running youtube wanted to be pushed.
But hey they are the gods of the internet, the public will damn well like what they tell them to.
Idea: show only votes from like-minded reviewers (Score:3)
One idea I've had for a while... have software attempt to group users by 'tribe' based upon their own past like/dislike patterns, then show people review scores weighed against their own tribe's voting patterns. So, if militant feminists go out and downvote anything with an actor they dislike, only militant feminists will see the overwhelming hate. Ditto, if dudebros go around upvoting videos feminists tend to hate... the score THEY see will be high. Likewise, for ardent fundamenalists, Greens, libertarians, Bernie Bros, etc.
In the long run, participating in organized voting will just get you lumped into a tribe & screw up the review scores YOU see.
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Yep and pretty soon everyone is only hearing the opinions they like, automatically think every other opinion is the minority, in a giant happy bubble echo-chamber enabled by technology.
Then when reality hits them entire offices have mental breakdowns and have to shut down for a couple of days and think everyone else is a radical extremist because how else can one's isolated brain explain that other people have a different opinion?
It must be trolls! It must be 4chan's doing! It must be xenophobic-racist-miso
Wish there is a crowd sourced system (Score:3)
Wonder if there is a site/forum that tries this. Does any one in slashdot know such a system?
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It is vulnerable to organised manipulation but predominantly it works superbly.
I regularly encounter views and perspectives on Slashdot that are not ones with which I agree, but also regularly get modded up myself. That's the system supporting diverse viewpoints and allowing discussion and argument.
I support this interchange of ideas, even if I do frequently end up swearing at the people that are so wrong.
Don't use either one! (Score:2)
Anything to distract from the true problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Likes/Dislikes are dross; if you don't want to see how bad your content is, disable the ratings.
Comments are dross; if you don't want to see what people think about your content, disable the comments.
The truly weaponized button is the report button. False flagging campaigns to get content age restricted, put in limited state, or removed altogether have been around since before likes and comment were a glimmer in the trolls' eyes. Now it has been weaponized to get entire content creators removed from platforms. And coming to a platform near you, we are beginning to see content creators being unpersoned not just from a platform, but from life in general; now the mobs take away your ability to make a living outside the platform (or even more recently your access to the monetary system). While I hate to say this, it will take government intervention to undo the unpersoning we see these days.
If you can't handle likes, dislikes and comments grow a thicker skin or get off the platform. If you can't handle someone else's content to the point of trying to get them kicked off the platform, maybe it's you that really needs to go. If you can't handle someone else's content to the point of trying to get them unpersoned, it's prison time for you.
I remember an old George Carlin bit about someone complaining about content they didn't like on the radio and trying to get it banned. George pointed out that radios have two buttons, one button changes the station -- and the other TURNS IT OFF. Ah the wisdom we now ignore ;(.
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This.
The goal of the self-appointed gatekeepers of The Truth is to silence dissent or alternate points of view. Particularly when theirs won't stand up to scrutiny.
Are YouTube ratings useful for filtering search content like the Slashdot moderation system is? If not, let the people click Dislike to their hearts content. And let the Streisand Effect do its work.
Weaponize? (Score:3)
Users "weaponize" the dislike button? Seems to me that characterization is a tad overdramatic.
Using "like" and "dislike" is not turning out as pretty as you imagined it would? You've got the data, Google... perhaps you should study it and learn a thing or two about human nature.
Or, you could just redesign your feedback mechanism and stick your head in the sand by coming up with a way to completely sanitize user feedback. I bet your corporate buddies can't wait for that one.
words (Score:2)
So people calling out Rewind is an evil doublebad mob with weapons, but the clusterfuck of claim reporting (not tolerating but embracing automated ones) is acceptable.
Whatever, let it burn, not my loss. When I'm cornered and absolutely need a youtube video I DDL and view locally. Like someone studying a plant strain and plucking specimens from a post-apocalyptic wasteland, so they can inspect it somewhere out of the cancerous radiation.
Weighted Dislikes (Score:2)
Zero-seconds viewed and Dislike smashed - why do they even count that?
It's perfectly reasonable to weight the ratios based on some evidence that the viewer actually tried to watch and maybe understand the video.
It's like they're pretending they have no analytics, no referrer, no neural net expertise inhouse, no data whatsoever to make a more accurate system.
Jesus, quit bitching and start solving problems. Google used to do that.
No product is universally liked - Netflix knows it (Score:2)
Imagine that every video or product would get a rating from everyone on Earth. Each person gets one thumbs up or thumbs down option. How many games, books, videos or other products would get a majority positive reviews?
Then there is the vocal minority problem, where there is a minority which has very strong opinions and lots of time to voice them as loud as they can. We can see that in the USA politics today, anyone expressing any views near the center will get attacked by global minorities from the left an
It's democracy and it's a good thing. (Score:3)
'salt is good for you' as an example. Sure you need a certain amount of salt to survive and nature provides that naturally in the food we eat, what we don't need is copious amounts of salt to be added to food and there are plenty of idiot youtubers that don't understand that a small amount is healthy and too much is not healthy and they appear to be encouraging people to eat salt with reckless abandon and are railing against the campaigns to eat less salt and add less salt to foods. These idiots piss me off and I'd happily join a mailing list and go vote down all of their videos.
Often you don't need to watch more than a few seconds of a video to know that it is 100% trash and click-bait and or doesn't have anything useful or particularly entertaining to say. Often the vote-count is a good indicator of that and can act as a quick confirmation that the video isn't worth watching any further.
Weaponizing? (Score:2)
HUH?! (Score:2)
But there isn't a dislike button yet.
Oh wait... they meant for the videos. Who the hell cares about that?! I just want one for disliking comments. Please let me know when that happens.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Solution (Score:2)
Abuses of democracy are what lead to dictatorship. Yay dictatorship!!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)