
Google's Video Nasties - clorenzo
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-03-21/google-s-video-nasties
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fareesh
I get the argument that corporations ought to take responsibility for where
their money goes, but I feel like this is a bit similar to if I buy a cookie
and the cookie baker buys a house and the former owner of the house buys a gun
and kills some people - is it reasonable to hold me partly responsible for
contributing to it? Should we want that level of control in our lives? What's
the average degrees of Kevin Bacon between someone and an unscrupulous person?
Do we reserve this kind of judgement for felons or white collar criminals as
well?

From what I understand of online targeted advertising is that it's a way for
corporations to target the _viewer_ , as opposed to the video they are
watching. I have a diverse array of interests and watch a whole bunch of
videos on YouTube on a variety of subjects. I am not defined by a single video
or channel.

As per my understanding, I am the commodity. If I am a history buff and I want
to watch an Adolf Hitler speech for academic reasons or just curiosity, by
casting aspersions on the channel or the video, you are effectively casting
aspersions on me! Is the value of my time tainted because of one video or
channel?

In my experience, when I look at something on Amazon, I invariably see an ad
for it later on on some other site. It's clear to me that this is a connection
between Amazon and me via the ad network. It puzzles me as to why there seems
to be this outdated mentality about how this works, which incorrectly
associates the ad with the page instead of the user.

~~~
skywhopper
I think there's two factors at work here. Number one, the ad buyers have a
brand image they wish to control, and therefore they have an interest in
ensuring that their brand is not associated with content they think would
tarnish their image. Even if every ad-viewer consciously knew that the ads did
not imply endorsement of the content, there are subconscious factors to
consider (factors which form the basic premise of a huge percentage of
corporate advertising--eg that positive subconscious associations with brand
imagery is one of the purposes of advertising).

Second, this is a (needed) power play on the part of ad buyers. Google has
growing control over huge swaths of online and mobile advertising. Ad buyers
need to push back, questioning the value of this sort of advertising and
demanding more control over where their ads are displayed. Why should they
trust Google to do the job of deciding where their ads belong for them? Google
has proven time and again that they trust their own AI and machine learning
tools far more than they should. And the longer they wait, the worse it's
going to get.

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Someone1234
The ironic thing is that this creates the very problem it seeks to solve...

If advertisers have no control over which content their ads appear near then
they can legitimately claim, when criticised, that they are unable to pick and
choose.

By giving advertisers control, when criticised, the critics can use that same
control in order to pressure advertisers to limit ads to inoffensive content
only (which, frankly, is almost nothing anymore).

But with the direction "being offended" has taken (i.e. someone on twitter
will take offense to anything, and they feel they have a legitimate right to
never feel offended) it won't be long before most content is inaccessible.

~~~
nl
_But with the direction "being offended" has taken (i.e. someone on twitter
will take offense to anything, and they feel they have a legitimate right to
never feel offended) it won't be long before most content is inaccessible._

I dunno. I find Nazis, cat torture videos and pro-ISIS propaganda offensive.
But you are right, clearly free speech must be protected at all costs and even
made profitable, and clearly it being remove from YouTube and no longer
subsidized by major brands advertising would be a huge set back for it.

Maybe people could go to NaziCatTorturers.com and pay to see it or something.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I'm not sure why you were downvoted, hyperbole maybe. But you raise a very
valid point. People are using a "slippery slope" argument to justify
supermarkets indirectly funding terrorist groups by way of sponsored
propaganda videos. Advertisers should absolutely have some choice over how and
where their adverts are shown.

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kbenson
_In reality, they don 't really want to clamp down since more controls reduce
ad inventory and add to their costs. (As Gadfly colleague Shira Ovide points
out, the tech giants' biggest enemy is hubris.)_

That seems forced. I understand it's a link to another article that they
wanted to include somehow, but it's specifically not hubris if they have a
valid reason, and _as just stated_ it's because it reduces inventory and adds
to their costs.

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alphonsegaston
YouTube also just had a big pushback from the LGBTQ+ community because they
quietly instituted a feature that (unevenly) blocked videos having anything to
do with being LGBTQ+ as "objectionable."

