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> All countries already have laws regulating speech to various degrees of freedom. This is mostly unrelated to what I'm talking about. > The topic at hand is
by pdkl95 7y ago
> All countries already have laws regulating speech to various degrees of freedom.
This is mostly unrelated to what I'm talking about.
> The topic at hand is about monetization of ads
That's one (important) aspect of "YouTube’s LGBTQ Problem", but it is not the only issue. As others have mentioned, some of Google's attempts to "fix" the problem have, for example, been used as a weapon by various hate groups to get LGBTQ channels deleted (not just demonetized), or by fascists to remove anti-fascist reporting.
> the "acceptability" of the content is determined by the ad buyers
A big part of the problem is that this isn't actually true in practice. The "acceptability" of content is determined by Google's algorithm. They chose to use an opaque algorithm that they hope implements a very good approximation of what ad buyers consider "acceptable". As we've seen many times over the last few years, this has resulted in problems on all sides, including ad buyers.
> it's just the market
"just" a market ignores that markets are created in an legal environment that can be modified (e.g. adding, modifying, or removing regulations or policies)
> The problem here is about execution not policy.
The problem for Google is that they are choosing to have any policy at all. They are implementing opaque policies and thus are the only party that can be responsible for the resulting mess.
> The plaintiffs argue
Not relevant to my point;' I'm addressing the fundamental problem with Google's management of youtube (or similar platforms), not any particular case.
> Are you suggesting that Google should create additional authority to regulate itself beyond what is legally required and needed for their business?
More or less, yes. If decisions about monetization, video censorship, channel deletion, etc are going to be made, they need to happen through some kind of well-defined due process (aka being "ruled by laws"). Google could define that process unilaterally - which would be a major improvement from the current opaque and arbitrary status quo - but the best option would be to start some type of open/public entity/process for creating and managing what is meant by "due process on youtube".
> create some expert panel that can compel Google to censor certain content?
That already exists! That panel is whatever group inside Google chose the algorithm(s) that has been demonetizing and/or censoring videos over the last few years. I'm suggesting that transparent, publicly accountable panel is better than a hidden panel of unknown Google employees. Yes, both types will have problems, but at least we can see and attempt to fix the panel when it is public.
- makomk 7y agoThe problem is that it's basically untenable for Google not to unilaterally try and solve these social problems; activists and the press have been putting pressure on them to do so by leaning on advertisers to pull out, with enough success that the continued existence of YouTube is imperilled if they don't. The other problem is that the activists keep demanding things which will inevitably backfire. For example, lately there's been this campaign for tech companies to eradicate far-right content the same way they did ISIS[1], often accompanied by claims that they avoided this because it'd take out a bunch of right wingers who'd get pissed off. In reality, that sweep ended up banning a bunch of respected analysts who were monitoring and reporting on ISIS's activity[2], and if they did the same to the far right it would result in a lot of anti-fascist campaigners getting banned. I guess basically what I'm saying is that Google's content moderation problem is really a problem with our society, our politics, and our press. [1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/will-silicon-valley-treat-white-nationalism-as-terrorism https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/will-sili... [2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mitchprothero/isis-researchers-have-become-the-collateral-damage-of-the https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mitchprothero/isis-rese...
- Faark 7y ago> I guess basically what I'm saying is that Google's content moderation problem is really a problem with our society, our politics, and our press. Were those activists you mentioned campaigning to explicitly get respected analysts removed? Not from what I remember. Lets compare this with a hypothetical: Lets say activists successfully got gov to newly introduce a speed limit. Some time later, a huge chunk of the emergency service personnel is in prison for breaking this new law. Would you actually blame this on activist's? Or maybe a retarded court system, probably combined with incompetent legislators. Back to Youtube. They are either incompetent at making rules or incompetent at reasonably enforcing them, probably cause they entirely offload the latter on some shitty algorithm. Don't get me wrong, algorithms are great as first heuristic to save work. But there has to be a way to get to higher court levels, even if there is some form of cost.
- makomk 7y ago