6 ms·

Google Plans to Vet YouTube Premium Video Content

37 points by tareqak 9y ago

blakesterz 9y ago
"the company recently announced it will have 10,000 employees focused on the task" I can't wrap my head around that number. How can that be true?
- timothy_yt 9y ago
  Here's the citation, from the Official YouTube Blog: "We will continue the significant growth of our teams into next year, with the goal of bringing the total number of people across Google working to address content that might violate our policies to over 10,000 in 2018." https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/12/expanding-our-work-against-abuse-of-our.html https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/12/expanding-our-work-ag...
- oh-kumudo 9y ago
  Contractor, like Call center employees. Probably from outsourcing firms. And, this number seems...low? Considering the sheer amount of videos upload even just from partners. I guess those platforms are growing so large and influential, censoring is inevitable now.
  - ribosometronome 9y ago
    Casually calling contractors employees to the press seems like a decent way to open yourself up to a employment status lawsuits.
    - gtirloni 9y ago
      The "employee" word is not mentioned in Google's post a single time.
- gm-conspiracy 9y ago
  Mechanical Turk.
- TrainedMonkey 9y ago
  "Google told partners that it plans to use both human moderators -- the company recently announced it will have 10,000 employees focused on the task -- as well as artificial intelligence software to flag videos deemed inappropriate for ads." They will record decisions people make as training examples and will use it to train ML models.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  This article made the round years ago and claims there were already 100,000 distributed across the world employed by Google, Facebook and other social networks. https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/ https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/
- gesman 9y ago
  Maybe most of them are not exactly google full time employees?
  - SeanBoocock 9y ago
    I would speculate most of these employees are outsourced workers from countries like the Philippines (see for a recent discussion of this: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/03/commercial-content-moderation/518796/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/03/comme...)
ronilan 9y ago
I’m not a vet, so I won’t comment on the subject itself, but on a related note, I always found “Google Preferred” to be a bizarre naming choice. Why would a global, and generally loved brand, use the name of another to market a product?
- fixermark 9y ago
  YouTube is owned by Google.
  - donatj 9y ago
    Even so. It’s a strange use of branding. It would be like Beats having a line of “Apple Preferred” headphones. In the eyes of many consumers they’re unrelated because they’ve up until now pushed very separate branding.
    - hobofan 9y ago
      > In the eyes of many consumers they’re unrelated because they’ve up until now pushed very separate branding. I mean we are both speculating here unless there is some data to prove our claims, but I would say that Google dropped any attempt at keeping the brands too separate when they introduced the Google+ comment section. The "Google preferred" also makes sense because all advertising that happens on Youtube is under the Google AdWords brand. There is no Youtube Ads, only Google Adwords for video.
    - dbbk 9y ago
      I don't think so. The advertising business is all named under Google, e.g. Google AdWords and Google AdSense. Even the YouTube-specific TrueView ads fall under AdWords.
- tux1968 9y ago
  I think it's about Google advertising channels -- with advertising decisions being the driver, not the quality of the content from the Youtube side. The main consumers of this designation are potential Google customers, not Youtube content creators or users.
mc32 9y ago
I don't know how many people (contributors) they have in these preferred channels --maybe they have overwhelming numbers so they have to throw unspecialized bodies at the issue. My feeling is that at some point they will manage the top tier of their premium contributors more like traditional content production. Idea people, writers, producers and someone who vets the output yay/nay and takes full responsibility for the release of the content. None of this "the views of [contributor] do not represent the values of our company" BS. Of course, that means more money, less profit but would make things for advertisers palatable.
- slivym 9y ago
  This seems like a defensive no brainer for youtube though. The classic cable business model is to get subscribers by financing top content that brings in viewers. If Disney opened a 'Mickey Tube' tomorrow with exlusive access to all the late show clips, several well-financed existing youtubers then how much of youtubes viewers would pack up and move over? So really this looks like Youtube maturing into a more traditional media business model. Of course they still have the risk that they suffer from the myspace phenomenom. Not sure they're really preparing or considering that.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kazinator 9y ago
YouTube. Well, when we say "you", we mean more like "we". Or, if you prefer, think of "you" as "TV". TV Tube!
lathiat 9y ago
This might sound silly, but working in these content moderation jobs must be painful -- dealing with a lot of constant negativity if not abuse, etc. In some ways, moderating all the good content might give you a break.. I imagine they probably won't cross with other such jobs though. As a society, online really seems to bring out some of the worst in people; and I figure there is not a set of valued peers around you to try and influence your behaviour for the better.
dbbk 9y ago
This is a strange headline, because the whole premise of Google Preferred is that it IS vetted. Now Google is admitting that it... wasn't? Or at least rarely.
- slivym 9y ago
  Google's entire tradition of content moderation has been to have accounts with privileges and then add/remove those based on content produced. Google Preferred wasn't a set of videos you could advertise on, it was a set of content creators you could advertise with. There was a watershed early last year when they realized that a relatively tiny number of videos could be picked up by traditional media and used to beat up youtube in the press. So now they're moving away from that. They're going to moderate every video. That started with the low cost: everything monetized goes through the iron fist of the Youtube demonetization wizard. Now for the high end content they can't treat people like that - because top talent has leverage. So the more the content is worth, the more they'll spend on QA. The fundamental doesn't change though - they're moderating the content not the creator anymore.
gimmeayrwlt 9y ago
Google vetting ? Oh please, google just could stop delete people's accounts for bogus reasons. Google do not want to give anybody freedom of speech, that's the fact. Same goes twitter and Facebook.. useless media sites if try to say anything else than "look me" "follo me" "support hillary" "clinton is innocent" all fake news!!

