Skip to content

As disinformation and hate thrive online, YouTube quietly changed how it moderates content

Technology
39 17 1
  • You're either very young, or very dumb. It is known that every low-moderation platform quickly devolves into nazism and/or child porn.

    This person is just looking for an excuse to continuing censoring those he disagrees with.

    He likes the abuse of power because it suits his agendas.

    He doesn't know he's causing more harm than good, though. And I don't expect him to learn.

  • So I can say the words "uBlock Origin" without getting banned? Right?

    No, you can peddle hate speech, if you also make videos on why taxes should be eliminated, and how worker's movements and unions are "negatively affecting the right to work" (according to a former Google employee I knew).

  • I made some comments on YouTube over the last week about LAPD and Israel, and all of them have been deleted without notice. Not even a warning of "hey you aren't allowed to talk about that" or "you violated a mysterious rule sometime"

    It's the YouTube automoderation system.

  • I don’t see the issue. This is how it was in the early days and things were infinitely better. I’m convinced that the overly paternalistic moderation that overtook online platforms what was gave power to the alt right in the first place.

    All online spaces could do with less moderation.

    wtf you talking about. they have been favoring right leaning everything for as long as i can remember.

  • "Your claim is only valid if you first run this elaborate, long-term experiment that I came up with."

    The world isn’t binary. When someone says less moderation, they don’t mean no moderation. Framing it as all-or-nothing just misrepresents their view to make it easier for you to argue against. CSAM is illegal, so it’s always going to be against the rules - that’s not up to Google and is therefore a moot point.

    As for other content you ideologically oppose, that’s your issue. As long as it’s not advocating violence or breaking the law, I don’t see why they’d be obligated to remove it. You’re free to think they should - but it’s their platform, not yours. If they want to allow that kind of content, they’re allowed to. If you don't like it, don't go there.

    You can also look into the long, long list of defunct instances because they got defederated by basically everyone because noone wanted to deal with their shit. Hexbear and lemmygrad don't care if they're defederated because they're platforms to themselves, the instances I'm talking about were basically 4chan, kiwifarms, whatever, chuds getting banned on ordinary instances setting up their own and trying again. When that didn't work the instances collapsed as harassing others was their only purpose.

  • I don’t see the issue. This is how it was in the early days and things were infinitely better. I’m convinced that the overly paternalistic moderation that overtook online platforms what was gave power to the alt right in the first place.

    All online spaces could do with less moderation.

    Hello, I was in the "good old days" of the internet. It wasn't the "right-libertarian utopia" that right wingers like to paint it was. Sure people believed in "free speech absolutism", usually until someone whose first "forum" was 4chan, who demanded the same kind of "freedom of speech" they had over there. Also those 4chan bastards were extremely hypocritical with their own "free speech absolutism", as the moment they got doxxed instead of someone they disagreed with, they either backpedalled, just cried like a bitch online, or rarely literally went that they only meant the free speech for themselves. People who actually lived in those days on the interne,t and weren't just heard about it some zoomer internet historian or someone whose first "forum" was an anonymous image board know that 4chan marked the end of the old internet, and marked the beginning of the centralization era (4chan sucked up some traffic from fan forums, similarly to what Facebook did later).

    What actually is happening is that if you also peddle the right kind of economic policies for Google, you get whitelisted for hatespeech, meaning moderators are only allowed to act on your hatespeech after consultation with the higher ups. Talk about uBlockOrigin? Banned! Talk about how fascists are cruel in the comment section? Your comment is insta-deleted without explanation by the YouTube automod system. Demonize trans people? Wanna call "bad" black people n****rs? Want to talk about how all women are whores and deserve all their rights being taken away? Make sure you also bitch about taxes, how artists and other workers are "entitled", and write odes about how we need to "move fast and break things, ask for forgiveness later". Google will be happy to play "heel" for your "face" in case of "censorship", so you can have the facade of a freedom warrior.

  • You can also look into the long, long list of defunct instances because they got defederated by basically everyone because noone wanted to deal with their shit. Hexbear and lemmygrad don't care if they're defederated because they're platforms to themselves, the instances I'm talking about were basically 4chan, kiwifarms, whatever, chuds getting banned on ordinary instances setting up their own and trying again. When that didn't work the instances collapsed as harassing others was their only purpose.

    Nobody is asking for an unmoderated space.

  • Nobody is asking for an unmoderated space.

    Those instances weren't breaking laws. At least not American ones. It is not illegal to be an incivil assclown, but you are going to get thrown out of the bar.

  • Those instances weren't breaking laws. At least not American ones. It is not illegal to be an incivil assclown, but you are going to get thrown out of the bar.

    It’s not a place for incivility that I’m making, either. I just struggle to believe you genuinely don’t understand what people mean when they ask for less moderation or censorship.

