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These companies focusing so much on algorithms, when the best solution is to simply use actual humans. I've done a fair amount of work on trying to detect and

These companies focusing so much on algorithms, when the best solution is to simply use actual humans. I've done a fair amount of work on trying to detect and deal with spammers, fraudulent activity and such. Nothing beats a human eye. My most successful approach has been to filter out the super obvious stuff, then send the rest to a queue that is kept an eye on by humans. A small staff can easily fight back against bullshit. Yes, YouTube is orders of magnitude above what I've dealt with, but I'm sure their smart engineers can filter out the majority of stuff. It's painfully obvious that YouTube lacks human eyes on things. That, or they lack direction and empowerment of their employees.

golemotron 8y ago
This is why it's great to have an ecosystem of many small players.
luckylion 8y ago
> Nothing beats a human eye. Well, thousands of videos sure beat a human eye. Then you'll need lots and lots of people that watch those videos and make judgement calls, and there will be edge cases, and you will have to give people a chance to challenge those decisions, etc. For a forum with a few hundred posts a day, that's certainly an option. At Youtube's scale with hundreds of hours of video uploaded every minute of every day, I have my doubts.
- stronglikedan 8y ago
  Not to mention the cost of necessary therapy.
jdietrich 8y ago
YouTube already have a huge staff of human moderators, probably in the tens of thousands. Moderating content in a consistent and fair manner is essentially impossible, largely because nobody agrees on what should be kept off the platform. Is the image of a female nipple pornographic or empowering? Is the image of a murder victim terrorist propaganda or reportage? Is a political rant hate speech or free speech? There is no universal answer to any of these questions, least of all when we consider the huge difference in cultural attitudes across an international user base. I can highly recommend the documentary The Internet’s Dirtiest Secrets: The Cleaners, which illustrates these paradoxes with brilliant clarity by intercutting between the moderators and the moderated.
stcredzero 8y ago
the best solution is to simply use actual humans. I've done a fair amount of work on trying to detect and deal with spammers, fraudulent activity and such. Nothing beats a human eye. Except when those humans are captured ideologically, then start to warp an even handed policy towards their own ends.
eyeareque 8y ago
Humans are expensive, and reviewing horrible content causes mental health issues. I don’t blame them for trying but I agree they aren’t as good and have a long way to go.
canada_dry 8y ago
> best solution is to simply use actual humans Gee, how many humans might it take to review the >400 hours of video uploaded every minute? (source: https://www.tubefilter.com/2015/07/26/youtube-400-hours-content-every-minute/ https://www.tubefilter.com/2015/07/26/youtube-400-hours-cont...)
- Hussell 8y ago
  400 hours/minute is 24,000 minutes of video per minute, or 241,920,000 minutes of video per week. Assuming a human can review 8 hours of video per day, 5 days a week (too high, but not by much), and that YouTube engineers can create an algorithm that automatically marks 95% of video (probably low, 95% correct labelling is easy to get; 99% is usually necessary to outdo humans), then you would need 5,040 humans. Automatically labelling 97.5% would halve that. If employees can only review 6 hours of video per work-day, then it would increase by a third. Both, you'd need 3,360 humans.
  - mdorazio 8y ago
    And multiple that by let's say 50K/year fully burdened cost per employee (assuming locating them in low-cost areas) and we've now added a minimum of $125 million per year in overhead for a service that already probably doesn't make much money.
    - sinatra 8y ago
      > we've now added a minimum of $125 million per year in overhead Which is <1% of the revenue that YouTube generated last year? Still a meaningful number. But, not unmanageable.
      - mdorazio 8y ago
        At what profit margin, though? I've never seen actual YouTube numbers broken out in a financial statement.
  - anonymousab 8y ago

golemotron 8y ago

This is why it's great to have an ecosystem of many small players.

luckylion 8y ago

> Nothing beats a human eye. Well, thousands of videos sure beat a human eye. Then you'll need lots and lots of people that watch those videos and make judgement calls, and there will be edge cases, and you will have to give people a chance to challenge those decisions, etc. For a forum with a few hundred posts a day, that's certainly an option. At Youtube's scale with hundreds of hours of video uploaded every minute of every day, I have my doubts.

stronglikedan 8y ago
Not to mention the cost of necessary therapy.

jdietrich 8y ago

YouTube already have a huge staff of human moderators, probably in the tens of thousands. Moderating content in a consistent and fair manner is essentially impossible, largely because nobody agrees on what should be kept off the platform. Is the image of a female nipple pornographic or empowering? Is the image of a murder victim terrorist propaganda or reportage? Is a political rant hate speech or free speech? There is no universal answer to any of these questions, least of all when we consider the huge difference in cultural attitudes across an international user base. I can highly recommend the documentary The Internet’s Dirtiest Secrets: The Cleaners, which illustrates these paradoxes with brilliant clarity by intercutting between the moderators and the moderated.

stcredzero 8y ago

the best solution is to simply use actual humans. I've done a fair amount of work on trying to detect and deal with spammers, fraudulent activity and such. Nothing beats a human eye. Except when those humans are captured ideologically, then start to warp an even handed policy towards their own ends.

eyeareque 8y ago

Humans are expensive, and reviewing horrible content causes mental health issues. I don’t blame them for trying but I agree they aren’t as good and have a long way to go.

canada_dry 8y ago

> best solution is to simply use actual humans Gee, how many humans might it take to review the >400 hours of video uploaded every minute? (source: https://www.tubefilter.com/2015/07/26/youtube-400-hours-content-every-minute/ https://www.tubefilter.com/2015/07/26/youtube-400-hours-cont...)

Hussell 8y ago
400 hours/minute is 24,000 minutes of video per minute, or 241,920,000 minutes of video per week. Assuming a human can review 8 hours of video per day, 5 days a week (too high, but not by much), and that YouTube engineers can create an algorithm that automatically marks 95% of video (probably low, 95% correct labelling is easy to get; 99% is usually necessary to outdo humans), then you would need 5,040 humans. Automatically labelling 97.5% would halve that. If employees can only review 6 hours of video per work-day, then it would increase by a third. Both, you'd need 3,360 humans.
- mdorazio 8y ago
  And multiple that by let's say 50K/year fully burdened cost per employee (assuming locating them in low-cost areas) and we've now added a minimum of $125 million per year in overhead for a service that already probably doesn't make much money.
  - sinatra 8y ago
    > we've now added a minimum of $125 million per year in overhead Which is <1% of the revenue that YouTube generated last year? Still a meaningful number. But, not unmanageable.
    - mdorazio 8y ago
      At what profit margin, though? I've never seen actual YouTube numbers broken out in a financial statement.
- anonymousab 8y ago