Mozilla is Sharing YouTube Horror Stories To Prod Google For More Transparency

CNET reports on a new crowdsourced public awareness campaign: Mozilla is publishing anecdotes of YouTube viewing gone awry -- anonymous stories from people who say they innocently searched for one thing but eventually ended up in a dark rabbit hole of videos. It's a campaign aimed at pressuring Google's massive video site to make itself more accessible to independent researchers trying to study its algorithms. "The big problem is we have no idea what is happening on YouTube," said Guillaume Chaslot, who is a fellow at Mozilla, a nonprofit best known for its unit that makes and operates the Firefox web browser.

Chaslot is an ex-Google engineer who has investigated YouTube's recommendations from the outside after he left the company in 2013. (YouTube says he was fired for performance issues.) "We can see that there are problems, but we have no idea if the problem is from people being people or from algorithms," he said....

Mozilla is publishing 28 stories it's terming #YouTubeRegrets; they include, for example, an anecdote from someone who who said a search for German folk songs ended up returning neo-Nazi clips, and a testimonial from a mother who said her 10-year-old daughter searched for tap-dancing videos and ended up watching extreme contortionist clips that affected her body image.

Playing ads in the middle of videos

[jfdavis668]

My horror story is constantly being interrupted by ads at random times while I am watching a video.

Re:

[Freischutz]

My horror story is constantly being interrupted by ads at random times while I am watching a video.

I solved that problem by realising that I was watching more YouTube than most of the other streaming services combined so I subscribed to YouTube Premium. No more ads... If you want stuff for free there is a price, in the case of YouTube the price is ceaseless ads, be prepared to pay it.

Re:Playing ads in the middle of videos

[PopeRatzo]

I solved that problem by realising that I was watching more YouTube than most of the other streaming services combined so I subscribed to YouTube Premium. No more ads... If you want stuff for free there is a price, in the case of YouTube the price is ceaseless ads, be prepared to pay it.

When I signed up for Google Play Music several years ago, they threw in YouTube Premium for free. I've had it ever since and I've long forgotten that there were even ads on YouTube.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

I would gladly pay a few bucks a month for YouTube Premium, even just YouTube Less-Premium without the exclusive content, but they don't offer that. The only choice is to pay the full £12/month which is too much.

Re:

[xushi]

I solved this problem with an adblocker.. even on iOS (AdGuard). Let others like you pay for my entertainment.

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[Freischutz]

I solved this problem with an adblocker.. even on iOS (AdGuard). Let others like you pay for my entertainment.

Jeez, how much of a cheapskate can a person be? It's $11.99, not exactly a price tag that will drive one into personal bankruptcy. Plus, you get more than just no ads with the subscription. Finally, my subscription money goes to the channels whose videos I watch so I don't really see it as being completely wasted. About 80% of what I watch comes from a handful of channels whose operators are private individuals who put a ton of work into their content. I don't see why It's so stupid to support them. I even

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

$12/month is quite a bit for some people, e.g. teenagers who are one of the primary demographics. Not everyone considers $12/month to be a trivial amount.

Remember that it's $12/month per account too, so unless you want to share your account (and get spammed with other people's recommendations and subscriptions) you have to get the more expensive family plan.

Also it's $16/month in the UK. We get ripped off pretty badly.

Re:

[Freischutz]

$12/month is quite a bit for some people, e.g. teenagers who are one of the primary demographics. Not everyone considers $12/month to be a trivial amount.

Remember that it's $12/month per account too, so unless you want to share your account (and get spammed with other people's recommendations and subscriptions) you have to get the more expensive family plan.

Also it's $16/month in the UK. We get ripped off pretty badly.

I get that a lot, usually from people holding a $2.75 cup of Starbucks coffee. As for teenagers and families, there is a YouTube Prime family plan at $17.99/month; plus up to 5 family members. That's just about one cup of Starbucks coffee per family member.

