
YouTube is still restricting and demonetizing LGBT videos - venturis_voice
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/4/17424472/youtube-lgbt-demonetization-ads-algorithm
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annexrichmond
> We use machine learning to evaluate content against our advertiser
> guidelines. Sometimes our systems get it wrong, which is why we’ve
> encouraged creators to appeal. Successful appeals ensure that our systems
> get better and better

There's been bad press about this for months now. People with conservative
viewpoints claimed to be facing similar issues

The cost of a false positive seems extremely high. Why would they depend on ML
for high influencers?

~~~
methodover
That same quote jumped out at me too. In another sentence they say they don’t
have a list of words that trigger demonetization.

Well, YT, you do.

It’s just in your ML model. You let a pattern recognition algorithm create the
list for you.

(Yes it’s not quite just a list, but still.)

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ButterflyWar
> We use machine learning to evaluate content against our advertiser
> guidelines.

This means Google violates civil rights law by maintaining a list of
phrenological behavior based on racial, sexual, and demographic data.

Advertisers choosing videos to show up in also means selecting which videos to
filter out. This means Google has a list of acceptable behavior for blacks,
gays, and women to perform such filtering.

~~~
EpicEng
>This means Google violates civil rights law

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe sexual orientation is a protected
class. Are there other statuses which would make this behavior illegal?
Obviously IANAL and don't really know what I'm talking about here.

~~~
jrhurst
I think OPs jump in logic means if you can filter ads on sexual orientation
then the same tooling can be use to attack protected classes.

~~~
EpicEng
Perhaps, though they are lumping in "sexual [orientation]" with race and
gender. I also unaware of any cases of potential violations against a
protected class.

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fdsafaew
"Our machine learning algorithm got it wrong" is the corporate version of when
a kid blames their own bad behavior on an imaginary friend.

Sorry but you're the one running the ML algo. And if it fucks up, you're
responsible.

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lithos
The ones that stay monetized are getting targeted by anti-lgbt group
advertisements. Which of course spawns "let's react" videos, which are
hilarious in a life gives you lemons kind of way.

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willio58
Obviously there needs to be more evidence but it seems quite possible the word
transgender triggers demonetization, at least in these cases.

~~~
toasterlovin
I agree there's a good chance that's true, but probably not because somebody
at YouTube flagged the word 'transgender'. But instead by some convoluted
second-order effects of whatever algorithm they're using to automatically flag
stuff.

~~~
pedromsilvapt
IMHO, that doesn't matter much. Algorithms shouldn't be above the law. If a
company creates an algorithm, it needs to make sure it follows the law.
Companies use this excuse on ML _we don 't know why it is doing what it is
doing_ is BS. Machine Learning, despite what the popular media might like to
say, is not sentient AI. It does not have free will. It does what it is
trained to do. It is predictable. It is testable. I understand that AI allows
companies to chew through quantities of data that would cost thousands of
human operators' salaries otherwise. But if the company gets to reap the
profits of the AI, then it needs to take responsibility for it too.

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megaman22
The only reasonable thing would be to only restrict things that are actively
breaking the law. Of course, that runs into breaking _whose_ law, but I don't
want to digress.

Maybe filter your advertising platform better, if your advertisors have
oppinions. That's not maybe the easiest thing, but YouTube has hundreds of
people to throw at forced requirements, and I'm a single person at a small
company that gets these requests daily, and my give-a-damn is busted

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cecja
To be honest it's a business move lots of the LGBT Pro or Contra videos have a
lot of say the least "controversial" comments on youtube.

~~~
fdsafaew
You can justify any shitty thing by saying "It's just business."

I think we all know it's a business move. Doesn't make it right. When Milton
Friedman said "the business of business is business" or something to that
effect, he was wrong.

~~~
cecja
You can. It is their business to satisfy their customers (advertisers) and the
advertisers don't want to be seen in a political light or near hateful
comments and trolls. It is totally understandable why they would do it.

~~~
fdsafaew
Totally understandable. If you have no sense of social responsibility.

Edit: On second thought, you may have a point, and this is more nuanced than I
thought. There are a lot of topics advertisers don't want to be associated
with (violence or terrorism) and we expect youtube to filter these out. We
don't expect the advertiser to filter these on their own.

If you ask me, transgenderism is not anything like violence or terrorism, in
terms of its controversy. But I realize some people disagree.

I think it's impossible for youtube to accomplish this without having some
kind of political stance. That would piss people off. But considering Google
has already stated they are pro LGBT, you'd think they would avoid penalizing
the transgender videos this way. Let advertisers filter out transgender videos
on their own.

There is no substitute for judgement, however. Youtube can't be impartial.

~~~
cecja
Yeah, it's so sad that an important topic like that is overrun by trolls.

