YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem Is a Business-Model Problem

https://onezero.medium.com/youtubes-lgbtq-problem-is-a-business-model-problem-2b3cb3754b64

by tareqak • 7 years ago

101 147 7 years ago

onezero.medium.com

One of the big problems with machine learning algorithms at this time is that they have a hard time figuring out intent. A lot of the terms used by the LGBTQ community, have been used by homophobic people as slurs. Yes it is great that the community is reclaiming those words, but current ML tech has no way of distinguishing when those terms are being used by the community in a respectful manner from where they are used by homophobic people to promote hate.

This is also the case with African Americans, and there is a similar problem of machine learning flagging African American content as hate speech. https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/15/20806384/social-media-h...

The problem may be that we cannot depend on machine learning algorithms to do an acceptable job of moderation, and that a lot more humans need to be hired as moderates. However, doing that really changes the economics of the platform

mushufasa3• 7 years ago

What about crowdsourcing efforts? Why are user flags insufficient?

Why can't there be a balance between full automation and human review, such as an appeal system or 'whitelist' program? Are the economics really the obstacle, or is it more of a corporate stance towards not adjudicating subjective controversies to avoid liability under the Communications Decency Act Section 230?

lordCarbonFiber2• 7 years ago

The problem with crowd sourcing, especially in the LGBT space, is it's really vulnerable to brigading. Give particularly bored and hatful people a bat to shut down channels they don't like and things go south fast.

RcouF1uZ4gsC2• 7 years ago

What about crowdsourcing efforts? Why are user flags insufficient?

Because this will devolve into different groups flagging their opponents' videos. This will especially hurt the voices of minorities and other vulnerable populations.

grogenaut• 7 years ago

Read up on the term "brigading"... It's where a bunch of people usually try and sour a ml approval system for nefarious purposes or to enforce their opinions. Happens a lot with lbgtqia and gender issues in gaming. This is a difficult issues made harder because your going against intelligent opponents.

big_chungus3• 7 years ago

doing this really changes the economics of the platform

Not to mention that moderating this kind of stuff can seriously mess you up: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/19/18681845/facebook-moderat...

You end up looking at not just mean words but CP, seriously gory stuff, fringe sexual deviancy, and more. Do we really want to do this to moderators?

jakelazaroff4• 7 years ago

If YouTube can't protect its users, and the content people are posting is too distressing even for moderators, maybe YouTube shouldn't exist?

ralusek5• 7 years ago

Not to mention that people are biased and cannot be trusted to moderate ethically.

philpem3• 7 years ago

You make a good point - even humans have problems with context.

Classic example being that in some areas of the UK, close friends will greet each other with a joking insult. If you don't know they're friends or you don't have the verbal clues to work from (the 'I'm joking' intonation), it looks a lot like the start of a bar fight.

If humans can't get 100% accuracy on this - how can we expect it from business rules, machine learning and so on?

To pinch a line from ST:TNG, "Life is an exercise in exceptions".

Balgair• 7 years ago

However, doing that really changes the economics of the platform

Getting profit-loss data on Youtube is very difficult. If they are profitable, it can't be by a large amount.

So, if the plan is to have a LOT of real people just trying to monitor YT all day long it will really gut YT's economics, not just change it.

Destin of Smarter Every Day on YT went and talked to FB and their content mod team a few months back [0]. He talked with Rob Leathern of FB's Cyber Security Department. Rob mentiond that they now use ~30k real people to monitor FB. Soon thereafter, The Verge released a scoop on the horrific conditions these 30k people must endure [1] in that job.

YT would likely have to have a proportinate number of people in similar conditions as well, or likely scale up to make things less worse and then have to pay more people.

YT simply cannot possibly afford to have enough people moderate YT.

Likely, this version of YT will become something of a blip in history. All this investment will likely not pan out as the economics of video platforms like YT cannot work as they are today. The real question is what is the subscription amount that does make YT work the way we want it to work?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY_NtO7SIrY Also, watch Destin's body language with Nate Gleischer (~14:30 mark). It's so strange. Something wierd happened in that interview with Nate.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/19/18681845/facebook-moderat...

