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Youtube's algo gaslighted me about the suicide of a childhood friend, by picking content that mocked his life after I learned the bad news. I had already curat

Youtube's algo gaslighted me about the suicide of a childhood friend, by picking content that mocked his life after I learned the bad news. I had already curated my feed to two specific science topics, and the top rec was a blaring million IQ evil AI punching me in the gut with an Iron Fist. I've never been the same since. Florence Nightingale effect. People such as Wojcicki have poor moral compasses, or they aren't accountable.

all2 5y ago
I want to hear more about this.
- whereis 5y ago
  A childhood friend committed suicide, I found out, then the next day or so my science-curated youtube feed suddenly showed me a totally out of context video in the top spot with content that mocked my friend's life. It appeared as though google/youtube algos used the data point about my friend's suicide to perform a psychological experiment on me. At the least, this was amoral, but appeared malicious to me. I fail to see how it is ever appropriate to customize content based on the suicide of a friend. I would like to ask anyone here on hn who has the appropriate authority at Google to briefly investigate this incident: Why did google/youtube use the suicide of a childhood friend as a data point for personalizing content, what was the intention, and whether this has changed. Or, perhaps it would help to have an explanation as to why my understanding of this incident is incorrect.
  - throwaway3699 5y ago
    The simple answer is no algorithm is that smart. It's just picking up your "interests" and trying to tailor that. AFAIK people do try to tune recommender systems to avoid this but it's an inscrutable problem to solve with today's state-of-the-art.
    - whereis 5y ago
      My youtube feed had been purposely curated to two science topics for weeks prior. How does the suicide of a friend factor into an "interests" algo that all of a sudden overrides my customizations? I was not doing any searches etc for suicide at that point but I did learn of the suicide via SMS from someone who uses an Android phone. (likely infiltration point for google to initially gather the data point User.FriendsSuicide.WasInformed) I'm willing to accept the innocent explanation but not on conjecture. This was blatant and fucking hurt me badly and I haven't recovered since. It was the worst possible gaslighting. Recently: tweeting about my suicidal ideations and having twitter respond with personalized trends such as "He's dead" and "Rope" while shadowbanning me doesn't look good. Also recently: Facebook showing me a long string of county sheriffs as "people you may know" when a guy i knew long ago was scheduled to be released from a long term federal stint, doesnt look good either. Makes it clear that I've been on a "associate of bad guy" list since Season 6 Ep 12. Is it possible that some kind of social credit algos have been deployed by American tech companies, in a limited fashion? I suspect the architectural arrangements at big tech companies offers compartments for performing limited use-case experiments totally out of view of the rank and file engineers. By design, those ouside that clearance zone won't even know it exists. "CIA middleware" might be appropriate It seems unlikely to me that the google incident was just a random fluke based on my "interest" in learning of the suicide of a childhood friend. However, only google has the logs, data, and algorithms. I find it unlikely that Google will ever give a straight answer but to me its evidence that Google's data and algos need to be turned over to the justice dept. A big part of Google's power is their impunity to perform such experiments with total deniability. They are worth a trillion dollars yet any damage, incidental or intentional, inflicted on a user goes totally unchecked. Google is loyal to google/shareholders. They dont give a fsk about me, and I fully expect that no response is forthcoming. There's no accountability, and these services start to look more like public utilities. If it isnt transparent then any such malice can easily be played off with statements claiming that some kind of intelligence is needed for an algo to be malicious An algo doesn't have to be "smart" to gaslight a person. All you need is their personal data, especially intimate data such as: * Childhood bully's name * Subsequent taken name of your ex wife who you were heartbroken to lose * Suicide of a childhood friend * Other personals such as siblings' names Worse yet is rumors. An algo can use info related to rumors to gaslight a person. Just use keywords from the rumors for personalized content. None of this requires any complex algos. Just incompetence and/or malice.
  - blondin 5y ago
    sorry for your loss. i totally see where your comment is coming from but i do not believe that youtube deliberately ran an experiment on you. youtube, along with most social media, doesn't know how to handle the dead. it always pains me to see videos of dead youtubers show up in my feed. i highly doubt that the "monetization" money goes to the families. and i can't bring myself to unsubscribe to their channels either. it's a weird and sad conundrum.
    - whereis 5y ago
      thanks. may i ask for a source or are you speculating?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

all2 5y ago

I want to hear more about this.

