I would normally love to dump on Youtube but not in this case in my opinion. YT are in no way obligated to provide emergency services and nowhere do they agree to this expectation. In my opinion someones life should not depend on the internet availability. Rather people should ensure they have a reliable phone to call emergency services. A dispatcher may be able to talk the person through some rudimentary CPR steps.
I would encourage everyone to get CPR certified as it can save lives in your home, with your friends and at work. Especially those with children should get and remain CPR certified. Also consider buying an AED [1] for your home and encourage your workplace to install AED's on each floor and get at least 10% of the staff CPR certified. AED's are super easy to use and most models will literally talk you through how to use them. There are usually discounts for training larger numbers of people and the trainers will come on-site with everything they need. The safety management teams should also find out if having {n} percent of people CPR certified will lower their corporate insurance.
Some CPR training companies can also do advanced CPR training including one or two days of on-site advanced didactic training. The knowledge provided by these courses can save lives especially when emergency services are delayed or otherwise busy with others and this knowledge can be used anywhere.
Wasn't YouTube acting as an authority on what was truthful or harmful content on their platforms and inserting warnings or (de)monetizing accordingly in the very recent past?
If they're evaluating at least some content for either accuracy, compliance, or veracity, then the implication is that content that isn't warned against is "trusted".
I'd argue that if YoutTube is going to inject opinions on trustworthiness of information, they should make it clear what content they're evaluating and what they're not so people don't make the mistake of assuming YouTube is a reliable source of information.
This is a good argument for them to stop issuing those warnings. It’s in their wheelhouse to serve the videos uploaded within the limitations of the law, but they are not a good authority on which of those videos is authoritative or correct.
I find this dicotomy absurd. Just because you're removing/editorializing some of the most outrageous false/harmful content out there, must mean that whatever remains must be true?
I agree... it's a bit ridiculous to put the burden of medical emergency services on a private tech company. If this is going to be a thing then that burden should be on the medical system of that country. They can pay to host emergency videos that are easily accessible.
Also, I don't want FAANG companies anywhere near medical health practice. It's bad enough with their stupid disclaimers on COVID and vaccine matters. It's not their place to be dictating these sorts of things.
I understand -- and somewhat agree with -- the sentiment, but I think they do have an obligation. I think you lose that card when you gain monopoly status.
If I've positioned myself to be the single place people know to search for such things (through extremely dodgey business practices, no less), then boo-hoo, I have responsibilities too now.
I don't think this is about obligations. This kind of stuff is about decency, it's about knowing the impact of your product on people and try to do the right thing without a fear of fine or jail time.
It's like choosing between having or not having addictive features for kids even if the law doesn't say anything about it.
> YT are in no way obligated to provide emergency services.
They might not be legally obligated, but it would be responsible to handle this case better.
Getting CPR certified is a good idea but if you get into a situation where you need to give CPR and you don't know or you panic and forget everything you've been taught then a YouTube video is likely better than nothing. You can't retrospectively get trained at that point.
Calling emergency services is preferable, but people panic and don't think clearly, emergency services are sometimes overloaded or not available, someone might have a device with internet but no phone capabilities... and no matter how or why you end up looking for CPR advice on YouTube it's better to show the video without adverts.
I agree, YT isn't obligated, but they could learn from this unforseeable incident, and in the future flag all emergency tutorial videos to be played ad-free.
There are many places where emergency services are non existent but people have access to youtube. So youtube might be the only option available to them.
> YT are in no way obligated to provide emergency services and nowhere do they agree to this expectation.
> I would encourage everyone to get CPR certified as it can save lives in your home, with your friends and at work.
It's curious to me that on one hand, you're very willing to cut YT slack and say that we should only criticize them for acting in explicitly illegal ways...yet you are willing to encourage individuals to take the responsibility to save the lives of the people around them.
Why shouldn't we also encourage YT as an organization to take steps that could conceivably save lives? It would likely be a nominal effort given Google's scale, and could have a huge impact.
Not to discount the value in individuals getting CPR-certified! I just think an action at YT's scale has the potential to be a large lever--relatively minimal effort for a potentially large impact.
I'm thinking of carrying an AED around in my car for others just in case.
Check with a lawyer in your region/state before doing this. Good Samaritan laws are not universal worded the same and my not cover things like using your AED or providing medication to others. Most of these laws would cover performing basic CPR. It's awful, I know. If you have someone with you have them call the emergency number for your region and note the time you started CPR. If you are trained in your workplace to use AED's and you are part of a workplace safety team then you would be advised if you are protected to use the AED on coworkers.