Animats• 7 years ago

Arguing that there's a right to get ad revenue from your videos is a big stretch. Has that ever come up before in the history of free speech? Classic issues are more like "can we make the newspaper run our ad if we pay the regular rates?"

Google recently won a lawsuit which complained YouTube was putting conservative content in "restricted" mode.[1] Others complain Google is not doing enough to avoid shoving too many extreme videos at people.[2]

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-google-youtube-c...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-br...

ppseafield• 7 years ago

It's not just about "not getting ad revenue". It's about accounts getting suspended, homophobic ads running on pro-lgbt videos, and a total lack of enforcement on their harassment policies.

https://twitter.com/gaywonk/status/1134264395717103617?lang=...

wyoh2• 7 years ago

I don't think it's a good idea to quote this asshole when the fuss he's made with his (former) employer resulted in the de monetization of thousands of channels, not only Crowder.

CapricornNoble• 7 years ago

"homophobic ads running on pro-lgbt videos"

There are homophobic ads on YT? What does that even look like? Can you link to an example?

Mirioron6• 7 years ago

The thing is that a lot of us saw this coming. Whenever people complain about how YouTube needs to remove X type of content, they also need to realize that if YouTube actually starts policing that type of content then there will be false positives. Since YouTube will do it algorithmically, the chance that there will be collateral damage is much higher and YouTube takes a long time to reverse decisions they've already made.

For example, YouTube doesn't want violent content. Just having the word "kill" in your title can get the content demonetized, even if the content is about a video game and properly categorized as such. It's been this way for years.

jakelazaroff4• 7 years ago

The point is that they shouldn't do it algorithmically. They need to have guidelines for what type of content is acceptable, and hire people to enforce them.

monocasa• 7 years ago

Or both. Have a scanner, but also have a meaningful appeals process, and you don't have a demonitized gap just because you were falsely flagged.

Mirioron6• 7 years ago

Then the costs of YouTube probably balloon so high that it doesn't matter for creators whether their videos are demonetized or not, because they aren't going to earn anything from them.

wolfgke2• 7 years ago

For example, YouTube doesn't want violent content. Just having the word "kill" in your title can get the content demonetized, even if the content is about a video game and properly categorized as such. It's been this way for years.

I think that this actully is violent content - so this is actually an example where the algorithm worked fine (which does not contradict your argument that there exist false positives - they are just a lot more subtle).

AndrewOMartin• 7 years ago

This video [1] about how to do the Charleston dance got demonetized, and there only hypothesis is because it had "Charleston" in the title a mere year-and-a-bit after the Charleston church shooting.

That's not exactly subtle.

I understand there could be other reasons for being demonetised, but it's hard to see what it could be in a very very inoffensive video about how to do a vintage dance.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdgCq1IGmsY

Mirioron6• 7 years ago

Is it really violent content when you're dealing with space ships with no humans or animals on board?

fareesh3• 7 years ago

What if monetized videos can't be viewed without spending "ad bucks"?

To earn "ad bucks", you have to watch an ad. The ad watching takes place in a dedicated ads section of the site, completely independent of all videos.

The vast majority of monetized videos would cost 1 ad buck, so watch one ad. The ad watching is just a giant "watch ad" button. The algorithm goes through all all the info about me and shows me a relevant ad, just like it does already.

If you want to opt out of ad bucks, you can just subscribe to that channel and pay some money. YouTube takes some, the creator gets the rest.

Why not just use this model instead of this politically driven sham that currently exists?

I'm the viewer, I'm the product. My attention has value - so why not let me to worry about what videos I want to support and leave the corporations out of it? YouTube is nothing without the viewer.

If YouTube is a platform and not a publisher, then they should act like the phone company. If I want to call some psychic hotline, just connect the call and take your cut.

zzzcpan2• 7 years ago

Ads don't convert if people are externally motivated to watch them.

perl4ever2• 7 years ago

It seems to me that some of the most valuable information for an advertiser would be what kind of ads someone will voluntarily choose to watch. Saying they may not convert is like complaining that you can't eat free money.

gnicholas• 7 years ago

Interesting idea. I think people would turn on ad mode and then go to the other room or switch to a different window. I definitely did this when Hulu (I think) offers the option to watch one long commercial instead of several short ones spread throughout the program.

fareesh3• 7 years ago

Users can already just swap to another window or block the ad outright.