  • It’s not a place for incivility that I’m making, either. I just struggle to believe you genuinely don’t understand what people mean when they ask for less moderation or censorship.

    I know what they mean when clutching their frozen peaches. It also never works out as they imagine because paradox of tolerance.

  • I don’t see the issue. This is how it was in the early days and things were infinitely better. I’m convinced that the overly paternalistic moderation that overtook online platforms what was gave power to the alt right in the first place.

    All online spaces could do with less moderation.

    Yep. I'm old enough to remember when online censorship was taboo. It's pathetic how far we have fallen. Now the normies demand it.

  • Yep. I'm old enough to remember when online censorship was taboo. It's pathetic how far we have fallen. Now the normies demand it.

    Its mind boggling that these are the same people who will claim the corporations are oppressing them but in the same breath they ask for seconds. The political tribalism is so great right now that people don’t even realize how contradictory their narratives and views are I guess.

  • Hello, I was in the "good old days" of the internet. It wasn't the "right-libertarian utopia" that right wingers like to paint it was. Sure people believed in "free speech absolutism", usually until someone whose first "forum" was 4chan, who demanded the same kind of "freedom of speech" they had over there. Also those 4chan bastards were extremely hypocritical with their own "free speech absolutism", as the moment they got doxxed instead of someone they disagreed with, they either backpedalled, just cried like a bitch online, or rarely literally went that they only meant the free speech for themselves. People who actually lived in those days on the interne,t and weren't just heard about it some zoomer internet historian or someone whose first "forum" was an anonymous image board know that 4chan marked the end of the old internet, and marked the beginning of the centralization era (4chan sucked up some traffic from fan forums, similarly to what Facebook did later).

    What actually is happening is that if you also peddle the right kind of economic policies for Google, you get whitelisted for hatespeech, meaning moderators are only allowed to act on your hatespeech after consultation with the higher ups. Talk about uBlockOrigin? Banned! Talk about how fascists are cruel in the comment section? Your comment is insta-deleted without explanation by the YouTube automod system. Demonize trans people? Wanna call "bad" black people n****rs? Want to talk about how all women are whores and deserve all their rights being taken away? Make sure you also bitch about taxes, how artists and other workers are "entitled", and write odes about how we need to "move fast and break things, ask for forgiveness later". Google will be happy to play "heel" for your "face" in case of "censorship", so you can have the facade of a freedom warrior.

    This is revisionism of the highest degree. Everyone knows Google et al were very heavy handed at dealing with any dissent with the liberal agenda, for the lack of a better term. Facebook fired Luckey Palmer because he supported Trump! That’s how far the tech industry went to protect left wing views and for the best part of the last decade.

    And no one is being allowed to say any of those words on any major social media. Hell my comment up there that says faggot would have gotten me suspended in all the major social media. So stay grounded and stop making shit up.

  • someone should make a dearrow but for moderation

  • This is revisionism of the highest degree. Everyone knows Google et al were very heavy handed at dealing with any dissent with the liberal agenda, for the lack of a better term. Facebook fired Luckey Palmer because he supported Trump! That’s how far the tech industry went to protect left wing views and for the best part of the last decade.

    And no one is being allowed to say any of those words on any major social media. Hell my comment up there that says faggot would have gotten me suspended in all the major social media. So stay grounded and stop making shit up.

    More and more often I see mainstream social media platforms letting people say slurs. A few days ago I literally say the F-slur on YouTube, while you cannot say "porn".

    Old internet weren't 4chans, kiwifarms-style doxxing forums! Just because some YouTube pseudohistorian said the old internet literally were composed of unmoderated image boards and forums, that doesn't make that true.

  • More and more often I see mainstream social media platforms letting people say slurs. A few days ago I literally say the F-slur on YouTube, while you cannot say "porn".

    Old internet weren't 4chans, kiwifarms-style doxxing forums! Just because some YouTube pseudohistorian said the old internet literally were composed of unmoderated image boards and forums, that doesn't make that true.

    No they weren’t but they sure as fuck weren’t banning people for slurs either except the few really socially unacceptable ones. It was a good balance.

    Also who’s the YouTube historian you cite? Because I was there too and I know exactly how it was. Lemmy has the right amount of moderation imo most of it enforced by users themselves as it should be.

    Also I’d like to add, since you keep bringing it up, that 4chan often had more stringent moderation than other websites because on-topic discussions were strictly enforced. Outside of the adult boards (I forget their name, blue boards was it?) stuff like gore, porn etc was not allowed at all.

    Fuck your paternalistic bullshit is all I have to say. Let people say whatever they want, let society decide what is acceptable or not. Not fucking corporations.