What's a good budget one to buy?
For personal AED's I would read all the negative reviews on Amazon as makes and models come and go. Mine isn't even sold any more so it's probably time to replace it.
Youtube will say "Oh, we can't pick and choose because then unscrupulous channels will tag their garbage videos as CPR and not get ads, or the search quality will go down."
This is utter BS, because we know they have the tools to boost or suppress individual channels, so YT needs to vet existing channels, and flag them as ad free or important for search. A channel and video that comes to mind is the Red Cross' CPR instructional video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eRwgM2Pa4o
You used to be able to tell YouTube you don’t want it to show ads on your videos nor to give you money in return. How you can’t refuse the ads[1]. Good news—you can still refuse the money! /s Presumably the Red Cross channel is from those earlier times.
Yep... they manage to find curse words, any mention of "the plague", anything on the "wrong" political side, and demonetize immediately... but asking for red cross videos to be on top and without ads is "too much" for them.
I think YouTube should make it easier, I even think it’s technically feasible to do it. but I also think the finger wagging is massively misplaced.
We shouldn’t punish folks or companies for doing something good just because they aren’t doing it even better. “No good deed goes unpunished” is not supposed to be a rule we intentionally follow! That’s the path to insanity, yet it seems like many people unironically believe it.
It occurs to me that this should actually be one of those searches that has a curated infobox above the search results, and probably including a button that calls emergency services since doing that is step 1 of every cpr training program I have ever taken.
The only "responsible" reaction from youtube would be to add a popup or notification when someone is looking for emergency videos that they should call emergency services and ask for instructions
This person called emergency services and then went on youtube. They didn't ask for instructions and the emergency service didn't think to offer it.
Why not actually make that feature mandatory on OS level? If it notices that you type how to perform cpr or any misstyping, immediately call emergency number and start showing a video stored in the OS itself. Why do Apple and Google want to kill people? Why don't they implement this sort of reasonable feature?
Like what? Call 112/911/999.. and then what? Car drivers here have to pass a first aid course, but that could have been decades ago. Except for waiting 10+ minutes for an ambulance, what do you expect people around the suffocating/dying/bleeding person to do?
Yes, youtube wasn't made for that, neither were phones made for watching videos, but since everyone has a phone and phones can show videos, and videos can show the "first aid with X" video, people will use them for just that.
yes, call your emergency services number, and they will instruct you on how to perform CPR if necessary and if you're willing. they'll also in many cases tell you not to do that, because performing unnecessary CPR has risks too, and just because you watched a youtube video on how to do chest compressions it doesn't mean the person in front of you needs chest compressions.
For the US, requiring a first aid course at all would be a good start.
To get any drivers license in Germany, you have to get first aid training. It is an ~8-hour, in-person class. It teaches the law (failure to render help is a criminal offense, as it should be), and a specific workflow. It does not start with calling emergency services; that's step 3). It does include checking vitals and when to do what. Every single student gets hands-on experience doing the stable lateral position, helmet removal an CPR (chest compression and mouth to mouth resuscitation).
No, unfortunately. In Germany, first aid training for the regular drivers license does not expire.
I would welcome mandatory refreshers every 5 years. Not just because people forget, but also because the best practices (legal and medical) can change over time and people should be kept up to date.
In California, DMV requires renewing the drivers license every 5 years, which requires a simple vision test and a knowledge test about the rules of the road. The knowledge test can now be substituted by a ~90 minute at home online training (short videos and quizzes). I think that would be a great model for first aid refreshers as well.
(On the other hand, to be fair, the mandatory trainings are mostly from an era where emergency services weren't always instantly reachable by anyone. And there isn't _really_ a reason why the drivers license in particular should require first aid training; accidents can happen anywhere.)
Unlike youtube, 911 is an emergency service. I used `etc` to describe other phone numbers that might be more appropriate for your country (999, for example).
> 911 etc will walk you through exactly what to do.
Assuming you can get connected. Youtube may well be more available depending on your location.
> Going to a site/app that rolls ads before videos should never be your first choice in an emergency situation.
People often panic in emergency situations and complex thinking goes out of the window. I don't blame anyone for needing to know how to do something quickly and reaching for the tool they use most regularly.
Since you call 911 anyway (hopefully) the person there is very likely trained in guiding you through the CPR / ventilation procedure - and will also be able to help you determine if you need to do chest compressions at all. I.e. the routine of "Check responsiveness, check pulse, check breathing (perhaps in an other order)
Check Pulse isn't a thing on any first aid course I've done in the last 10 years. Danger, Response, Airway, Breathing, then start pumping if they aren't breathing.
