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YouTube Flagged Notre Dame Fire as Misinformation, Attached Article About 9/11

93 points by zodiakzz 8y ago

bastawhiz 8y ago
I can see what Google tried to do. But it's obvious that the technology failed miserably, on a problem that likely should not have been "solved" with automation. What if there had been a terrorist attack? Clearly these messages would be not just incorrect, but unimaginably inappropriate. It's clearly not ready to be used now, if it's even possible to teach a machine what 9/11 conspiracy theories are. The team that built this should be dissolved. This was a bad call on the engineering side, the product side, and the management side. Nothing about this was a success.
- dymk 8y ago
  It’s a success except when it’s not. We only see headlines when it fails. Calling for the dissolving of this particular integrity team is ridiculous. Mistakes will happen, the team will learn from them, and their product will improve.
  - rectang 8y ago
    Of all the things to get angry at Google about, falling short every once in a while at solving an incredibly difficult technical challenge is just ludicrous.
    - Fins 8y ago
      Or maybe (because they might have some great programmers, but that's not necessarily the same as having smart people) they are "solving" something that isn't a technical problem in the first place with code?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - muckrakerz 8y ago
      What is the problem that they are solving? I don't want Google to be my lens on the world. I never paid them for that. It is for this reason that I unsubscribed from YouTube Red. They stopped being a neutral platform.
  - Grue3 8y ago
    I can't think of any place where this sort of "feature" would've been appropriate. An article from Wikipedia, which anyone can edit, is like the least convincing thing they could've linked to.
  - bastawhiz 8y ago
    It should never have been built in the first place. It's an attempt to put a band-aid on the conspiracy theories on the platform, but completely lost sight of the fact that bad things do happen and that bad things often are visually similar. Even if it set out to achieve its original goals flawlessly, it fails to actually solve the problem Google faces in the first place (being a platform for misinformation). If you got all the way to a conspiracy theory video, is Encyclopedia Britannica really going to change your mind? And being a not-flawless computer system, it will _always_ have false positives, which means as long as it exists it will flag events like this as misinformation. The latter, in my opinion, is inexcusable. Any engineer building any sort of classification system knows that there will be false positives, and nobody at Google thought that this would be problematic and stopped the system from being built.
res0nat0r 8y ago
Likely directly related to this: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/notre-dame-hoaxes https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/notre-da... IE: Tons of online trolls trying to stir up false racist and xenophobic outrage on social media for this event, thus the YouTube algos picked up on some of this and linked the associated article.
- DoctorOetker 8y ago
  that sounds like a very poor explanation unless google relies on xenophobic outlets for ground truth...
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Huh? Google would be trying to suppress xenophobic stuff, and accidentally caught actual reporting.
- mirimir 8y ago
  That did occur to me, as a possibility. But I can't -- really can't -- imagine how any Islamic fundamentalist group could claim responsibility for this. What would be the point? So if anyone does claim responsibility, it's ~100% sure that they're just trying to incite Islamophobia. Edit: OK, not ~100% sure. But it's either that, or they're crazy. And yes, I suppose that it's arguable that all terrorists are crazy. I still maintain that it's an obvious possibility, however. Not at all likely, but still obvious.
  - sisu2019 8y ago
    I am not saying islamists did this thing but are you really saying that it doesn't make sense for them to destroy places of worship of other relgions? In Indonesia and other places they sure think differently.
    - mirimir 8y ago
      Maybe I'm deluding myself, but Notre Dame just seems so much more than a "place of worship". But then, the Taliban did destroy monumental statues of Buddha in Afghanistan. Which were about twice as old as Notre Dame. So maybe I am deluding myself :(
DoctorOetker 8y ago
By producing an analogy between the Notre Dame Fire and the 9/11 attacks, a terrorist attack is insinuated? So the fact check technology became the conspiracy theory generator?
- ErotemeObelus 8y ago
  No. It's just working as intended and drawing the simplest hypotheses based on patterns.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago
    > drawing the simplest hypotheses based on patterns So, you're saying that it is generating conspiracy theories?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
chewz 8y ago
It works exactly as planned. Google can prove to regulators that it makes sufficient efforts - which is enough to wash it hands. On the other hands malfunctioning algo allows Google to make some extra advertising dollars.
mcv 8y ago
Youtube's explanation is basically: "It was done by an algorithm. We don't know how our algorithms work. Sometimes they do this. We turned them off for this event."
- DoctorOetker 8y ago
  "... and by the way isn't it time you give our algorithms voting rights and jail time"
whamlastxmas 8y ago
Anyone else bothered by letting YouTube determine what disinformation is?