  • No they weren’t but they sure as fuck weren’t banning people for slurs either except the few really socially unacceptable ones. It was a good balance.

    Also who’s the YouTube historian you cite? Because I was there too and I know exactly how it was. Lemmy has the right amount of moderation imo most of it enforced by users themselves as it should be.

    Also I’d like to add, since you keep bringing it up, that 4chan often had more stringent moderation than other websites because on-topic discussions were strictly enforced. Outside of the adult boards (I forget their name, blue boards was it?) stuff like gore, porn etc was not allowed at all.

    Fuck your paternalistic bullshit is all I have to say. Let people say whatever they want, let society decide what is acceptable or not. Not fucking corporations.

    That's like bottom of the barrel kind of moderation. Even Kiwifarms has that much of a moderation even if they let people doxx others, but only if they're the wrong kind of people.

    Here's the problem with the whole "free speech absolutism" experience: People don't want to be told that they're wrong, not just when Trump supporters are doing that. You know why Trump is popular? Because people want to be told they're not racist if they have double standards towards "less trustworthy races". Because people want to be told it's okay if they drive their big trucks even to the toilet. Because people want to be told that their home remedies are much better, than vaccines. And people will go as far with this that they'll go after people who don't, often by doxxing or sending threats.

  • No they weren’t but they sure as fuck weren’t banning people for slurs either except the few really socially unacceptable ones. It was a good balance.

    Also who’s the YouTube historian you cite? Because I was there too and I know exactly how it was. Lemmy has the right amount of moderation imo most of it enforced by users themselves as it should be.

    Also I’d like to add, since you keep bringing it up, that 4chan often had more stringent moderation than other websites because on-topic discussions were strictly enforced. Outside of the adult boards (I forget their name, blue boards was it?) stuff like gore, porn etc was not allowed at all.

    Fuck your paternalistic bullshit is all I have to say. Let people say whatever they want, let society decide what is acceptable or not. Not fucking corporations.

    Well, well, well, it seems like "letting people decide what's okay and what is not" favors hatespeech every time...

  • That's like bottom of the barrel kind of moderation. Even Kiwifarms has that much of a moderation even if they let people doxx others, but only if they're the wrong kind of people.

    Here's the problem with the whole "free speech absolutism" experience: People don't want to be told that they're wrong, not just when Trump supporters are doing that. You know why Trump is popular? Because people want to be told they're not racist if they have double standards towards "less trustworthy races". Because people want to be told it's okay if they drive their big trucks even to the toilet. Because people want to be told that their home remedies are much better, than vaccines. And people will go as far with this that they'll go after people who don't, often by doxxing or sending threats.

    Oh for fucks sake, you keep using the same trite examples of shithole websites instead of looking at the place you’re at. I already told you, lemmy has a pretty good balance and this is where it should be as far as I’m concerned.

    I don’t know what people want to be told, but I can tell you the double standards very much apply to both sides of the aisle. Like this very conversation is proof of that because the modern day American “leftist”simply defines itself in opposition to MAGA.

    But even then I don’t even know why you bring that up because I’m not making an argument in favor of a side. You seem to imply that I do simply because the view I’m advocating for is often shared by the right, and because so much of the left is defined by being in opposition to MAGA then I must be defending MAGA or Trump; I guess the logic is that surely someone who disagrees with them will take every opposing viewpoint at any moment.

    The fact is that heavy centralized moderation simply lends itself so that corporations can enforce whatever are the views of the current government. Which is fine they are in their right to do so, it is a private network after all. But I’m not gonna defend it no matter if it’s left leaning or right leaning because it just doesn’t seat right with me being dictated by a corporation what is correct enough for me to hear and see, and I will always move to the platform that has the least amount of paternalistic attitudes towards its users. Thats it, that’s the bottom line.

    If you prefer heavy moderation and an enforced point of view of the world then that’s fine, there are plenty of social media networks with that approach. Just look at hexbear or r/conservative. No one is taking away your right to be dictated to.

  • Well, well, well, it seems like "letting people decide what's okay and what is not" favors hatespeech every time...

    This “study” is biased by design. But also even if it weren’t , one study does not prove anything. You’d need a lot more evidence than that.