You can also install Red Cross First Aid application on your phone. (I am using Czech one so no specific recommendation.) I recommend doing it although I never had to use it.
It is amazing how many people spend most of their mental energy figuring out some way to defend the all powerful corporations. If as much mental energy were spent figuring out how to make the world better instead, then probably youtube could still make billions of dollars and figure out how to not delay CPR videos at the same time.
You’re the one putting them on a pedestal and calling them all-powerful. How much mental energy do people expend maintaining a hostile disposition to a legal fiction?
That kind of disposition is as bad for society as the kind that praises corporations and says they can do no wrong, and between the two types, you get a lot of truly terrible ideas that need countering on a recurring and frequent basis. In a competitive information environment, the side which refuses to defend what they deem to be “obvious” will erode over time.
Case in point: YouTube doesn’t even make the list for places I would recommend to learn CPR; it’s a for-profit entertainment website before it’s anything else–which is fine for what they want to be. The Red Cross is always at the top of the list though because they’re in the business of saving lives, which is what they want to be.
Third link on the homepage scrolling on my phone. That gives you some simple instructions on CPR, a video which isn’t playing for me because I can’t bring up the playback controls on my phone (they should fix that, it’s crap like this that makes people turn to YouTube in the first place), a zip code search field to find where you can get in-person training, and apparently there’s also an app which I went ahead and installed to my phone which provides you additional instructions and education on how to deal with various kinds of emergencies you might encounter.
It's amazing how many people are clueless about Math/Economics and the importance of profit generation that feed into next generation of innovation/employment.
A slippery slope towards what? Doing morally right things and making the world a better place? What next, the Heimlich Maneuver, dressing a wound, signs of heat stroke/treatment, etc.
The slippery slope is punishing YouTube for this, IMHO.
As soon as you require qualifications to help, you’ve now effectively outlawed good samaritans. I can see YouTube’s lawyers deciding to ban first aid advice on their platform if lawyers or regulators get involved (or even if the PR situation gets out of control).
And this isn’t some absurd hypothetical. At my work, they’ve gotten rid of all first aid kits in the buildings. You’re supposed to go to the clinic if you get hurt because they want to make sure the incident can have the correct paperwork done. This isn’t even a for-profit company that I work for, this isn’t to maximize profits or anything. It’s bureaucracy run amok, in the name of worker’s comp or OSHA safety or liability, the situation was made objectively less safe.
So don’t punish YouTube for this. Outrage at YouTube for this is going to make the problem 10x worse by cutting off first aid instruction on YouTube, and that’s not an exaggeration. Not every problem can be solved by drumming up outrage.
> The slippery slope is punishing YouTube for this, IMHO.
We are criticizing YT. Nobody is proposing "punishment."
> So don’t punish YouTube for this.
Wasn't suggested.
Seems like you're using this as a jumping off point to discuss other, largely unrelated, things. You're also using the term "outrage" in a way that makes me think it is a trigger word for some kind of in-crowd.
> As soon as you require qualifications to help, you’ve now effectively outlawed good samaritans.
Every Good Samaritan law I know of specifically says that we avoid punishing people trying to help provided they weren't trying to benefit. Try to help someone and make a mistake? Generally, AIUI (IANAL) you're unlikely to be held liable. Offer to help if they pay you and mess up? You get to be liable. Showing ads is a profit motive; if YT wants to be a Good Samaritan they can do it without ads.
Disclaimer: IANAL so I could be wrong about the legal bits, but I think the ethical basis works.
A slippery slope towards forcing private businesses that have no foot in the realm of healthcare to enact healthcare.
I have no idea how you're coming to the conclusion this is a morally justifiable action to take. It sounds like you just want a party to blame for your own ineptitude and lack of personal responsibility.
It's not the responsibility of a tech company to save your life, nor should it be. Mandating something like this is just asinine.
If my grandma would have waited till black fridays 50% off before choking to death maybe i would have had the money to save her, what an unconsiderate bitch.
Yes, if you can possibly save a life using Youtube, then there is a moral imperative pay for it so you won't be delayed by ads. I understand that maybe not all people have the means or are unbanked. The best route to universal Youtube is to fund it through government taxes.
I think they do recurring periodic subscriptions fees. It isn’t like a coin operated juke box. It is the healthcare duty to subscribe now before the emergency need.