93 points by zodiakzz 8y ago

I can see what Google tried to do. But it's obvious that the technology failed miserably, on a problem that likely should not have been "solved" with automation. What if there had been a terrorist attack? Clearly these messages would be not just incorrect, but unimaginably inappropriate. It's clearly not ready to be used now, if it's even possible to teach a machine what 9/11 conspiracy theories are. The team that built this should be dissolved. This was a bad call on the engineering side, the product side, and the management side. Nothing about this was a success.

dymk 8y ago
It’s a success except when it’s not. We only see headlines when it fails. Calling for the dissolving of this particular integrity team is ridiculous. Mistakes will happen, the team will learn from them, and their product will improve.
- rectang 8y ago
  Of all the things to get angry at Google about, falling short every once in a while at solving an incredibly difficult technical challenge is just ludicrous.
  - Fins 8y ago
    Or maybe (because they might have some great programmers, but that's not necessarily the same as having smart people) they are "solving" something that isn't a technical problem in the first place with code?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - muckrakerz 8y ago
    What is the problem that they are solving? I don't want Google to be my lens on the world. I never paid them for that. It is for this reason that I unsubscribed from YouTube Red. They stopped being a neutral platform.
- Grue3 8y ago
  I can't think of any place where this sort of "feature" would've been appropriate. An article from Wikipedia, which anyone can edit, is like the least convincing thing they could've linked to.
- bastawhiz 8y ago
  It should never have been built in the first place. It's an attempt to put a band-aid on the conspiracy theories on the platform, but completely lost sight of the fact that bad things do happen and that bad things often are visually similar. Even if it set out to achieve its original goals flawlessly, it fails to actually solve the problem Google faces in the first place (being a platform for misinformation). If you got all the way to a conspiracy theory video, is Encyclopedia Britannica really going to change your mind? And being a not-flawless computer system, it will _always_ have false positives, which means as long as it exists it will flag events like this as misinformation. The latter, in my opinion, is inexcusable. Any engineer building any sort of classification system knows that there will be false positives, and nobody at Google thought that this would be problematic and stopped the system from being built.

res0nat0r 8y ago

Likely directly related to this: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/notre-dame-hoaxes https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/notre-da... IE: Tons of online trolls trying to stir up false racist and xenophobic outrage on social media for this event, thus the YouTube algos picked up on some of this and linked the associated article.

DoctorOetker 8y ago
that sounds like a very poor explanation unless google relies on xenophobic outlets for ground truth...
- mirimir 8y ago
  Huh? Google would be trying to suppress xenophobic stuff, and accidentally caught actual reporting.
mirimir 8y ago
That did occur to me, as a possibility. But I can't -- really can't -- imagine how any Islamic fundamentalist group could claim responsibility for this. What would be the point? So if anyone does claim responsibility, it's ~100% sure that they're just trying to incite Islamophobia. Edit: OK, not ~100% sure. But it's either that, or they're crazy. And yes, I suppose that it's arguable that all terrorists are crazy. I still maintain that it's an obvious possibility, however. Not at all likely, but still obvious.
- sisu2019 8y ago
  I am not saying islamists did this thing but are you really saying that it doesn't make sense for them to destroy places of worship of other relgions? In Indonesia and other places they sure think differently.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Maybe I'm deluding myself, but Notre Dame just seems so much more than a "place of worship". But then, the Taliban did destroy monumental statues of Buddha in Afghanistan. Which were about twice as old as Notre Dame. So maybe I am deluding myself :(

DoctorOetker 8y ago

By producing an analogy between the Notre Dame Fire and the 9/11 attacks, a terrorist attack is insinuated? So the fact check technology became the conspiracy theory generator?

ErotemeObelus 8y ago
No. It's just working as intended and drawing the simplest hypotheses based on patterns.
- SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago
  > drawing the simplest hypotheses based on patterns So, you're saying that it is generating conspiracy theories?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

chewz 8y ago

It works exactly as planned. Google can prove to regulators that it makes sufficient efforts - which is enough to wash it hands. On the other hands malfunctioning algo allows Google to make some extra advertising dollars.

mcv 8y ago

Youtube's explanation is basically: "It was done by an algorithm. We don't know how our algorithms work. Sometimes they do this. We turned them off for this event."

DoctorOetker 8y ago
"... and by the way isn't it time you give our algorithms voting rights and jail time"

whamlastxmas 8y ago

Anyone else bothered by letting YouTube determine what disinformation is?