  • 95 Stimmen
    1 Beiträge
    0 Aufrufe
    Niemand hat geantwortet
  • 456 Stimmen
    48 Beiträge
    9 Aufrufe
    L
    That's good to know, thanks.
  • Catbox.moe got screwed 😿

    Technology technology
    40
    55 Stimmen
    40 Beiträge
    16 Aufrufe
    archrecord@lemm.eeA
    I'll gladly give you a reason. I'm actually happy to articulate my stance on this, considering how much I tend to care about digital rights. Services that host files should not be held responsible for what users upload, unless: The service explicitly caters to illegal content by definition or practice (i.e. the if the website is literally titled uploadyourcsamhere[.]com then it's safe to assume they deliberately want to host illegal content) The service has a very easy mechanism to remove illegal content, either when asked, or through simple monitoring systems, but chooses not to do so (catbox does this, and quite quickly too) Because holding services responsible creates a whole host of negative effects. Here's some examples: Someone starts a CDN and some users upload CSAM. The creator of the CDN goes to jail now. Nobody ever wants to create a CDN because of the legal risk, and thus the only providers of CDNs become shady, expensive, anonymously-run services with no compliance mechanisms. You run a site that hosts images, and someone decides they want to harm you. They upload CSAM, then report the site to law enforcement. You go to jail. Anybody in the future who wants to run an image sharing site must now self-censor to try and not upset any human being that could be willing to harm them via their site. A social media site is hosting the posts and content of users. In order to be compliant and not go to jail, they must engage in extremely strict filtering, otherwise even one mistake could land them in jail. All users of the site are prohibited from posting any NSFW or even suggestive content, (including newsworthy media, such as an image of bodies in a warzone) and any violation leads to an instant ban, because any of those things could lead to a chance of actually illegal content being attached. This isn't just my opinion either. Digital rights organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation have talked at length about similar policies before. To quote them: "When social media platforms adopt heavy-handed moderation policies, the unintended consequences can be hard to predict. For example, Twitter’s policies on sexual material have resulted in posts on sexual health and condoms being taken down. YouTube’s bans on violent content have resulted in journalism on the Syrian war being pulled from the site. It can be tempting to attempt to “fix” certain attitudes and behaviors online by placing increased restrictions on users’ speech, but in practice, web platforms have had more success at silencing innocent people than at making online communities healthier." Now, to address the rest of your comment, since I don't just want to focus on the beginning: I think you have to actively moderate what is uploaded Catbox does, and as previously mentioned, often at a much higher rate than other services, and at a comparable rate to many services that have millions, if not billions of dollars in annual profits that could otherwise be spent on further moderation. there has to be swifter and stricter punishment for those that do upload things that are against TOS and/or illegal. The problem isn't necessarily the speed at which people can be reported and punished, but rather that the internet is fundamentally harder to track people on than real life. It's easy for cops to sit around at a spot they know someone will be physically distributing illegal content at in real life, but digitally, even if you can see the feed of all the information passing through the service, a VPN or Tor connection will anonymize your IP address in a manner that most police departments won't be able to track, and most three-letter agencies will simply have a relatively low success rate with. There's no good solution to this problem of identifying perpetrators, which is why platforms often focus on moderation over legal enforcement actions against users so frequently. It accomplishes the goal of preventing and removing the content without having to, for example, require every single user of the internet to scan an ID (and also magically prevent people from just stealing other people's access tokens and impersonating their ID) I do agree, however, that we should probably provide larger amounts of funding, training, and resources, to divisions who's sole goal is to go after online distribution of various illegal content, primarily that which harms children, because it's certainly still an issue of there being too many reports to go through, even if many of them will still lead to dead ends. I hope that explains why making file hosting services liable for user uploaded content probably isn't the best strategy. I hate to see people with good intentions support ideas that sound good in practice, but in the end just cause more untold harms, and I hope you can understand why I believe this to be the case.
  • 186 Stimmen
    18 Beiträge
    4 Aufrufe
    N
    Part of the reason for my use of "might".
  • How the Signal Knockoff App TeleMessage Got Hacked in 20 Minutes

    Technology technology
    31
    1
    188 Stimmen
    31 Beiträge
    6 Aufrufe
    P
    Not to mention TeleMessage violated the terms of the GPL. Signal is under gpl and I can't find TeleMessage's code anywhere. Edit: it appears it is online somewhere just not in a github repo or anything https://micahflee.com/heres-the-source-code-for-the-unofficial-signal-app-used-by-trump-officials/
  • 12 Stimmen
    3 Beiträge
    4 Aufrufe
    F
    The new Pebble watches look interesting. Relatively basic, but long battery life (they promise) and open-source operating system.
  • 0 Stimmen
    9 Beiträge
    5 Aufrufe
    kolanaki@pawb.socialK
    I kinda don't want anyone other than a doctor determining it, tbh. Fuck the human bean counters just as much as the AI ones. Hopefully we can just start growing organs instead of having to even make such a grim decision and everyone can get new livers. Even if they don't need them.
  • Discord alternatives?

    Technology technology
    4
    0 Stimmen
    4 Beiträge
    2 Aufrufe
    R
    XMPP is a standard and doesn't have mandated UIs. If you want a voice chat, then Mumble. It's very narrow, just for games.