Other procedures for single purpose use case often end up being inefficient, ineffective and expensive to maintain. Relying on existing infrastructure makes sense.
Even if there were no ads you're going to get four and half minutes of radio-dj style commentary at the top of the video to increase the length -- to optimize for The Algorithm.
"If this video helped you to save a life, don't forget to SMASH that Like button and MANGLE that Subscribe button! And buy our merch! We're offering streamer-branded fire extinguishers this month!"
Interesting. I hadn't considered why so many content creators add an intro theme song and animated graphics and a mini ad demonstrating how to subscribe etc. I hadn't considered this is all just padding to increase the length for recommendation optimization.
Matthias Wandel is a 'creator' I can easily recommend to anyone on HN (actually, iirc he's here too - early RIM (Blackberry) engineer) - especially his 'random stuff' channel now that it has a clearer separation.
Like many channels it used to just be a 'second channel' for lower quality/didn't make the cut/not expected to be popular sort of videos, at least by my viewing and understanding. But more recently his 'main' channel has focussed on the woodworking, and random stuff has been almost entirely the experiments (sometimes bridging the gap with woodworking, like testing woods or glues in various ways), electronics, etc.
Not to say the main channel isn't great, just only if you're into watching woodworking on YouTube perhaps, whereas I think most people reading HN comments would generally enjoy 'random stuff'.
Sorry I just agreed and it got me thinking and I commented without really drawing the link.
Insert at index 0 something like: I agree completely, so many otherwise enjoyable channels are worserned for me by this sort of thing. One I do enjoy immensely however, not least because it is devoid of nonsense and gets to the point, is Matthias Wandel.
What if someone who needs CPR googles for a CPR tutorial, and gets a bad one?
What if it's not wrong exactly, it's just really bad instruction, it's confusing and takes too long. Maybe it's accidentally confusing or misleading. Maybe it's _old_ and best practices for CPR have changed in some way since it was created.
Is YouTube liable for allowing such a thing? I mean, legally we know that _currently_ there are probably a variety of reasons they aren't, and it's anyway a different question _legally_ than of putting ads before a (presumably high-quality?) CPR instructional video.
But ethically? I think this example shows... it's kind of crazy to hold YouTube responsible for making sure someone succesfully gets access to an instructional video on CPR in the moment of actually needing CPR, _and_ that eliminating ads before CPR instructional videos would actually just be _part_ of that if we did consider them responsible. They'd also have to make sure that someone searching actually found a correct and high-quality best practices instructional video, right? Which also seems unreasonable. I think it's unreasonable to expect that YouTube should provide emergency material in the urgent moment of need, that's not what YouTube does.
People need to watch more Doctor Mike! Chest compressions, chest compressions, chest compressions! Although I don't think he translates his content to Dutch...
Seriously though, call emergency services and they will walk you through CPR while sending help. YouTube is not an emergency service.
If you have Dutch set as your language on YouTube you may not see him much since he doesn't make Dutch content. I also hear Dutch is the easiest language to learn if you speak either English or German because it often lends from both. I wonder what percentage of Dutch set their browser to English?
Yep. If you're going down the road of suggesting a private tech company that has nothing to do with medical health should be coerced into providing ad-free medical videos... well then it's perfectly reasonable to point the finger at a news site throwing ads at us. In fact, why can't I get to a CPR video through ed.nl???? They ought to be providing me up to the minute health streaming CPR videos just in case I go in to sudden cardiac arrest.
Not quite - youtube is not an emergency service, so should not be expected to act like an emergency service. However, the european cookie law says that opting-out should be as simple as opting in, and so the news website should be expected to have a one-click opt-out :P
it's completely unreasonable to complain that a site which doesn't promise emergency first aid instruction doesn't do a good job at providing emergency first aid instruction.
pornhub also didn't help me learn how to perform CPR. should we be outraged about that too?
When you Google for emergency CPR tutorials it is not giving you videos designed by their creators as instructions for learning some CPR during an emergency. It is giving videos designed for learning CPR so you will be ready for future emergencies.
Many of these will be unsuited for emergency use. For example the Red Cross CPR video someone else linked to takes almost two minutes to actually get to doing CPR. That's longer than the sum of the lengths of the video in the article and the ads.
It might be a good idea to have some videos specifically aimed at people who need to learn right away to deal with a present emergency (for a variety of things, not just CPR).
Searches for "emergency" or similar should not include those videos in the general results but instead should have a notice at the top of the results saying "If you are dealing with an emergency right now click here" which would take you to a page where you can click on what kind of emergency you are dealing with and it gives a curated list of videos, along with text instructions.
