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Youtube Businesses Media The Almighty Buck The Internet Technology

YouTube Executives Ignored Warnings, Letting Toxic Videos Run Rampant (bloomberg.com) 426

Proposals to change recommendations and curb conspiracies on YouTube were sacrificed for engagement, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing Google employees. From the report: In recent years, scores of people inside YouTube and Google, its owner, raised concerns about the mass of false, incendiary and toxic content that the world's largest video site surfaced and spread. One employee wanted to flag troubling videos, which fell just short of the hate speech rules, and stop recommending them to viewers. Another wanted to track these videos in a spreadsheet to chart their popularity. A third, fretful of the spread of "alt-right" video bloggers, created an internal vertical that showed just how popular they were. Each time they got the same basic response: Don't rock the boat.

The company spent years chasing one business goal above others: "Engagement," a measure of the views, time spent and interactions with online videos. Conversations with over twenty people who work at, or recently left, YouTube reveal a corporate leadership unable or unwilling to act on these internal alarms for fear of throttling engagement. Wojcicki would "never put her fingers on the scale," said one person who worked for her. "Her view was, 'My job is to run the company, not deal with this.'"

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YouTube Executives Ignored Warnings, Letting Toxic Videos Run Rampant

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  • Echo chamber (Score:5, Insightful)

    by religionofpeas ( 4511805 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:14PM (#58372080)

    YouTube could break the echo chamber effect by recommending good quality videos on the same topic. If someone is interested in vaccinations, there's no reason to just recommend conspiracy videos on the topic.

    • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Youtube doesn't know what it wants, except to be the next TV. Same echo chamber all the time. The problem that youtube has is that the CEO has no clue, in turn it's directionless. It only reacts to the actions of others, and then over-reacts as a correction. The media will line up an attack like Pewdiepie is a neo-nazi, or jontron is a nazi, xyz thing is extremist(but actually isn't). But then spend years ignoring terrorist organizations posting snuff, and glory to allah for throwing gays off rooftops

    • if I'm watching anti-anti-vaxxer videos would YouTube recommend actual anti-vaxxer videos?

      That said, I'm a lefty McLefty and I get the occasional right wing video in my channel. Mostly Sargon of Arkad. I used to get a fair amount of them actually because I subscribe to a bunch of atheist channels (Aronra, Genetic Skeptic) but the bulk of the YouTube skeptic community pivoted to anti-SJW vids about a year ago (more view, more patreon donations, they followed the money) and I couldn't care less about that
      • it's not too hard to get out of your bubble yourself by clicking some videos (or going into private browsing and/or a VPN if you really want to). There's been several lefties who ran down the alt-right rabbit hole and wrote about it.
      • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

        Sargon is right wing? The guy is further left then Justin Trudeau, and Jr is pretty far left. Far enough that he almost aligns with the NDP.

        • Sargon criticises and mocks 3rd wave feminism and intersectionality, so yes he must be right-wing. There is no middle ground anymore.

    • YouTube could break the echo chamber effect by recommending good quality videos on the same topic. If someone is interested in vaccinations, there's no reason to just recommend conspiracy videos on the topic.

      There are very good reasons. The algorithms are tuned to increase engagement and time on platform, and they have learned that funnelling people down a gradual but psychologically compelling rabbit hole from vaccine scepticism all the way through to 'the government wants to kill your children!' keeps them more engaged for longer. Simply giving people a science documentary about vaccines would end engagement at the first video, or more likely, a few minutes into the video before they get bored. Leading people

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:15PM (#58372086)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by Trailer Trash ( 60756 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:34PM (#58372236) Homepage

      Plus the fact that all of this "incendiary and toxic content" that I'm supposed to be worried about is "alt-right" or just plain "conservative". Ignore the Muslim recruitment videos, left-wing hate (Linda Sarsour, etc.), Pallywood, Communists, etc.

      That's why they have no credibility: They're not against "incendiary and toxic content" - they're against conservatives.

      • Or did you mean terrorists? The sad thing is you got modded up +5 with that little Freudian slip. Or did you mean videos recruiting to Islam? Ok, should we pull the 700 club's channel?

        Anyway, terrorists videos get pulled when reported, Linda Sarsour seems to just advocate for Palestine (I don't know that much about here, but I couldn't find anything antisemitic there), Pallywood [wikipedia.org] is a pretty controversial concept in and of itself and Communists are generally a pretty peaceable bunch on YouTube, certainly
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          Yeah, I mean, Communists only kill 100,000,000+ people in the last 100 years. But, you know, other than that, they're a pretty peaceful bunch.

      • Google suspends and demonetizes all kinds of shit [maxlaumeister.com] that has nothing to do with politics. And it's not like lefty channels haven't been at the mercy [youtube.com] of Google's arbitrary whims.

        They just suck as a company, period.