Re:

[iampiti]

So you're proud of being a freeloader?

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[rtb61]

I just used a mod to kill the ads. Fuck giving any money to those privacy invasive democracy corrupting scummy cunts. Do not feed the evil enemy of Humanity, do not spend anything with Google, not one cent.

The only feature I want for you tube is to be able to permanently block specific uploaders, no more MSNBC or FOX or CNN or any American news service and no more Sky News (talk about full on wall to wall corporate propaganda) and no more crap influencers who just lie to your face about the quality of the

Re:

[iampiti]

You're free to not use their service

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[Merk42]

Nooo! I'm entitled to whatever entertainment I want for free!!1111

Re:

[lgw]

You have ads on your internet? You should get a better internet!

Re:

[Weedlord BonerHitler]

You have ads on your internet? You should get a better internet!

--
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.

Complaining about ads on the Internet and socialism simultaneously. Have we discovered the ultimate enlightened centrist or just a complete fucking tool?

Re:

[PaisteUser]

Get these 2 add-ons depending on your browser of choice, and that should solve your issue:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]

https://chrome.google.com/webs... [google.com]

Re:

[Sebby]

The worst part of it is how random it is - right in the middle of someone speaking, or similar

I downvote the ads where possible, and if there's too many ads, I downvote the video and usually leave a comment why I disliked it.

Re:

[Mononymous]

When my daughter told me last year that there were ads on YouTube, I didn't believe her at first.
I guess they added them after the advent of adblockers.

You cant figure out the algorithm...

[Rockoon]

...because a lot of it is now "If (_specific channel_) then.."

You wont be able to convince Dave Rubin's viewers that this isnt the case.

Pretense to Censorship

[Kunedog]

This is nothing more than narrative-pushing to astroturf the idea that YT doesn't censor and manipulate recommendations and search results enough.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[Anonymous Coward]

If 49 channels are showing the same political scandal and the 50th isn't? They're showing a dog who does backflips?

You're trying very hard to confound that dog video with censorship, but it's still happening.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

This isn't censorship, this is de-spamming search results and improving the optional family friendly search filter.

You know why Google replaced Altavista, Yahoo, Excite, Lycos and all the other search engines? It filtered out spam results. SEO didn't work on it. The only way to get ranked up was to make a useful website that the user actually wanted to visit.

YouTube fails to do that, which is what the complaint here is.

YouTube's actual censorship is a different problem and mostly due to a completely broken

Damaged?

[Shotgun]

Was the little girl damaged by watching contortionist? I mean, I remember that time that I went to the carnival and saw the bearded lady. I was so ashamed that I couldn't grow a beard at the age of 13 that I shut myself in and played video games for months so that I wouldn't have to show my smooth face. It was demoralizing, I tell you. And, then there was the time I accidentally saw a Nazi video. But, that time, instead of hiding away, I decided that I was Brad PItt and became an "Inglourious Bastard".

Re:

[lgw]

Mozilla is really reaching here for examples of searches harming people. What garbage. Everyone understands that You search for "X", you're going to get some results that are "not X". This is not a crisis for anyone, especially not for children who grew up in this digital world.

Re:

[iampiti]

Yup. I really like their browser but they're presenting themselves as saviours of the Internet and sometimes exaggerate a bit much in order to make their mission appear important

Escalation of Terms

[Kunedog]

Companies like Mozilla and Twitter and Facebook, and the media who one-sidedly covers "harassment," are attempting to outright redefine terms, and it's not out of confusion.

Disagreement is now harrassment.
Mockery is now hate speech.
Offense is now trauma.
Criticism is now abuse.
Compelling criticism is now violence.
Anyone who talks about subjects the MSM wants to suppress is now a troll.
Anyone at random is a racist/sexist/white supremacist/nazi/etc if they say so.

The use of this alarmist (a

Tap dancing

[fph il quozientatore]

Maybe you meant "lap dancing"?