CPR is effective for certain types of conditions, in particular drowning or heart attacks. If you can keep CPR going until they reach the hospital, it can save a life and or reduce brain damage/improve recovery.
To this day, when there is "breaking news" I find a television, or at least a stream from a TV network. There's a time and place for everything. Youtube in a life/death situation is not that.
I believe YouTube would need to hand select such videos. According to Tubefilter 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. (2019 data) It's hard for me to see how YouTube can be held responsible for _anything_ that is posted. Not that some effort shouldn't be made, but the scope of the task is enormous.
Cannot believe people won't pay $10/month to be ready to save other people's lives. Fortunately, I care enough that I do that. But I cannot expect others to be as moral, intelligent, and handsome as I am.
To anyone reading this: do not fear, I believe your life is worth more than $10/month even if others do not.
So where would this end? Should all types of content that instruct how to act in any type of emergency be add free? And should the content creators be allowed first make some CPR or like intro and then other content? And have full thing be add free?
I still consider this not even half as bad as shoving ear-popping funky music ads down your earholes smack in the middle of some quiet reflective classical music.
People use the resources they know about and are familiar with, especially in a crisis. Off the top of my head, I don't know exactly where to find clear instructions on performing CPR. Sure, you can google it, but in the heat of the moment, where seconds matter, going to YouTube doesn't seem like the worst idea. Especially on mobile, where YouTube has an optimized experience.
This is why doctors and EMS professionals exist. I can guarantee that following random internet advice in emergency situations is going to make things a lot worse.
Next: If youtube is pressed for a statement on this what are the chances that it says something like "We serve adverts to give people the best experience with Youtube" or similar ?
More likely a special search case will be added that injects a small notification bar.
"It looks like you are looking for emergency assistance. We cannot guarantee the accuracy or usefulness of any of our community uploaded videos in the case of an emergency situation. If someone is having an emergency, we recommend calling your local emergency service at: [number] instead of looking for help here"
YouTube shows adds on videos even if they are not chosen for monetisation by the creator. Not all, but some.
They even show adds on channels which have not reached the viewership metrics required to apply to be allowed to monetise your content in the first place.
The only difference in these cases is YouTube keeps all the advertising revenue generated.
There should be an option for special case emergency videos. One's that don't play with ads and show up as top results.
The video would have to be reviewed before receiving said ranking.
I couldn't imagine a lot of uploaders would abuse this as they wouldn't get paid.
Of course the question is, what's in it for Google? You've probably noticed when you search a disease, it provides a nice result with graphics and dialogs. Although I don't know if they'd be interesting in preserving that image over to Youtube, as that place is a cesspool for content creation, whatever that means...
Why only phones? Why not desktop OS too? Why not have each Linux monitor all written text and even keep mic open and if relevant terms are noticed automatically launch some tutorial or information. Locally stored of course as there isn't always Internet available.
Might even make sense to stream it to some central AI service so we can ensure that it really gets triggered?
YouTube being used as your source of emergency medical information is an edge case. Certainly isn't a routine or even tertiary use case for the place where we watch reaction videos and SNL clips.
You don't ask book stores to provide quick access to medical books in case of an emergency.
College lectures, cooking videos, work out instructions, car repair instructions, guitar covers, I could go all day.
It is a video sharing platform, and the most popular one at that. Entertainment might be the most popular use case of the site, but it's still a tool for accessing information.
>You don't ask book stores to provide quick access to medical books in case of an emergency.
Of course not, the person would be dead before you got there lol.
My whole argument is that YouTube is very often used as a tool for quickly accessing information, so it would be really beneficial to provide something that could save lives, what is the problem with that? From a business perspective, it might even be a good PR stunt.
I would encourage everyone to get CPR certified as it can save lives in your home, with your friends and at work. Especially those with children should get and remain CPR certified. Also consider buying an AED [1] for your home and encourage your workplace to install AED's on each floor and get at least 10% of the staff CPR certified. AED's are super easy to use and most models will literally talk you through how to use them. There are usually discounts for training larger numbers of people and the trainers will come on-site with everything they need. The safety management teams should also find out if having {n} percent of people CPR certified will lower their corporate insurance.
Some CPR training companies can also do advanced CPR training including one or two days of on-site advanced didactic training. The knowledge provided by these courses can save lives especially when emergency services are delayed or otherwise busy with others and this knowledge can be used anywhere.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_external_defibrillat...