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YouTube has been manipulating like/dislike data for the White House for months now [1]. [1]: https://81m.org/ https://81m.org/ Archive: https://web.archive.or

YouTube has been manipulating like/dislike data for the White House for months now [1]. [1]: https://81m.org/ https://81m.org/ Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20211023061808/https://81m.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20211023061808/https://81m.org/

jakear 5y ago
It's interesting data, but the obvious response from YouTube would be "we run sophisticated click fraud detection algorithms and periodically remove interactions determined to be from fraudulent accounts; given the current political climate White House videos attract more of these types of fraud than other videos on our platform and thus the effect is more pronounced on their videos". The numbers in question are small enough (~1k missing interactions) that it doesn't seem totally unreasonable.
mike_d 5y ago
It looks like the creator is counting any decrease in dislikes over time as manipulation, without a firm understanding of how large scale systems work. Say for example I used a batch of 100 HN accounts to mass downvote your comment. After a while an hourly job runs that looks at all those votes in aggregate and determines they were coordinated (for simplicity sake they all came from the same IP) and removes them. You'd see a large shift in the net score of your comment all of the sudden. This isn't HN manipulating anything, it is them doing their job to prevent abuse on the platform.
- water8 5y ago
  Oh honey, were you born yesterday? Of course they modify the numbers especially for political or covid related topics
  - lalaland1125 5y ago
    What would even be the point of faking the dislike/like counts? Does anyone actually look at them compared to polls?
  - malwarebytess 5y ago
    Oh honey. Or, you know, some of those votes are fraudulent (bots, dupe accounts, tactical voting, etc) and they're being removed?
deleted 5y ago
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jakear 5y ago

It's interesting data, but the obvious response from YouTube would be "we run sophisticated click fraud detection algorithms and periodically remove interactions determined to be from fraudulent accounts; given the current political climate White House videos attract more of these types of fraud than other videos on our platform and thus the effect is more pronounced on their videos". The numbers in question are small enough (~1k missing interactions) that it doesn't seem totally unreasonable.

mike_d 5y ago

It looks like the creator is counting any decrease in dislikes over time as manipulation, without a firm understanding of how large scale systems work. Say for example I used a batch of 100 HN accounts to mass downvote your comment. After a while an hourly job runs that looks at all those votes in aggregate and determines they were coordinated (for simplicity sake they all came from the same IP) and removes them. You'd see a large shift in the net score of your comment all of the sudden. This isn't HN manipulating anything, it is them doing their job to prevent abuse on the platform.

water8 5y ago
Oh honey, were you born yesterday? Of course they modify the numbers especially for political or covid related topics
- lalaland1125 5y ago
  What would even be the point of faking the dislike/like counts? Does anyone actually look at them compared to polls?
- malwarebytess 5y ago
  Oh honey. Or, you know, some of those votes are fraudulent (bots, dupe accounts, tactical voting, etc) and they're being removed?

deleted 5y ago

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