  • RR (Score:5, Funny)

    by kackle ( 910159 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:19PM (#58372114)
    Does Rick Rolling count?
  • by ruddk ( 5153113 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:21PM (#58372130)

    I have been watching cat videos on YouTube for 10 years now and it has been a good run. But not they have stated to show the odd dog video now and then.
    Thatâ(TM)s extremely offensive and now I am afraid to open the browser because with no warning what so ever, BANG, there it is. A DOG video in my recommended feed.

    Meow.

  • So basically ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:35PM (#58372246) Journal

    ... UsTube.

    Not YouTube - "you" might hold unapproved opinions or something. UsTube. Our opinions, not yours.

  • by renegade600 ( 204461 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:39PM (#58372272)

    any video with subject matter someone does not agree with. So does this mean youtube is shutting down sine they cannot play any videos without offending someone?

  • Until it comes to paying. Then they will demonetize at the drop of a hat.

    BREAK UP GOOGLE!

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:42PM (#58372302)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by TheBAFH ( 68624 )

      my 4 year old was watching an age-appropriate channel

      So, you let an algorithm do the parenting for you? That's what i call real faith in technology!

  • Well, yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:42PM (#58372308)

    This is an issue of scope, profit margin, and market evaluations.

    You know why Steam doesn't hand-pick games to be on their marketplace? Scope of the task. They clean up the biggest disasters, but basically filter feed on whatever pops out of that ecosystem.

    Same thing for the Microsoft store, the android marketplace, and large parts of the Apple marketplace.

    And those are marketplaces where the profit margins are relatively large.

    Well, relatively large, compared to Youtube.

    In setting any standards involving an expectation of paid human oversight - including just managing a bunch of volunteers - even at some absurdly low 1 to 1 million ratio, they risk the value they hold in the primary underlying motivation of their bosses: The market value of their platform.

    That's the real issue - business stuff like staff responding to DMCA complaints is also expensive, but the market isn't going to lower their stock for that. But having to hire and maintain staff to stand in as referees in effectively political contests... that's going to generate blowback they can't shuffle under some easy cost line in a report.

    That's kind of the problem with being a public traded company. The pressures aren't just financial - they are also largely the political fashion sense of the market pushing everyone to play a game of taking the most they can from contracts (customer and employee alike), and then providing that value back as maximal perceived market value.

    The irony is that we call it being 'publicly traded' - where it functions mostly to funnel wealth into fewer and fewer private hands in the end.

    In the end, our shared retirement accounts get regularly raided and scammed, and the entire market is expected to crash, as if it was a force of nature - because minimal oversight is seen as more expensive and odious than frequent disaster.

    That's the shape of the system we make for ourselves.

    Ryan Fenton

  • by SmaryJerry ( 2759091 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:52PM (#58372400)
    YouTube already demotes you if you swear and ensures popular videos with "toxic" behavior never trend or get recommended. The problem is even videos as inane as PewDiePies latest congratulations song can get 22 million views in a day but still not hit trending because some arbitrarily decided nothing he creates can hit the trending list. Meanwhile Stephen Colbert can say trump is sucking Putin's cock and that video gets recommended because "if it's okay for tv it's okay for YouTube." You absolutely don't want to be on the wrong end of a reviewer defining you and that is what happens all the time. Numerous people are claimed to be "toxic" even just for not liking a brand or something other people like, as if just not loving something is a crime. You can never let a small group of people or even an algorithm define toxicity ir some people will always be shut up and left silent.
    • >YouTube already demotes you if you swear

      I'm starting to hear more and more about that. Honest question: Is there any evidence for it? Is it in the TOS? TIA.

      • It's in their guidelines [google.com]. (Which are more like general recommendations rather than exact rules, even though Google is perfectly in control of what gets demonettized. One of the reasons I'm not too upset about the EU fining them the same way - telling them they need to clean up their act without telling them exactly what they did wrong.)

        Inappropriate language

        Video content that contains frequent uses of strong profanity or vulgarity throughout the video may not be suitable for advertising. Occasional use

  • Women CEOs were supposed to be better than male CEOs and yet somehow they don't seem to be much different.

  • It's time to admit that not having charters for corporations is a bad thing.

  • Predictable (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eaglesrule ( 4607947 ) <eaglesrule@FORTRANpm.me minus language> on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @01:42PM (#58372716)

    Trump was never supposed to get elected. Brexit was never supposed to happen. Mainstream corporate media could no longer be relied upon to adequately shape public opinion. Something had to be done.

    Pewdiepie became a nazi to be used as the excuse for the adpocolypse. Alex Jones was the lowest hanging fruit to be plucked and deplatformed. CNN videos went from 100 views to 100K views as independent journalists and commentators were pushed down. "trusted flaggers" such as the ADL and SPLC were brought on as the shadow inquisition. Still, it's not enough.

    This is the future of Youtube. [youtube.com]

The most important early product on the way to developing a good product is an imperfect version.

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