I see a pattern

[jawtheshark]

People, possibly with mental illness, have issues filtering information and the algorithm shows them what they like to see, enhancing potential delusions. I would argue that's not really youtube's fault.

Re:

[evanh]

For most people, computers come across as mind-blowingly magically machines that they then attribute human traits to.

Oh no.

[ruddk]

Truly a horror story!! (sigh)
How about taking some responsibility for your own life and have a bit of critical selection to what you watch. If you can't do that, you probably shouldn't be surfing the web unsupervised.

Re:

[Sebby]

Truly a horror story!! (sigh) How about taking some responsibility for your own life and have a bit of critical selection to what you watch. If you can't do that, you probably shouldn't be surfing the web unsupervised.

Anti-vaxxers have been linked to increased propaganda from video sites, so now they're risking not only their own lives, but everyone else's too.

So, how do you propose I 'take some responsibility for my own life' about those peddling mis/disinformation? Please do provide exact details.

Re: Oh no.

[EirikFinlay]

It is not responsibility of the society, nor of YouTube, to "protect" you from "misinformation", whatever that is. You are an adult, act as an adult and decide by yourself what is right and what is wrong, what is information and what is disinformation. Don't ask YouTube to become your farther and decide what you should or should not watch, what you should or should not believe. Even because many things that were considered evil, wrong, propaganda or disinformation in the past, and according to your would ha

Re:

[thegarbz]

So, how do you propose I 'take some responsibility for my own life' about those peddling mis/disinformation? Please do provide exact details.

Shoot them? I mean Americans often talk about how they need guns for their protection right?

Re:

[Unipuma]

If you actually bother to look at the site you're commenting on, you will see that these are stories of people who did try to take responsibility, but found they were unable to control what Youtube kept pushing to their children or to dementing parents. Read the stories first, before jumping to the conclusion that it must be the victims fault.

Then again, reading the article.... this is slashdot, sorry, I forgot.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

If you bothered to read TFA you would have noticed that the problem isn't just what you choose to watch, it's the search results themselves.

A couple of the stories were from people looking for others with similar experiences to their own when coming out, but instead got bombarded with anti-LGBT videos. That would be somewhat acceptable if YouTube wasn't trying to position itself as a place where you can go for that kind of thing and which ostensibly provides filtered, safe search results for children.

Re: Oh no.

[EirikFinlay]

YouTube is not the parent of your children. It is YOUR responsibility to check on them, so do it or do not, I don't care but don't think that YouTube should do your job in your place. Stop trying to justify censorship of ideas you don't approve with the usual "think of the children" bullshit.

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[AmiMoJo]

Youtube is not your children's parent, agreed. The problem is that Youtube wants to claim that it offers a safe viewing environment for children.

It's like if Cartoon Network of Nickelodeon started showing lizard people conspiracy shows.

Suggested

[sstory]

My YouTube horror story is every time I try to watch a video I get 10 "suggested blah blah blah" pop ups I have to swipe away. Fucking annoying. Telle there's an app that'll turn that shit off.

Re:

[Sebby]

My YouTube horror story is every time I try to watch a video I get 10 "suggested blah blah blah" pop ups I have to swipe away. Fucking annoying. Telle there's an app that'll turn that shit off.

The thing that drives me bonkers is the overlays towards the end of videos for 'suggestions' - they FUCKING COVER THE CURRENT VIDEO I'M WATCHING FFS!!!

Easy solution

[NaCh0]

Google should mandate that everyone who complains about youtube sidebar suggestions watch an hour of goatse on repeat. Suddenly these people will have their problems put into perspective.

