I wonder if it's changed in the last few years, because as of 2015 YouTube was losing Google money

Yossarian wrote:

The Sandy Hook stuff is insane. Grieving parents being harassed by people who think that they’re lying about their children being murdered. Society shouldn’t be okay with this sort of thing.

Absolutely agree. But: I watched a video on YouTube and they showed me another video on the same topic oh my how dare they...
Come on.

They should save their outrage for the content creators not the host platform.

WorKid wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

The Sandy Hook stuff is insane. Grieving parents being harassed by people who think that they’re lying about their children being murdered. Society shouldn’t be okay with this sort of thing.

Absolutely agree. But: I watched a video on YouTube and they showed me another video on the same topic oh my how dare they...
Come on.

They should save their outrage for the content creators not the host platform.

Google would love that, but it won’t work. You could point the finger at a hundred content creators, a hundred more would pop up tomorrow.

The issues are systemic, a major part of the the system with the issues is owned, run, and profited from by Google. It’s time they took some responsibility for it.

See my response to Tempy above.

Google’s advertising arm is phenomenally successful, YouTube certainly plays into that.

I really don’t know what the answer is with this stuff. It’s a philosophical argument, not a business one, or legal one.

If the Internet is a series of tubes, these companies are the valves information flows through. Deciding whether the valves should have any moral or ethical judgement is beyond me.

The utopian ideal is where society self-filters – where the crap doesn’t succeed simply because nobody wants to see it. Remove demand and supply becomes moot. That has to be the ideal because any effort to censor can very quickly be politicised, monetised, or both. Corruption inevitably sets in.

Let’s not pretend here that there aren’t certain types of content which Google aren’t very proactive about taking down. Acting like they aren’t removing content is false, the difference is that that content is illegal.

Now, I don’t believe that this sort of thing should be made illegal, but I do think that Google should be more proactive about dealing with it, in a similar vein to how they are with illegal material.

I presume that if I watched an ISIS beheading video on YouTube in the period between it being uploaded and taken down, their algorithms wouldn’t suggest more of the same.

They must be able to do better than they are, and it would be better for everyone if the impetus for them doing better came from Google itself rather than legislation.

poprock wrote:

I really don’t know what the answer is with this stuff. It’s a philosophical argument, not a business one, or legal one. If the Internet is a series of tubes, these companies are the valves information flows through. Deciding whether the valves should have any moral or ethical judgement is beyond me. The utopian ideal is where society self-filters – where the crap doesn’t succeed simply because nobody wants to see it. Remove demand and supply becomes moot. That has to be the ideal because any effort to censor can very quickly be politicised, monetised, or both. Corruption inevitably sets in.

This.
It's not just google, it's also fb, twitter or any social media platform one can think of. Social media's glowing shiny weak point is it can be used and abused to spread fake news and propaganda like wildfire with minimal effort, not just a random spread but a targeted one as well. Should social media be selfregulating to stop this or should the state intervene? The latter because it should be obvious by now public opinion/votes can be bought and swayed in this manner with minimal effort. Brexit and the US 2016 election are proof of this and are just a starter of what is to come.

He who controls the flow of information controls the power. If 20th century politics was all about mastering tv and radio as the main platforms for information, communication and PR; the 21st century is all about harnessing the power of the internet and social media.

There are a few mentions in this convo about how if it isn’t this social media platform it will be another, which does make it sound like there are hundreds of massively popular platforms with huge reach and new ones are popping up all the time. That’s just not the case, put enough pressure on Facebook, Twitter and, to whatever extent is necessary, Google to sort their shit out and this is pretty much covered.

If and when MySpace makes a surprise comeback, then maybe look at them.

Isn't there an extrapolation beyond what yoss is asking for here, that leads to political censorship etc.  Feels like a slippery slope, as well as technologically difficult (not quite the same as people mocking Rudd for saying "we want us (and only us) to be able to decrypt all communication", but not a million miles off).

acemuzzy wrote:

Isn't there an extrapolation beyond what yoss is asking for here, that leads to political censorship etc.  Feels like a slippery slope, as well as technologically difficult (not quite the same as people mocking Rudd for saying "we want us (and only us) to be able to decrypt all communication", but not a million miles off).

Potentially, but not necessarily. As I say, lots of stuff is banned now without this having happened. Plus, I’m not even saying that this stuff should be banned, necessarily, it just shouldn’t be quite so in people’s faces.

Yossarian wrote:

Removing algorithms from suggesting content would be a start. Perhaps some sort of validation system for trusted sources? As I say, it’s not an easy thing to deal with, but I’m not sure throwing our hands up in the air and saying “that’s the way it is” is much of a response. Also, I would fully expect Google to be employing people who will be much better at working out what’s possible than us on a forum if they really wanted to deal with it. The fact that we can’t work out good ways to do this doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Employing people to solve a problem is an anathema to Google, especially if they can employ a crap algorithm instead.

You tube do pretty well at filtering out porn, despite the fact that people are almost definitely trying to upload it constantly. Can't be too hard to apply their filters to other subjects.

Diluted Dante wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

Removing algorithms from suggesting content would be a start. Perhaps some sort of validation system for trusted sources? As I say, it’s not an easy thing to deal with, but I’m not sure throwing our hands up in the air and saying “that’s the way it is” is much of a response. Also, I would fully expect Google to be employing people who will be much better at working out what’s possible than us on a forum if they really wanted to deal with it. The fact that we can’t work out good ways to do this doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Employing people to solve a problem is an anathema to Google, especially if they can employ a crap algorithm instead.

Well quite, this is the root of Facebook’s issues with letting people target adverts at anti-semites too.

The lack of employees is what makes these businesses so fantastically profitable, but it comes with a social cost as well.

Ha

Because EVERYONE likes jumping up and down in muddy puddles.