YouTube Under Federal Investigation Over Allegations it Violates Children's Privacy (washingtonpost.com) 48
The U.S. government is in the late stages of an investigation into YouTube for its handling of children's videos, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing four people familiar with the matter, a probe that threatens the company with a potential fine and already has prompted the tech giant to reevaluate some of its business practices. From the report: The Federal Trade Commission launched the investigation after numerous complaints from consumer groups and privacy advocates, according to the four people, who requested anonymity because such probes are supposed to be confidential. The complaints contended that YouTube, which is owned by Google, failed to protect kids who used the streaming-video service and improperly collected their data. As the investigation has progressed, YouTube executives in recent months have accelerated internal discussions about broad changes to how the platform handles children's videos, according to a person familiar with the company's plans. That includes potential changes to its algorithm for recommending and queuing up videos for users, including kids, part of an ongoing effort at YouTube over the past year and a half to overhaul its software and policies to prevent abuse.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Nearly any open communication system is a conduit for inappropriate information.
Allowing for Anonymous or Semi-Anonymous unedited communication means people will state things which are inappropriate, immoral, or just flat out lies. Because they will be heard without any major consequences for their messages.
This is really an abuse of free speech, where you are allowed to say something unpopular in public, without fear of getting arrested, however you need to stat this in front of people who may disagree wi
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The only other option is a public moderation and classification system. (much like how Slashdot worked) and it worked rather well (Not perfect by any means, because you were able snub the system by stating popular opinion) when the site was very popular, because it had enough moderators and meta-moderators to more fairly judge the content.
YouTube may be able to give some end users access to the Firehose where content is left unpublished for a few days where these people will review and classify the content.
Re:What's the solution w/o destroying YT's functio (Score:4, Insightful)
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And..so what is wrong with that?
I mean, it is always up to the individual audience member to watch/listten/read and judge the content to see if it is worth listening too, supporting, or if it is just crap.
I mean, as long as it is not illegal content (child porn and the like)...th
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Don't expect services like YouTube to support anonymous speech though. They care more about spam and stopping people creating new accounts when they get banned.
This makes me wonder if something like 4chan could scale. At the moment it's moderated by the site owners. The moderation is very light and the banning process largely ineffective, but because it's a small site it's enough. If it got big though, how would it handle that? It can barely pay the bills now, let alone employ more staff to moderate.
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Allowing for Anonymous or Semi-Anonymous unedited communication means people will state things which are inappropriate, immoral, or just flat out lies.
This is true of any type of communication, not just anonymous communication.
This is really an abuse of free speech, where you are allowed to say something unpopular in public, without fear of getting arrested, however you need to stat this in front of people who may disagree with you and suffer the consequences of this, while not imprisoned, you will publically be known as a jerk
Anonymous speech was a crucial part of the American revolution in the 1700s, and the founders felt it was deeply important. I agree with them on this point.
Political left is eating itself (Score:2, Insightful)
This sounds like another example of the political left causing itself problems.
The political left campaigned for years to take responsibility away from parents, and to move it either to the government or to companies instead. Everybody but parents would be burdened with limiting access or censoring content or what have you.
Now the political left running the media platforms are being affected by the same regulations that the political left fought so hard to impose on others!
I think that most things that the
Young at heart? You too can have privacy! (Score:2, Interesting)
Sooo, if YouTube promises to respect the privacy of children, can I be a child too?
In the day and age of identifying gender based on feelings, I'm sure I can find a loophole that allows me to regain my privacy legally by being young at heart, forcing YouTube to not spy on me.
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Maybe, but it has major downsides... the discrimination against Trans-Age individuals is rampant.
For Example: Many websites, not just Youtube, but video sites such as Twitch as well also refuse to open accounts and do suspend accounts or ban chatters/streamers when they become aware that a person is using their services who Identifies as Age 12 or younger.
Banks as well.... Many companies will not allow you to buy something or contract them to do things for you if you identify as less than Age 18.
Un
Re:There are more than two arthropods (Score:2)
I'm curious where the allegations come from. YouTube uses a google account (gmail, etc). Can you even sign up for one if you're under a specific age?
I think I had to lie to it when I created an account for my daughter so I could separate some of her stuff from mine.
Of course that matters little in my case because the tablet she watches YouTube on is using my account. So as far a google knows I love My Little Pony.
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Maybe because my accounts on YT are so old, but I don't have gmail accounts or even google+ account associated with those YT channels.
Is that something required now?
Hell, I don't even remember any type of verification except I had to have some sort of working email address.
Do they check more stuff these days for new YT accounts?
Pfft as if (Score:1)
If children have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear.
it is a private platform so they can do what ever they want!
Silicon Valley (Score:2)
"Violations of COPPA result in a $16,000 fine per user per use, which means PiperChat has already racked up $21 billion in fines."
Guess some lawmakers watch TV. Or their staff does.
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Other then a few bad actors, the NSA has been good on keeping its data private.