In my view this should eliminate the ad blocking group entirely.

toomanybeersies• 7 years ago

Then I can just put ads on in the background while I'm cooking my dinner to save up ad bucks.

I guess the solution is to use some technology to ensure that the viewer is watching the ads, like in Black Mirror S01E02.

fareesh3• 7 years ago

There are simpler solutions like

Maximum ad balance = 3 ad bucks

Watching an ad requires clicking the watch button, so you can't queue them up.

People can walk away, minimize or block the ad even now.

coolblah• 7 years ago

This problem wouldn't exist if there was no "moderation" (which is censorship) at all.

rnd02• 7 years ago

4chan tried that; everyone knows how spectacularly that failed.

swebs• 7 years ago

Failed? It's doing quite well

tsukurimashou• 7 years ago

The problem is the same as our current society, some people will never get along, stop trying to put everyone in a single platform

zzzcpan2• 7 years ago

People generally can get along, it's just in certain countries there is this state pushed divide and conquer [1] that's been going on for way too long.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule

rhcom2• 7 years ago

Kind of like how police brutality wouldn't exist if there were no police at all?

greglindahl3• 7 years ago

How do you propose to pick the next autoplay video?

How do you propose making advertisers happy?

Easy to cry censorship; hard to address real business issues.

wyoh2• 7 years ago

Have advertisers select on what kind of content they want to appear instead of baring all ads for some creators? I'm sure some advertisers don't mind being associated with mature audience.

bjt2n3904• 7 years ago

Easy as all getout.

1. Don't have "autoplay". Make the user choose. Autoplay is not good for society. "Tip your head back, turn your brain off, and let the algorithm feed you what will keep you here."

2. Give the advertisers more fine grained controls on what types of videos their ads show on. If a stink goes up because Dove doesn't want to be on a PewDiePie video, then that isn't Google's fault. It's Dove's. Let the advertiser add PDP to the blacklist, or make a more exclusive whitelist.

It's like Twitter. "Oh, oh no... how do we stop people seeing all this awful content?"

A) Stop deciding for the user (and therefore the entire website) what is awful

B) Give the user better blocking controls.

However, this won't happen, because Google and Twitter like being able to shape what the "algorithm" shows you, and keeping that control in their hands. This is why the chronological timeline isn't coming back.

rimliu• 7 years ago

I hope after ditching war on drugs, war on sex/nudity will be next. The censorship artist has to do on their creations just to pass FB moderation is ridiculous. Like they are literally blurring the nipples only. Whom does it help? It just destroys the art. And I still cannot wrap my head around why nudity is so vilified and violence so glorified. It should be the other way around.

tareqak• 7 years ago

Here is a graph of how this thread trended: http://hnrankings.info/20709563/ .

username902• 7 years ago

Why would it do that? Did some moderator intervene?

pjc50• 7 years ago

Ironically, it's an opaque algorithm.

(Moderators will often, but not always, say if they've rescued a page. It's possible this got aggressively flagged off the front page and was rescued.)

makomk3• 7 years ago

Most likely a moderator intervened to stop it being algorithmically kicked off the front page - we're well over the threshold where the flame war detector normally kicks in and downranks submissions (roughly when it has more replies than upvotes).

paulnechifor2• 7 years ago

Honestly, a moderator should intervene. What's the point of linking to an article where you can only read 3 lines before paying?

pdkl953• 7 years ago

  s/(algorithmic|human) moderation/a rule of law/g

This mess will only get worse as long as Google insists on trying to fix unsolved social conflicts unilaterally. Google made themselves the primary target when they started to make decisions with large social consequences by fiat. They de facto implemented rule of man[1].

