Re:YouTube reinstates Right Wing Watch
by amadeuspagel on Monday June 28, 2021 @08:03PM
(#27669920)
This is not a good comparison. Youtube without censorship wouldn't look any different to you, unless you are interested in the kind of stuff that now gets censored. Remember that youtube had barely any censorship for a long time. Did your recommendations look like 4chan then? The reason 4chan looks the way it does is the bumping algorithm, which promotes controversial posts, not just the lack of censorship. A platform where the frontpage is based on a recommendation algorithm wouldn't look like that, and in fact didn't look like that before it started censoring at this scale.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
YouTube without censorship would turn into PornHub in about as long as it takes to upload a new video.
Youtube has actually always had censorship. I found this from 2006:
> What kind of videos can I upload?
>> We accept any type of video content as long as it does not contain:
>>> Pornography or obscene material
>>> Copyrighted content (unless you own all the necessary rights)
>>> Hate or graphically violent acts
Without moderation youtube is unusable. It would be a defunct site within months.
How would it be unusable? I would still be able to click on links and watch videos.
If you could find the links and videos you want. An unmoderated IOU to the work kid be overrun with porn in seconds because 1. It’s YouTube and to upload porn at what was once a forbidden place is very appeal 2. Where porn can fit , porn will go.
Re:YouTube reinstates Right Wing Watch
by paulpauper on Monday June 28, 2021 @08:42PM
(#27670240)
Right. I think part of the problem is the recommendation algo. Reputable brands do not want their videos to be linked to more questionable content . The problem is, extreme political stuff does not generate much $, so YouTube does not stand to lose much much by purging it.
I understand what that argument is asserting and I'm sure that brands believe it, but as a consumer of YouTube content I just don't think it's true. I have absolutely no association between the YouTube ad that plays and the content of the video. Maybe children and older people used to traditional tv make that association? I just find the whole argument frustrating personally.
A majority of respondents disagree with you. Advertising placed next to offensive content has a negative effect on brand perception.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/698821/influence-offensi...
The companies that buy ads are vain and obsessed with cultivating a brand image, and Google is more than happy to indulge them. It doesn't matter that nobody is actually going to get outraged and stop shopping at (e.g.) TJ Maxx just because a game streamer said the word "die", it only matters that TJ Maxx bought the ad and the managers can be reassured that they've mitigated their risk.