4 ms·

YT moderation is genuinely baffling. YT has policies against animal cruelty, but a search for "electric mouse traps" shows a bunch of live animals being killed

by DanBC 6y ago

YT moderation is genuinely baffling. YT has policies against animal cruelty, but a search for "electric mouse traps" shows a bunch of live animals being killed. (There are a lot of these). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0D4rJ6zNuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0D4rJ6zNuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh_QXnJcP7M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh_QXnJcP7M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwKN8h1du8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwKN8h1du8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgh9Bs4TFdY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgh9Bs4TFdY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SIlYiiCGLI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SIlYiiCGLI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_a8Pcd8k9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_a8Pcd8k9s

henearkr 6y ago
This is most likely not a problem of policy but rather that nobody has flagged these videos yet. And you should blame that (that nobody flagged them) on the double-standard most people have towards "not hurting innocent animals" vs "freedom to do any slaughter with the so-called 'pests'".
- carapace 6y ago
  This. I was watching a video of some pigs playing the other day and suddenly became an "ovo-lacto" vegan.
  - GloriousKoji 6y ago
    I'm not sure if sarcastic but how is that different from a vegetarian? The exclusion of honey?
    - puppyprogram 6y ago
      ovo lacto is a "vegetarian" that also eats eggs and dairy so i presume it is something to do with other things, like the exclusion of leather goods? honey is a touchy subject even for vegans
      - carapace 6y ago
        Actually, it's a really good question. I don't know. I haven't thought things through (yet), I just realized that I can't abide the thought of eating such a cool critter now that I've actually seen what they're like.
  - ljf 6y ago
    I eat meat but the dairy industry sickens me... Cows are damn clever, and they only give milk when we take their babies away (to then eat them for veal often). As I say I don't mind the killing of a healthy animal for meat, but the milk industry just sticks in my throat (especially when it is so easy (and tasty) to cut out milk these days) (or was your comment a joke :p)
- DanBC 6y ago
  Plenty of people flag these videos.
  - henearkr 6y ago
    If this is really so, then the reason would be that Google intervenes on the basis of illegality: animal cruelty is illegal, whereas pest control is not. This discrepancy between how we pretend to protect animals but still do plain "pest control" is weird (this is a weak word), but this is a quirk of our "modern" society. The law is made democratically, so that just means that a majority of the citizens think that it is not ok to hurt animals, but that it is ok to use mousetraps. Blame on the lack of awareness of the society. But then, in turn, this means that not a lot of people flag the video, if the majority of them still think that pest control should be legal. If not, then now should be the right time to change the law of the country where you/me live.
maccard 6y ago
The moderation isn't baffling,it just can't keep up. For every topic you choose that YT isn't moderating correctly, I can find 10 more topics that they aren't moderating correctly, all that break YTs rules. At what point would you consider the issue isn't that the moderation is biased, the issue is that the moderation can't keep up? You can't just ban everything with electric mouse trap in the title - this video [0] is on the first page of searches and doesn't contain any rule breaking content. If a band appears titled "electric mouse trap", do you want that content to be removed? There are so many topics, so many videos,so many people actively trying to skirt the rules that it's just infeasible to moderate purely by scale. According to [1], there are 30k hours of content uploaded to YT every hour. How do you suggest they moderate even just the new content, never mind the backlog of content. To be clear, I'm not defending the content on YouTube, or their moderation/takedown practices and responses, I just want to point out that it's not as simple as "just moderate better" [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GYIk14jyXzw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GYIk14jyXzw [1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/259477/hours-of-video-uploaded-to-youtube-every-minute/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/259477/hours-of-video-up...
- ardy42 6y ago
  > The moderation isn't baffling,it just can't keep up.... > There are so many topics, so many videos,so many people actively trying to skirt the rules that it's just infeasible to moderate purely by scale. According to [1], there are 30k hours of content uploaded to YT every hour. How do you suggest they moderate even just the new content, never mind the backlog of content. That's really an argument that they have to reduce their scale until it matches their moderation ability (or increase their moderation ability until it matches their scale). We wouldn't accept a car company failing to recall and fix defective cars that they sold because their repair shops lack the capacity to do so.
  - MauranKilom 6y ago
    I don't understand what you imagine when you say "reduce their scale". Send 999 out of 1000 viewers away? Delete 999 of 1000 channels? Block 999 of 1000 video uploads? I genuinely don't understand what you are looking for. And note that this would still be 30 hours of new content per hour. And it would change nothing about the economics of moderating content.
s1artibartfast 6y ago
It shouldn't be that baffling when you realize that the policy language is entirely irrelevant. The only content policy that matters is unwritten: "No content which could cause a large or loud enough objection to disrupt add revenue." Objections to mouse traps or hunting is not large or loud enough to hurt the bottom line.
- brokenmachine 6y ago
  This whole article is about an innocuous channel that was deleted for no reason.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    The reason is pretty clear to me. The channel was bycatch for algorithms intended to block offensive content. If you mean that the channel didn't do anything "wrong", and shouldn't have been deleted, I totally agree.
Nasrudith 6y ago
Legally and conceptually animal crueltly doesn't just mean "painful or deadly things happening to animals. Despite the name it is more implicitly "gratitutousness animal cruelty" which is defined as not serving a purpose. Tar paper traps lead to a slow death by starvation but it is a side effect of the function - to work without "triggering" and inconveniencing anything much larger instead of risking harm. No need to take a cat to the vet if they step on it, just wash them off and maybe clip some fur keeping it attached. The fact it causes more suffering than a mechanical trap isn't enough to qualify although one may object to its usage. But breaking a mouse's leg just to laugh at it and watch it crawl? Gratitutous and would qualify as animal cruelty.
lone_haxx0r 6y ago
In the same vein that "hate speech" means "political opinions we disagree with", "animal cruelty" really means "animal cruelty towards animals we don't like for reasons we don't like"

by DanBC 6y ago

henearkr 6y ago

This is most likely not a problem of policy but rather that nobody has flagged these videos yet. And you should blame that (that nobody flagged them) on the double-standard most people have towards "not hurting innocent animals" vs "freedom to do any slaughter with the so-called 'pests'".