The solution is to not be the sole entity with the power to make decisions about unsolved social issues. Relinquish the power to make decisions about what kind of content is "acceptable" by implementing a rule of law managed by some kind of publicly accountable, transparent governance,

Google (and anybody else that controls something the public relies upon as infrastructure) has a ch9oice: keep the power to make socially-important decisio9ns and accept the blame and responsibility for those decisions, or abandon that power to make the whole mess someone else's problem.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_man

tomlockwood• 7 years ago

The solution is to not be the sole entity with the power to make decisions about unsolved social issues. Relinquish the power to make decisions about what kind of content is "acceptable" by implementing a rule of law managed by some kind of publicly accountable, transparent governance

They started making these decisions, because Capitalism.

They're publicly traded. Shareholders demand more profits. Advertising is the vast majority of their Youtube profits. Advertisers are risk averse. No fortune 500 company wants their ad running on white supremacist/violent/sexually explicit content. There is collateral damage, but caring about that only marginally increases profit.

mushufasa3• 7 years ago

All countries already have laws regulating speech to various degrees of freedom.

Google's need to comply with these laws is part of the genesis for the moderation (e.g. copyright protection, child pornography).

In fact, aggressive government laws for censorship are why Google chooses not to operate in China.

The topic at hand is about monetization of ads -- the "acceptability" of the content is determined by the ad buyers. Not some idea of social good -- it's just the market.

The problem here is about execution not policy. The plaintiffs argue Google's algorithms are not working as intended, not that their intentions are misguided.

Are you suggesting that Google should create additional authority to regulate itself beyond what is legally required and needed for their business? E.g. create some expert panel that can compel Google to censor certain content? That would create more problems than it would solve.

seanmcdirmid2• 7 years ago

Google was operating in China just fine even with censorship, they left because China started hacking gmail accounts. Some countries have much more rule of law than others.

pdkl953• 7 years ago

All countries already have laws regulating speech to various degrees of freedom.

This is mostly unrelated to what I'm talking about.

The topic at hand is about monetization of ads

That's one (important) aspect of "YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem", but it is not the only issue. As others have mentioned, some of Google's attempts to "fix" the problem have, for example, been used as a weapon by various hate groups to get LGBTQ channels deleted (not just demonetized), or by fascists to remove anti-fascist reporting.

the "acceptability" of the content is determined by the ad buyers

A big part of the problem is that this isn't actually true in practice. The "acceptability" of content is determined by Google's algorithm. They chose to use an opaque algorithm that they hope implements a very good approximation of what ad buyers consider "acceptable". As we've seen many times over the last few years, this has resulted in problems on all sides, including ad buyers.

it's just the market

"just" a market ignores that markets are created in an legal environment that can be modified (e.g. adding, modifying, or removing regulations or policies)

The problem here is about execution not policy.

The problem for Google is that they are choosing to have any policy at all. They are implementing opaque policies and thus are the only party that can be responsible for the resulting mess.

The plaintiffs argue

Not relevant to my point;' I'm addressing the fundamental problem with Google's management of youtube (or similar platforms), not any particular case.

Are you suggesting that Google should create additional authority to regulate itself beyond what is legally required and needed for their business?

More or less, yes. If decisions about monetization, video censorship, channel deletion, etc are going to be made, they need to happen through some kind of well-defined due process (aka being "ruled by laws"). Google could define that process unilaterally - which would be a major improvement from the current opaque and arbitrary status quo - but the best option would be to start some type of open/public entity/process for creating and managing what is meant by "due process on youtube".

create some expert panel that can compel Google to censor certain content?

That already exists! That panel is whatever group inside Google chose the algorithm(s) that has been demonetizing and/or censoring videos over the last few years. I'm suggesting that transparent, publicly accountable panel is better than a hidden panel of unknown Google employees. Yes, both types will have problems, but at least we can see and attempt to fix the panel when it is public.

jdietrich• 7 years ago

YouTube's changes to monetization didn't come out of nowhere - they were a response to the adpocalypse of 2017, when as much as 40% of advertisers stopped using the platform. These advertisers (perfectly reasonably) feared a backlash if their ads appeared next to the wrong sort of videos, so they just pulled their money. There was an outcry by YouTube content creators, so YouTube took sensible and proportionate steps to make the platform more attractive to advertisers without stifling free speech.