whereis 5y ago
A childhood friend committed suicide, I found out, then the next day or so my science-curated youtube feed suddenly showed me a totally out of context video in the top spot with content that mocked my friend's life. It appeared as though google/youtube algos used the data point about my friend's suicide to perform a psychological experiment on me. At the least, this was amoral, but appeared malicious to me. I fail to see how it is ever appropriate to customize content based on the suicide of a friend. I would like to ask anyone here on hn who has the appropriate authority at Google to briefly investigate this incident: Why did google/youtube use the suicide of a childhood friend as a data point for personalizing content, what was the intention, and whether this has changed. Or, perhaps it would help to have an explanation as to why my understanding of this incident is incorrect.
- throwaway3699 5y ago
  The simple answer is no algorithm is that smart. It's just picking up your "interests" and trying to tailor that. AFAIK people do try to tune recommender systems to avoid this but it's an inscrutable problem to solve with today's state-of-the-art.
  - whereis 5y ago
    My youtube feed had been purposely curated to two science topics for weeks prior. How does the suicide of a friend factor into an "interests" algo that all of a sudden overrides my customizations? I was not doing any searches etc for suicide at that point but I did learn of the suicide via SMS from someone who uses an Android phone. (likely infiltration point for google to initially gather the data point User.FriendsSuicide.WasInformed) I'm willing to accept the innocent explanation but not on conjecture. This was blatant and fucking hurt me badly and I haven't recovered since. It was the worst possible gaslighting. Recently: tweeting about my suicidal ideations and having twitter respond with personalized trends such as "He's dead" and "Rope" while shadowbanning me doesn't look good. Also recently: Facebook showing me a long string of county sheriffs as "people you may know" when a guy i knew long ago was scheduled to be released from a long term federal stint, doesnt look good either. Makes it clear that I've been on a "associate of bad guy" list since Season 6 Ep 12. Is it possible that some kind of social credit algos have been deployed by American tech companies, in a limited fashion? I suspect the architectural arrangements at big tech companies offers compartments for performing limited use-case experiments totally out of view of the rank and file engineers. By design, those ouside that clearance zone won't even know it exists. "CIA middleware" might be appropriate It seems unlikely to me that the google incident was just a random fluke based on my "interest" in learning of the suicide of a childhood friend. However, only google has the logs, data, and algorithms. I find it unlikely that Google will ever give a straight answer but to me its evidence that Google's data and algos need to be turned over to the justice dept. A big part of Google's power is their impunity to perform such experiments with total deniability. They are worth a trillion dollars yet any damage, incidental or intentional, inflicted on a user goes totally unchecked. Google is loyal to google/shareholders. They dont give a fsk about me, and I fully expect that no response is forthcoming. There's no accountability, and these services start to look more like public utilities. If it isnt transparent then any such malice can easily be played off with statements claiming that some kind of intelligence is needed for an algo to be malicious An algo doesn't have to be "smart" to gaslight a person. All you need is their personal data, especially intimate data such as: * Childhood bully's name * Subsequent taken name of your ex wife who you were heartbroken to lose * Suicide of a childhood friend * Other personals such as siblings' names Worse yet is rumors. An algo can use info related to rumors to gaslight a person. Just use keywords from the rumors for personalized content. None of this requires any complex algos. Just incompetence and/or malice.
- blondin 5y ago
  sorry for your loss. i totally see where your comment is coming from but i do not believe that youtube deliberately ran an experiment on you. youtube, along with most social media, doesn't know how to handle the dead. it always pains me to see videos of dead youtubers show up in my feed. i highly doubt that the "monetization" money goes to the families. and i can't bring myself to unsubscribe to their channels either. it's a weird and sad conundrum.
  - whereis 5y ago
    thanks. may i ask for a source or are you speculating?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]