37 points by tareqak 9y ago

"the company recently announced it will have 10,000 employees focused on the task" I can't wrap my head around that number. How can that be true?

timothy_yt 9y ago
Here's the citation, from the Official YouTube Blog: "We will continue the significant growth of our teams into next year, with the goal of bringing the total number of people across Google working to address content that might violate our policies to over 10,000 in 2018." https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/12/expanding-our-work-against-abuse-of-our.html https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/12/expanding-our-work-ag...
oh-kumudo 9y ago
Contractor, like Call center employees. Probably from outsourcing firms. And, this number seems...low? Considering the sheer amount of videos upload even just from partners. I guess those platforms are growing so large and influential, censoring is inevitable now.
- ribosometronome 9y ago
  Casually calling contractors employees to the press seems like a decent way to open yourself up to a employment status lawsuits.
  - gtirloni 9y ago
    The "employee" word is not mentioned in Google's post a single time.
gm-conspiracy 9y ago
Mechanical Turk.
TrainedMonkey 9y ago
"Google told partners that it plans to use both human moderators -- the company recently announced it will have 10,000 employees focused on the task -- as well as artificial intelligence software to flag videos deemed inappropriate for ads." They will record decisions people make as training examples and will use it to train ML models.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
stevenwoo 9y ago
This article made the round years ago and claims there were already 100,000 distributed across the world employed by Google, Facebook and other social networks. https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/ https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/
gesman 9y ago
Maybe most of them are not exactly google full time employees?
- SeanBoocock 9y ago
  I would speculate most of these employees are outsourced workers from countries like the Philippines (see for a recent discussion of this: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/03/commercial-content-moderation/518796/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/03/comme...)

ronilan 9y ago

I’m not a vet, so I won’t comment on the subject itself, but on a related note, I always found “Google Preferred” to be a bizarre naming choice. Why would a global, and generally loved brand, use the name of another to market a product?

fixermark 9y ago
YouTube is owned by Google.
- donatj 9y ago
  Even so. It’s a strange use of branding. It would be like Beats having a line of “Apple Preferred” headphones. In the eyes of many consumers they’re unrelated because they’ve up until now pushed very separate branding.
  - hobofan 9y ago
    > In the eyes of many consumers they’re unrelated because they’ve up until now pushed very separate branding. I mean we are both speculating here unless there is some data to prove our claims, but I would say that Google dropped any attempt at keeping the brands too separate when they introduced the Google+ comment section. The "Google preferred" also makes sense because all advertising that happens on Youtube is under the Google AdWords brand. There is no Youtube Ads, only Google Adwords for video.
  - dbbk 9y ago
    I don't think so. The advertising business is all named under Google, e.g. Google AdWords and Google AdSense. Even the YouTube-specific TrueView ads fall under AdWords.
tux1968 9y ago
I think it's about Google advertising channels -- with advertising decisions being the driver, not the quality of the content from the Youtube side. The main consumers of this designation are potential Google customers, not Youtube content creators or users.

mc32 9y ago

I don't know how many people (contributors) they have in these preferred channels --maybe they have overwhelming numbers so they have to throw unspecialized bodies at the issue. My feeling is that at some point they will manage the top tier of their premium contributors more like traditional content production. Idea people, writers, producers and someone who vets the output yay/nay and takes full responsibility for the release of the content. None of this "the views of [contributor] do not represent the values of our company" BS. Of course, that means more money, less profit but would make things for advertisers palatable.

slivym 9y ago
This seems like a defensive no brainer for youtube though. The classic cable business model is to get subscribers by financing top content that brings in viewers. If Disney opened a 'Mickey Tube' tomorrow with exlusive access to all the late show clips, several well-financed existing youtubers then how much of youtubes viewers would pack up and move over? So really this looks like Youtube maturing into a more traditional media business model. Of course they still have the risk that they suffer from the myspace phenomenom. Not sure they're really preparing or considering that.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

kazinator 9y ago

YouTube. Well, when we say "you", we mean more like "we". Or, if you prefer, think of "you" as "TV". TV Tube!

lathiat 9y ago

This might sound silly, but working in these content moderation jobs must be painful -- dealing with a lot of constant negativity if not abuse, etc. In some ways, moderating all the good content might give you a break.. I imagine they probably won't cross with other such jobs though. As a society, online really seems to bring out some of the worst in people; and I figure there is not a set of valued peers around you to try and influence your behaviour for the better.

dbbk 9y ago

This is a strange headline, because the whole premise of Google Preferred is that it IS vetted. Now Google is admitting that it... wasn't? Or at least rarely.

slivym 9y ago
Google's entire tradition of content moderation has been to have accounts with privileges and then add/remove those based on content produced. Google Preferred wasn't a set of videos you could advertise on, it was a set of content creators you could advertise with. There was a watershed early last year when they realized that a relatively tiny number of videos could be picked up by traditional media and used to beat up youtube in the press. So now they're moving away from that. They're going to moderate every video. That started with the low cost: everything monetized goes through the iron fist of the Youtube demonetization wizard. Now for the high end content they can't treat people like that - because top talent has leverage. So the more the content is worth, the more they'll spend on QA. The fundamental doesn't change though - they're moderating the content not the creator anymore.

gimmeayrwlt 9y ago

Google vetting ? Oh please, google just could stop delete people's accounts for bogus reasons. Google do not want to give anybody freedom of speech, that's the fact. Same goes twitter and Facebook.. useless media sites if try to say anything else than "look me" "follo me" "support hillary" "clinton is innocent" all fake news!!