5 ms·

“YouTube doesn't want you to have to see my 'disturbing' disabled body”

61 points by healsdata 5y ago

aaron695 5y ago
BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
Summary of the "disturbing content": she has a bog standard prosthetic foot. Sometimes she shows it to the camera and talks about neat prosthetic foot facts like how she needed to eat more food instead of less. That's it. Apparently that's enough to get age restricted, decirculated, and demonetized on youtube. Frankly I think that youtube's human reviewer (if indeed there really was one and their review process isn't just a lie) should feel ashamed of themself. Given that disability is a federally protected class, its not clear to me how youtube's action here is legal.
- CitrusFruits 5y ago
  From what I've seen, there usually isn't a human reviewer. It's usually some sort of AI thing that gets it right 99% of the time but leaves the 1% pretty stranded without a good appeal process. I remember hearing about a lifestyle vlogger who couldn't say "lesbian", and being a lesbian, talked used the word quite often. To get around it and other related but similarly censored topics, they developed substitute words to use combined with a translation on screen for what their word actually meant.
  - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
    > From what I've seen, there usually isn't a human reviewer. It's usually some sort of AI thing that gets it right 99% of the time but leaves the 1% pretty stranded without a good appeal process. In the video she says she asked for human review and the alleged human alleged reviewer confirmed the restriction, because that's the world we live in now I guess.
    - sidewndr46 5y ago
      It'd be neat if they gave the content creator a chance to administer their own turing test to the reviewer in an attempt to "prove" they are human. Of course one could argue asking "do you really think having a prosthetic leg is unacceptable content?" is a Turing test all on its own.
- legerdemain 5y ago
  - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
    > For instance, many Russians believe (or are aware that others believe) that disfigured people can cast "evil eye" magic or rob them of their health by association. Uhhh. > Who are we to say that YouTube should not accommodate viewers who feel this way? Not catering to superstitious peasants from the 12th century would be a reasonable starting point. Evil eye magic indeed. For crying out loud. No amount or moral relativism can obviate the harm of bigotry against the disabled.
  - bmarquez 5y ago
    The point that other cultures have different standards on disturbing and traumatic content is interesting in light of the fact that social network moderation is frequently outsourced[1] to poorly-paid workers in other countries. I wonder if a moderator applied their own local cultural bias for a Western video. [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2019-08-22/when-social-media-companies-outsource-content-moderation-far-from-silicon-valley https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2019-08-...
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    the Russians don't deserve to be dragged into this hypothetical, because most of them are not-superstitious or believe in some sort of evil eye folklore, courtesy of an reasonably decent scientific education system compared to much else that's wrong with the country these days. That's actually true for most cultures that end up being used as flagbearers for these bizarre relativistic arguments.
    - legerdemain 5y ago
      As a Russian person raised in Russia and interacting with other Russians around me in the Bay Area, I think you vastly underestimate the prevalence of superstitious beliefs among Russians. That includes professionals and their families, spouses, and elderly parents.
- techdragon 5y ago
  Isn't agreeing to let YouTube do dumb shit with its moderation part of the contract? I'd love to see her sucessfully sue Google/Alphabet/YouTube over this because ... /raises pitchfork/ ... Death to the YouTube Algorithm... But I don't know how YouTube couldn't have done everything in their power to protect themselves this, short of large scale public outrage, dumb luck, or application of growth hacking techniques to catch their attention in places like Hacker News... Google is a faceless, uncaring monolith. You stand a better chance to negotiate your way out of getting assimilated by the Borg than you do at getting Google to give a fuck about you as an individual human. We're just a endless supply of faceless inputs to their algorithms and none of us matter to them... /shakes pitchfork/
  - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
    > Isn't agreeing to let YouTube do dumb shit with its moderation part of the contract? Possibly. But probably not when that dumb shit targets a federally protected class?
    - techdragon 5y ago
      Yes, but at the same time it’s similar to the issues of the Texan abortion changes and “3rd party enforcement” as a side step around the problem. Google aren’t allowed to discriminate, but are they required to build their systems to prevent the discrimination of 3rd parties who come along, flag videos and by proxy train the algorithms that automatically flag other similar content? Is it legal to compel them to build their systems this way? Do user moderation/flagging count as “content” for the purposes of safe harbour legislation and thus protect Google from consequences regarding users “uploading” it while simultaneously not displaying it to anyone but the user that flagged it also preventing any possible takedown claim or other legal action against inappropriate/malicious flagging/moderation data? This is Google, they have “fight Larry Ellison in court for a decade” levels of Legal team money. Taking the issue to court would basically be a decade long fight that would need help from someone like the ACLU that knows ahead of time the case will drag on to the Supreme Court and knows what that really means and how to handle that.
ncmncm 5y ago
Tl;dr: YT wants to avoid placing ads from their actual, you know, customers (which we manifestly are not) on what might, if they ever were to look, turn out to be a channel that caters to fetishists. But! they don't want to even mention that, for fear of calling any attention to it. So instead they ghost her, because that's super easy. Stepping back, we already know Google is a Big Evil. Nothing they could do here would make them any less evil. There's no neat solution for them, for her, or for us, short of dropping use of Google properties. That will have to happen in its own time, but cannot be too soon.
- sidewndr46 5y ago
  The thing that baffles me about this is you can fetishize basically anything. Yes, we're all familiar with common fetishes depicted by Hollywood. But I mean, the entire premise of it is that a fetish is something you uniquely appreciate. So how do they draw that imaginary line of "this could be a fetish thing!" in the sand?
  - Larrikin 5y ago
    We actually have decent statistics on what fetishes are actually real and not just Hollywood and anecdotes. Porn hub post common search terms and even does a break down by states yearly.
    - sidewndr46 5y ago
      I'd need to try and find more data from porn hub and other sources, but I doubt porn hub is actually indicative of society at large. For example, what percentage of porn hub's audience is male vs. female? In the US it appears only about 30% are female. https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2019-year-in-review#gender https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2019-year-in-review#gender The idea that pornographic preferences are somehow an indicator of people's actual sex lives does not follow. There is a big difference between fantasy and what people actually intend to do. For example I really enjoy psychological thrillers involving a murderer hiding in nearly plain sight. I have no intention of killing anyone, being a victim of murder, or even knowing anyone who is a victim. It's just an interesting fantasy.
TheMode 5y ago
This is especially funny (or sad) after the removal of the dislike button, guess that not all creators need protection after all. I didn't know her before, and am likely not the target audience, but I fully support her complaints.
perryizgr8 5y ago
It's their platform, they have the final say. If you don't like it, start your own video hosting site.
- lbwtaylor 5y ago
  This is so sad and dystopian. I guess restaurants, hotels and other businesses should be able to exclude disabled people too?
  - Loeffelmann 5y ago
    First of, I agree with you. But people nowadays take YouTube way too much for granted. It's amazing that we have a platform where we can upload videos for free and not even have to share them publicly and just use it as a free video storage. I don't think I would describe it as dystopian if such a platform didn't exist or let anyone monetize the videos they upload. We should be happy we even have it imo
    - tentacleuno 5y ago
      I'm happy we've got it, but I'm also looking forward to what we can do in future. I've replaced Google with DuckDuckGo, and now I am aptly looking forward to replacing YouTube with an alternative platform that treats its users right. Of course at one point YouTube was that underdog, but scale tends to rot out a company. Perhaps decentralisation is the answer?
- tentacleuno 5y ago
  Is this the usual 'they're a company' argument? The thing is, even though they're a company, they still have an obligation to the public through virtue of the law. Do you really agree with them shutting off a creator's revenue stream simply because they have a prosthetic leg?

61 points by healsdata 5y ago

Summary of the "disturbing content": she has a bog standard prosthetic foot. Sometimes she shows it to the camera and talks about neat prosthetic foot facts like how she needed to eat more food instead of less. That's it. Apparently that's enough to get age restricted, decirculated, and demonetized on youtube. Frankly I think that youtube's human reviewer (if indeed there really was one and their review process isn't just a lie) should feel ashamed of themself. Given that disability is a federally protected class, its not clear to me how youtube's action here is legal.

CitrusFruits 5y ago
From what I've seen, there usually isn't a human reviewer. It's usually some sort of AI thing that gets it right 99% of the time but leaves the 1% pretty stranded without a good appeal process. I remember hearing about a lifestyle vlogger who couldn't say "lesbian", and being a lesbian, talked used the word quite often. To get around it and other related but similarly censored topics, they developed substitute words to use combined with a translation on screen for what their word actually meant.
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
  > From what I've seen, there usually isn't a human reviewer. It's usually some sort of AI thing that gets it right 99% of the time but leaves the 1% pretty stranded without a good appeal process. In the video she says she asked for human review and the alleged human alleged reviewer confirmed the restriction, because that's the world we live in now I guess.
  - sidewndr46 5y ago
    It'd be neat if they gave the content creator a chance to administer their own turing test to the reviewer in an attempt to "prove" they are human. Of course one could argue asking "do you really think having a prosthetic leg is unacceptable content?" is a Turing test all on its own.
legerdemain 5y ago
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
  > For instance, many Russians believe (or are aware that others believe) that disfigured people can cast "evil eye" magic or rob them of their health by association. Uhhh. > Who are we to say that YouTube should not accommodate viewers who feel this way? Not catering to superstitious peasants from the 12th century would be a reasonable starting point. Evil eye magic indeed. For crying out loud. No amount or moral relativism can obviate the harm of bigotry against the disabled.
- bmarquez 5y ago
  The point that other cultures have different standards on disturbing and traumatic content is interesting in light of the fact that social network moderation is frequently outsourced[1] to poorly-paid workers in other countries. I wonder if a moderator applied their own local cultural bias for a Western video. [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2019-08-22/when-social-media-companies-outsource-content-moderation-far-from-silicon-valley https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2019-08-...
- Barrin92 5y ago
  the Russians don't deserve to be dragged into this hypothetical, because most of them are not-superstitious or believe in some sort of evil eye folklore, courtesy of an reasonably decent scientific education system compared to much else that's wrong with the country these days. That's actually true for most cultures that end up being used as flagbearers for these bizarre relativistic arguments.
  - legerdemain 5y ago
    As a Russian person raised in Russia and interacting with other Russians around me in the Bay Area, I think you vastly underestimate the prevalence of superstitious beliefs among Russians. That includes professionals and their families, spouses, and elderly parents.
techdragon 5y ago
Isn't agreeing to let YouTube do dumb shit with its moderation part of the contract? I'd love to see her sucessfully sue Google/Alphabet/YouTube over this because ... /raises pitchfork/ ... Death to the YouTube Algorithm... But I don't know how YouTube couldn't have done everything in their power to protect themselves this, short of large scale public outrage, dumb luck, or application of growth hacking techniques to catch their attention in places like Hacker News... Google is a faceless, uncaring monolith. You stand a better chance to negotiate your way out of getting assimilated by the Borg than you do at getting Google to give a fuck about you as an individual human. We're just a endless supply of faceless inputs to their algorithms and none of us matter to them... /shakes pitchfork/
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
  > Isn't agreeing to let YouTube do dumb shit with its moderation part of the contract? Possibly. But probably not when that dumb shit targets a federally protected class?
  - techdragon 5y ago
    Yes, but at the same time it’s similar to the issues of the Texan abortion changes and “3rd party enforcement” as a side step around the problem. Google aren’t allowed to discriminate, but are they required to build their systems to prevent the discrimination of 3rd parties who come along, flag videos and by proxy train the algorithms that automatically flag other similar content? Is it legal to compel them to build their systems this way? Do user moderation/flagging count as “content” for the purposes of safe harbour legislation and thus protect Google from consequences regarding users “uploading” it while simultaneously not displaying it to anyone but the user that flagged it also preventing any possible takedown claim or other legal action against inappropriate/malicious flagging/moderation data? This is Google, they have “fight Larry Ellison in court for a decade” levels of Legal team money. Taking the issue to court would basically be a decade long fight that would need help from someone like the ACLU that knows ahead of time the case will drag on to the Supreme Court and knows what that really means and how to handle that.

ncmncm 5y ago

Tl;dr: YT wants to avoid placing ads from their actual, you know, customers (which we manifestly are not) on what might, if they ever were to look, turn out to be a channel that caters to fetishists. But! they don't want to even mention that, for fear of calling any attention to it. So instead they ghost her, because that's super easy. Stepping back, we already know Google is a Big Evil. Nothing they could do here would make them any less evil. There's no neat solution for them, for her, or for us, short of dropping use of Google properties. That will have to happen in its own time, but cannot be too soon.

sidewndr46 5y ago
The thing that baffles me about this is you can fetishize basically anything. Yes, we're all familiar with common fetishes depicted by Hollywood. But I mean, the entire premise of it is that a fetish is something you uniquely appreciate. So how do they draw that imaginary line of "this could be a fetish thing!" in the sand?
- Larrikin 5y ago
  We actually have decent statistics on what fetishes are actually real and not just Hollywood and anecdotes. Porn hub post common search terms and even does a break down by states yearly.
  - sidewndr46 5y ago
    I'd need to try and find more data from porn hub and other sources, but I doubt porn hub is actually indicative of society at large. For example, what percentage of porn hub's audience is male vs. female? In the US it appears only about 30% are female. https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2019-year-in-review#gender https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2019-year-in-review#gender The idea that pornographic preferences are somehow an indicator of people's actual sex lives does not follow. There is a big difference between fantasy and what people actually intend to do. For example I really enjoy psychological thrillers involving a murderer hiding in nearly plain sight. I have no intention of killing anyone, being a victim of murder, or even knowing anyone who is a victim. It's just an interesting fantasy.

TheMode 5y ago

This is especially funny (or sad) after the removal of the dislike button, guess that not all creators need protection after all. I didn't know her before, and am likely not the target audience, but I fully support her complaints.

perryizgr8 5y ago

It's their platform, they have the final say. If you don't like it, start your own video hosting site.

lbwtaylor 5y ago
This is so sad and dystopian. I guess restaurants, hotels and other businesses should be able to exclude disabled people too?
- Loeffelmann 5y ago
  First of, I agree with you. But people nowadays take YouTube way too much for granted. It's amazing that we have a platform where we can upload videos for free and not even have to share them publicly and just use it as a free video storage. I don't think I would describe it as dystopian if such a platform didn't exist or let anyone monetize the videos they upload. We should be happy we even have it imo
  - tentacleuno 5y ago
    I'm happy we've got it, but I'm also looking forward to what we can do in future. I've replaced Google with DuckDuckGo, and now I am aptly looking forward to replacing YouTube with an alternative platform that treats its users right. Of course at one point YouTube was that underdog, but scale tends to rot out a company. Perhaps decentralisation is the answer?
tentacleuno 5y ago
Is this the usual 'they're a company' argument? The thing is, even though they're a company, they still have an obligation to the public through virtue of the law. Do you really agree with them shutting off a creator's revenue stream simply because they have a prosthetic leg?