[http://teneightymagazine.com/2017/03/19/youtubes-
restricted-...](http://teneightymagazine.com/2017/03/19/youtubes-restricted-
mode-limiting-lgbtq-visibility/)

They've walked it back with "our algorithm went overboard," but I wonder when
people are gonna stop buying this excuse. If the automated system you put in
place serves extremist ads or deems a whole class of people as objectionable,
that's on you.

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SurrealSoul
I wonder if front-loading advertisements is the future. Drinking your
verification can before you get on the YouTube ride.

~~~
noxToken
I know stuff like this is usually noise, but this 4chan[0] image is super
relevant to this comment. If you weren't specifically referencing this, color
me impressed.

[0]: [https://imgur.com/r/4chan/dgGvgKF](https://imgur.com/r/4chan/dgGvgKF)

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randyrand
It's google's platform and they can do what they want, and I have little issue
blocking actual racists. But, banning hate speech (correctly) stopped any ad
revenue from going to Tommy Sotomayor, a black man who grew up in the poor
south and who talks about black issues. The problem: He's very critical of
black people/culture, issues he personally faced growing up.

The algorithm works in this instance. His speech is hate speech by most
definitions of the word. But that's the main problem. Hate speech includes
reasonable hate!

If I had it my way, reasonable discussion about a culture should never be
blocked. Even if it's hateful. Hate should not be banned, otherwise people
will vent their hate in worse ways.

Here's his channel if you're curious:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/sotomayortv2](https://www.youtube.com/user/sotomayortv2)

Example video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycYDUCGi7no1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycYDUCGi7no1)

~~~
gpawl
How can you say "He's very critical of black people" in tht wording with a
straight face, after acknowledging that he is black too? The point is that
there's a difference between saying "I hate this person and the thousands like
her who behaving this way" and "I hate black people because they behave this
way".

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pjc50
Is this related to the "restricted mode" fiasco with its over-broad
restriction on LGBT content?
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/03/21/youtube-
rev...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/03/21/youtube-reverses-
restrictions-gay-themed-content-following-uproar/)

~~~
tunocina
What's the real deal with "restricted mode"? I don't think they care too much
about people having to sign up to be able to watch a video. Do restricted
videos show no ads? I can understand certain businesses not wanting to see
their ads displayed next to some BDSM gay parade, LGTBI++ propaganda,
beheadings or other extreme violence, etc. In that case, if they show no ads,
why host them at all, if they can't cover the bandwidth they consume?

~~~
DanBC
In theory restricted mode gives some control to parents who might be happy to
let their children watch Etho playing minecraft, but not RoosterTeeth Let's
Play playing minecraft.

In practice, and everyone knows this, filters fucking suck and either have
terrible false negatives and don't block awful content, or terrible false
positives and block stuff that shouldn't be blocked, or both.

That's nothing to do with this, which is that advertisers don't want their ads
next to people saying rape is ok.

~~~
tunocina
Maybe I'm confusing restricted mode with something else? I think it's this:
[http://i.imgur.com/Kne3CvL.png](http://i.imgur.com/Kne3CvL.png)

I don't think those restrictions are applied automatically. I believe they are
set when a video get lots of reports. Maybe it only takes a few reports to
restrict the videos, or maybe a human has to evaluate them before flipping the
switch. As much as filters suck (I agree with you), I think a few false
positives are worth it if we don't show a kid a video of some idiot saying
rape is ok.

But I don't use youtube much, so I might be wrong... that's why I ask. :)

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TACIXAT
In the finance category, so many posts are robo written now. If you Google
just about any ticker symbol you get a very unnatural reading post about its
recent movement. Just meaningless analysis that say nothing and recites some
ratios. I spend about 2 seconds on those pages when researching a company.

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reader5000
I think instead of these corps virtue signalling they should look at it this
way: a person might be watching jihadist content and descending to a bad
place, but then they see your sweet ass Mercedes ad and are like "fuck this, I
eschew my extremist tendencies and vow to join the Western consumeristic rat
race so that maybe one day I will have my own Merc and hot model friends
inside of it! USA!!" I mean standard lane assist technology? Thats way cooler
than using a shitty cell phone to blow up your clunky suicide vest.