Savvy YouTubers (especially those who produce content that could be perceived as controversial) have taken control of their own revenues through sponsorship and patronage. YouTube doesn't have a business model problem - YouTubers do. You can't expect a platform to sell such vast amounts of ad inventory while also judging each piece of content in a nuanced fashion. That's the devil's bargain of algorithmic advertising and it isn't going away. If you don't like that bargain, sell your own damned inventory, or cut advertisers out of the loop completely and ask your viewers to make a direct contribution.

np_tedious• 7 years ago

You can argue about the sincerity of the statement, but Facebook / Zuckerberg appear to be firmly in the latter "someone else's problem" / "we don't want to make these decisions ourselves" camp: https://beta.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mark-zuckerberg-the...

I have not yet observed much progress towards these rules. The few "ministry of truth" style steps that have occurred don't exactly look promising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz

forgottenpass• 7 years ago

Google insists on trying to fix unsolved social conflicts unilaterally

I wonder what all this paternalism will do to society long term.

In the short term we mostly see the people who are agitated by being on the wrong side of popular opinion (or are just caught by hamfisted enforcement), or others who expect levels of protection they're still not getting. But that's just the exceedingly obvious parts.

Every social intervention risks unintended consequences, no matter how well intentioned and angelic the goals are.

Censorship in TV and movies have irreparably damaged our collective psyche for generations (e.g.: the most obvious and uncontroversial area to say it's warped us are in attitudes around sex).

Where does social media censorship go from here? And what effects will it have on the population at large over time?

yektaw• 7 years ago

No, no it’s not.

WalterBright• 7 years ago

I remember when it was just seven words you cannot say. Now, it's hundreds.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/08/15/2058257/advertisers...

lukaszkups• 7 years ago

Specifically, the lawsuit accuses YouTube of filtering, demonetizing, and otherwise limiting videos that deal with LGBTQ identities, making it hard for their creators to reach a wide audience and make money. The suit alleges violations of free-speech protections and civil rights, among other statutes, and seeks class-action status.

But the youtube isn't a public institution - it's a private platform - does that apply as well even if they would put e.g. banned topics/words in their terms and conditions document? (I'm just curious)

icebraining3• 7 years ago

They're making the case that YouTube is a "public forum", which would limit the owner's ability to regulate speech in it. I don't think that claim has much of a leg to stand on, considering the recent Supreme Court decision: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190617/16001942415/supre... and a previous decision by a lower court against YouTube itself: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180327/14362539515/court...

ejefz• 7 years ago

I'm sure those people don't have a problem with Twitter or Facebook banning conservatives.

plutonorm• 7 years ago

The root cause of this is a mismatch between capitalism and a well functioning, fair society. Again. The earth is dying, the population polarised and our social systems are failing to do their job. Something has to change. There must be another model out there that doesn't devolve into horror, as both capitalism and communism seem destined to do. We need to revisit the 60's only this time we need an actionable plan and the will to follow through or our children's children aren't going to make it. Don't balk at this, our structural problems are existential.

cromwellian2• 7 years ago

There's an assumption if you use human raters, you won't have false negatives or positives, but even human beings disagree over how to categorize speech, what's homophobic, what's legitimate sarcasm or irony, what is violent content.

In fact, on top of human raters exhibiting classification problems in the face of ambiguity, there is also the issue of bias. Radiolab on NPR had a great series on Facebook's human censors that shows it just opens up a different pandora's box.

There is no clear, non-messy way to do censorship that doesn't end up with a sizable number of people mad, and with some subset of people hit by accidental or deliberate false positives.

I'm afraid there's no easy answer and it will inherently be constant battle and fight between sides.