carapace 6y ago
This. I was watching a video of some pigs playing the other day and suddenly became an "ovo-lacto" vegan.
- GloriousKoji 6y ago
  I'm not sure if sarcastic but how is that different from a vegetarian? The exclusion of honey?
  - puppyprogram 6y ago
    ovo lacto is a "vegetarian" that also eats eggs and dairy so i presume it is something to do with other things, like the exclusion of leather goods? honey is a touchy subject even for vegans
    - carapace 6y ago
      Actually, it's a really good question. I don't know. I haven't thought things through (yet), I just realized that I can't abide the thought of eating such a cool critter now that I've actually seen what they're like.
- ljf 6y ago
  I eat meat but the dairy industry sickens me... Cows are damn clever, and they only give milk when we take their babies away (to then eat them for veal often). As I say I don't mind the killing of a healthy animal for meat, but the milk industry just sticks in my throat (especially when it is so easy (and tasty) to cut out milk these days) (or was your comment a joke :p)
DanBC 6y ago
Plenty of people flag these videos.
- henearkr 6y ago
  If this is really so, then the reason would be that Google intervenes on the basis of illegality: animal cruelty is illegal, whereas pest control is not. This discrepancy between how we pretend to protect animals but still do plain "pest control" is weird (this is a weak word), but this is a quirk of our "modern" society. The law is made democratically, so that just means that a majority of the citizens think that it is not ok to hurt animals, but that it is ok to use mousetraps. Blame on the lack of awareness of the society. But then, in turn, this means that not a lot of people flag the video, if the majority of them still think that pest control should be legal. If not, then now should be the right time to change the law of the country where you/me live.

maccard 6y ago

The moderation isn't baffling,it just can't keep up. For every topic you choose that YT isn't moderating correctly, I can find 10 more topics that they aren't moderating correctly, all that break YTs rules. At what point would you consider the issue isn't that the moderation is biased, the issue is that the moderation can't keep up? You can't just ban everything with electric mouse trap in the title - this video [0] is on the first page of searches and doesn't contain any rule breaking content. If a band appears titled "electric mouse trap", do you want that content to be removed? There are so many topics, so many videos,so many people actively trying to skirt the rules that it's just infeasible to moderate purely by scale. According to [1], there are 30k hours of content uploaded to YT every hour. How do you suggest they moderate even just the new content, never mind the backlog of content. To be clear, I'm not defending the content on YouTube, or their moderation/takedown practices and responses, I just want to point out that it's not as simple as "just moderate better" [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GYIk14jyXzw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GYIk14jyXzw [1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/259477/hours-of-video-uploaded-to-youtube-every-minute/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/259477/hours-of-video-up...

ardy42 6y ago
> The moderation isn't baffling,it just can't keep up.... > There are so many topics, so many videos,so many people actively trying to skirt the rules that it's just infeasible to moderate purely by scale. According to [1], there are 30k hours of content uploaded to YT every hour. How do you suggest they moderate even just the new content, never mind the backlog of content. That's really an argument that they have to reduce their scale until it matches their moderation ability (or increase their moderation ability until it matches their scale). We wouldn't accept a car company failing to recall and fix defective cars that they sold because their repair shops lack the capacity to do so.
- MauranKilom 6y ago
  I don't understand what you imagine when you say "reduce their scale". Send 999 out of 1000 viewers away? Delete 999 of 1000 channels? Block 999 of 1000 video uploads? I genuinely don't understand what you are looking for. And note that this would still be 30 hours of new content per hour. And it would change nothing about the economics of moderating content.

s1artibartfast 6y ago

It shouldn't be that baffling when you realize that the policy language is entirely irrelevant. The only content policy that matters is unwritten: "No content which could cause a large or loud enough objection to disrupt add revenue." Objections to mouse traps or hunting is not large or loud enough to hurt the bottom line.

brokenmachine 6y ago
This whole article is about an innocuous channel that was deleted for no reason.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  The reason is pretty clear to me. The channel was bycatch for algorithms intended to block offensive content. If you mean that the channel didn't do anything "wrong", and shouldn't have been deleted, I totally agree.

Nasrudith 6y ago

Legally and conceptually animal crueltly doesn't just mean "painful or deadly things happening to animals. Despite the name it is more implicitly "gratitutousness animal cruelty" which is defined as not serving a purpose. Tar paper traps lead to a slow death by starvation but it is a side effect of the function - to work without "triggering" and inconveniencing anything much larger instead of risking harm. No need to take a cat to the vet if they step on it, just wash them off and maybe clip some fur keeping it attached. The fact it causes more suffering than a mechanical trap isn't enough to qualify although one may object to its usage. But breaking a mouse's leg just to laugh at it and watch it crawl? Gratitutous and would qualify as animal cruelty.

lone_haxx0r 6y ago

In the same vein that "hate speech" means "political opinions we disagree with", "animal cruelty" really means "animal cruelty towards animals we don't like for reasons we don't like"