Oh, you think that contortion is bad. Wait until you see *THIS* contortion!

categories and age ranges would be a huge start

[Wycliffe]

As a parent, just having categories and age ranges and allowing restrictions based on those would be a huge start.
Even if those categories and age ranges were set by the person publishing the videos, it would be better than nothing.
Youtube is my kids preferred video platform because it has the most content but it's basically a garbage dump mixed with
good content. Youtube (and third party apps) give you no real way to restrict youtube. It's either all or nothing.
I could block youtube but unfortunately most

The German folk song thing really isn't surprising

[henni16]

A genre romanticizing an idealized view of one's homeland with a huge emphasis on celebrating local culture and traditions; and an ideology big on nationalism and heritage, which basically does the same thing, but for slightly different purposes.

Even if you completely ignore the demographics of folk music enthusiasts, it isn't really surprising that an algorithm would connect both.

I'm not saying that I would expect to see Nazi shit when looking for traditional folk music or that its absence in yout

slashdot comments

[Dallas May]

... Kinda like how you can leave an innocent comment if slashdot in a completely benign article about computers and be lambasted by racist white supremacists?

Wait, I've heard this one before.

[hey!]

The guy comes back from relieving himself and finds a bloody hook embedded in his keyboard.

Don't watch stuff you don't like

[beepsky]

The longer you use a YouTube account the more accurately it'll tweak its recommendations for you.
These stories sound awfully like people who created fresh accounts then clicked on (and watched) videos they didn't like, which in absence of much other data on their watching preferences the algorithm started taking them down a strange path.

I think an AI driven recommended videos list is far better than a curated list like the notoriously shitty "trending" tab.

Here's a thought

[cascadingstylesheet]

anonymous stories from people who say they innocently searched for one thing but eventually ended up in a dark rabbit hole of videos

Here's an idea: don't click on the "dark" ones and then you won't go there.

Ads and censorship

[AHuxley]

Stop the censorship.
Let the users find the video clips they want to see. Beyond what the good censor allows.

Keep the algorithms secret

[FeelGood314]

Otherwise they will be gamed. It's like never tell government (or any one really) what the criteria for doing a good job is or it will be gamed. Of coarse you need a bit more investigation and intelligence to review your algorithm in both cases.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[johnlcallaway]

I know they don't care. Know what?? I don't care, I am perfectly capable of using their system and find Google quite useful when researching things. But then, I'm smart enough to be able to enter search queries and fine-tune them to get the results I'm interested in. I am also smart enough to ignore 'sponsered' responses.

Only the ignorant and those not very clever can't use Google as a search engine.

Simple solution

[slashmydots]

The majority of their algorithm is "the crowd, as a whole, is always right" so if they need to fix this effect based on actual user actions, they need to identify, isolate, and ignore the idiots who click on clickbait garbage, shock videos, and generally undesirable videos on a recurring basis.

Watching car videos gave me car cancer

[sinij]

I watch a lot of car-related videos, and YouTube always recommends me an equivalent to car-cancer - Scotty Kilmer videos. Turns out, the only way to blacklist someone is to create an account, log in with it, and only then you can blacklist specific channel from recommendations.

It is bad design that there isn't "I am not interested in this, don't recommend again" button on YouTube.

More lunacy from the 'someone protect me' groups

[johnlcallaway]

If seeing a neo-nazi recommendation offends you, perhaps the problem is you and not YouTube.

Don't watch it. Move on.

Triggering is a made-up term for people too irresponsible to take responsibility for their own emotions.

I'm reminded of something several years ago when I got involved in a new relationship. I discovered that Amazon had some interesting items in their health section, like books on how to improve cunnilingus. I made the mistake of clicking on one, and for several months got ads for dildos and other sex toys.

Know how I reacted?? I laughed and learned to click on 'Incognito mode' if I didn't want Amazon to recommend items I was curious about.

BTW .. the book worked and my wife was very happy I bought it.

Re:

[sinij]

I think you are down-playing the annoyance factor. Imagine if in your situation advertising for certain products followed you around all platforms for years after you clicked one link.

Oh Damn

[vallad]

I prefer Netflix over Youtube to watch latest movies and TV shows. These days I am using Nova TV [novatvapp.com] more