Fnoord• 7 years ago

The extreme/disgusting outliers (about which we reasonably can agree on) can be caught by an computer. That way, human beings can assess the (arguably) many gray areas.

ptah2• 7 years ago

possibly, they should have LGBTQ humans do the rating on what is homophobic etc

prometheus763• 7 years ago

No bias at all. Should work out great.

mieseratte• 7 years ago

I know LGBTQ people who are free-speech absolutist and others who believe that anything that may offend or otherwise may be used negatively should be censored. I know LGB people who think that the TQ+ should be peeled off and needs to be its own thing. There is no uniformity among LGBTQ, the only commonality is the lack of being hetero.

paulnechifor2• 7 years ago

Sounds like a conflict of interest. If someone gets sued for rape, the jury doesn't get filled with rape victims.

alwayseasy• 7 years ago

Isn't this the whole business model of media organizations? Humans classifying, censoring information that is harmful based on the media's definition? Youtube has proven unable to manage their algorithmic censorship many times.

buboard• 7 years ago

Paywall

icebraining3• 7 years ago

Finally found the actual court submission: https://www.docdroid.net/g7RXXi1/youtube-lgbtq-lawsuit.pdf

tu7001• 7 years ago

Is it a joke? In Poland, for example, Youtube, in wholesale, blocks channels which are criticize on LGBTQUERTY. The question is why the are able to censor content. I don't expect that my supplier turn off gas for me, if he thinks, that I use it to kill people; it's not his business, ot's the matter of law enforcement, the police, etc.

ChickeNES2• 7 years ago

Is it a joke?

No?

In Poland, for example, Youtube, in wholesale, blocks channels which are criticize on LGBTQUERTY.

YouTube is US based and hate speech is looked down upon in the US. Don't like it? Find a service not based in the US.

The question is why the are able to censor content.

It's a private website, they can do whatever they want. Again, find another site if you want hate content.

I don't expect that my supplier turn off gas for me, if he thinks, that I use it to kill people; it's not his business, ot's the matter of law enforcement, the police, etc.

???

A) if they know you're using it to kill people they would be an accomplice in the eyes of the law

B) they would have every right to refuse service

mikekchar• 7 years ago

Your gas vendor does (I hope) discriminate on the kind of gas that gets piped to you. It doesn't allow all gasses -- only certain gas. They are, in fact, in business to sell that certain gas and not all gasses. They go to a great deal of effort to ensure that you get the special gas, not on some random gas that a producer decided you might like to try.

Vendors always discriminate on what they ship to customers. It is never an open platform. I know it's very confusing, but Youtube literally says that you can only distribute certain kinds of things using their service and that they will block other things. I suppose they don't put it in 40 point font on their front page, but it's also not hard to find: https://www.youtube.com/t/terms (incidentally this came up in Japanese for me, so I suppose it might come up in Polish for you).

When people talk about freedom of speech and censorship, what they are talking about is society's role in gagging you. Generally speaking, usually countries don't force you to carry specific content (ha ha! Unless you are Canadian.... Canadian inside joke...), but likewise nobody is forced to carry all content, or accept all trade that might come their way. You are allowed as a business to choose what you want to do and who you want to do business with -- unless it's with a protected segment of society. That's a pretty basic freedom and someone who clearly values freedom as you do can surely see why it is important.

You might argue (to greater or lesser success) that Youtube is a pubic carrier and should be forced to carry everything for free... I suppose... But I'm betting you'll be in the "lesser success" category there. You might argue that your particular subgroup of people who criticise minority gender issues are worthy of special protection and therefore should have a protected ability to spread your message... I suppose... But seriously, I don't think you'll get very far with any of it.

From my perspective, I just think Youtube is within their rights to do what they want on this kind of issue. We may like it or dislike it, but it's the only sane way to handle it.

foldr• 7 years ago

Youtube doesn't actually censor anti-LGBT hate speech very effectively. For example, this asshole's videos are still up:

https://gizmodo.com/youtube-no-we-wont-remove-these-videos-o...

(And no, they're not blocked in Poland.)

wvh• 7 years ago

This is an example of how censorship can boomerang back into the face of those it tries or claims to protect. I think policing words and topics will have a negative impact in the long run for most situations. Simple AI (or even human censorship) reacts to words and not intent, and ends up actually suppressing the minority.

rdtwo2• 7 years ago

Truth is ad buyers don’t want to be associated with any controversial content and a majority of Americans still feel uncomfortable about Gay and lesbian issues and even more uncomfortable about transgender issues. It’s smart for advertisers to exclude lgbt content from their ads if they don’t think that’s a target demographic

YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem Is a Business-Model Problem

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