Couple of key insights were,

Comment count strongly correlates with higher rankings

Average length of first page video is : 14 mins 50 secs

I would say, if someone starts a new Youtube Channel today with original content. Unless it is >10 mins (purposefully not being succinct), cautiously scripting the content to encourage comments (which are likely to be off-topic, polarising, memes, sarcasm etc.); then there's no way the video is going to be on first page (or) gain large subscribers.

[1]:https://backlinko.com/youtube-ranking-factors

Edit: Added /n for insights

Robotrolling https://www.stratcomcoe.org/robotrolling-20183

I wonder what a script for an action movie would look like if it was just based off of statistics of all the previous action movies. Probably watchable.

Have you seen the Transformers movies?

> ...Probably watchable.

See above.

That was part of George Orwell's point.

I wonder what a script for an action movie would look like if it was just based off of statistics of all the previous action movies. Probably watchable.

We could probably get some great comedy out of it!

EDIT: Come to think of it, just how hard would it be to use Deep Learning to create superhuman virtual Instagram models? I think we're closer to that than to self driving cars.

Come to think of it again, what about virtual Logan Pauls?

Edit: Typo

"YouTube Executives Ignored Warnings, Letting Toxic Videos Run Rampant"

The company spent years chasing one business goal above others: “Engagement,” a measure of the views, time spent and interactions with online videos. Conversations with over twenty people who work at, or recently left, YouTube reveal a corporate leadership unable or unwilling to act on these internal alarms for fear of throttling engagement.

Wojcicki would “never put her fingers on the scale,” said one person who worked for her. “Her view was, ‘My job is to run the company, not deal with this.’” This person, like others who spoke to Bloomberg News, asked not to be identified because of a worry of retaliation....

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-02/youtube-e...

I think the video misses one basic point that so far youtube tries to fight fakes with technology instead of just limiting the number of videos uploaded or letting human moderators view the videos -- which would undercut their market dominance.

It is a lot easier to say, oh hey, we've got this technology and people are bad at their biases, instead for example, we're subsidizing this venture to gain market dominance so everyone is able to upload whatever on youtube, but with even this subsidy we are unable to do appropriate content moderation.

Foums and mail lists 30 years ago had that feature.

That sounds like solving shoplifting by making customers pay an entrance fee. The majority of youtube uploaders are not the same 50 celebrities that rule the trending page and make thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars per upload.

I'm amazed that people who's uploads regularly stay below 10 do upload at all, I'd be even more amazed if they started to pay serious money just to upload their daily morning chat. Personally, I tend to care more for what happens beyond the carefully selected trending page. The trending page summons my inner Kaczynski, the rest calms him down. I'd hate to see those people stop.

I still make a point that there should be some barriers of entry with humans (moderators?) as gatekeeprers to prevent the spread of this this kind of misinformation, and that would cost more money than what is happening now, it is up to youtube how they choose to recover that cost.

Trying to do some clever AI on videos after the videos are uploaded is trying trying to close the barn doors after the horses are gone.

That too, but my point was mostly that barriers would hinder the business. Even if people could afford to pay, they don't want to, and there will be a place next door where they don't have to. The problem will be solved insofar that the users migrate away, and take the problems with them - and the ad revenue ;)

> and that would cost more money than what is happening now, it is up to youtube how they choose to recover that cost.

Youtube _makes_ money off of this sort of manipulation, they have literally no interest in stopping it. They just want the PR problem to go away.

Though I see other areas.

I thought youtube uses deep learning for everything now?

HN has been having to deal with the in-authenticity problem too, maybe even moreso as of late. Solving it may require a concerted effort from all of us -- a vigilant watch by those who can see through -- those who not only take the time to flag inauthentic activity as they see it, but also educate others by calling it out and pulling back the curtain in a way that reveals its nature so more may become aware and learn to see it too. Discernment is a skill that can be learned when we are cognizant and vigilant and conscientious about paying attention.

Google, YouTube, and much of the current web is very easily manipulated by small but sizable and highly motivated fractions of the population acting together. It greatly over-represents the opinions of the extremes, particularly the voices which generate the most outrage.

Fear is the mind-killer. But we never knew the extent to which this could reach until it was combined with viral outrage. (Monetized and politicized viral outrage, to be precise.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

What his channel feed looks like: https://imgur.com/a/OqCIKlP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtWbpyjJqrU