4 ms·

I'm more confused by the youtube comments. They have thousands of employees, couldn't they get an intern to write a bot that bans anyone who posts the same link

I'm more confused by the youtube comments. They have thousands of employees, couldn't they get an intern to write a bot that bans anyone who posts the same link in a dozen commment sections?

ageitgey 4y ago
Exactly. Or literally ban any comment saying you won something. The fraud spam is totally out of control.
- whstl 4y ago
  I used to be 100% sure that Youtube was the most dogfooded[1] website on earth. Now I have my doubts. I mean, there's no way the developers haven't seem the deluge of spam. The "can you recommend me a service to download movies for free" one was a thing for about two years. Now it's "you won join our Telegram", literally everywhere. [1] For those who don't know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food
  - gardenhedge 4y ago
    I guess the devs are working on higher priority work and don't have the autonomy to choose what to work on
- rtkwe 4y ago
  Simple explicit filters like that always snag up tons of random innocent users too. The important and hard problem of content moderation is you need to understand the context of the comment/post and that includes cultural context which means it's an even more difficult problem than simply comprehending the language which is a near hard AI problem on it's own.
  - whstl 4y ago
    Have you seen those, though? The "sender" name is always "Text me on telegram (hand-emoji) @channel_name" and the text of the body is always the same. This has been going on for months now, in some channels. This is something that pg's 2002 Bayesian filter would very easily catch. http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html
    - rtkwe 4y ago
      I have yeah. Extremely specific spam like that is doable but the filters need to be very specific to avoid false positives and then you're just playing whackamole with minor variations to the spelling or wording.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- warrenm 4y ago
  Irony (or not?) ... I [legit] won something by commenting on a YouTube video a couple years ago
jrootabega 4y ago
People can post links? I have never been able to post a link in a YouTube comment. 100% blackholed when there's a link in it.
- whstl 4y ago
  The ones I've seen post Telegram handles and ask people to send a message.
jjoonathan 4y ago
They probably rotate accounts, but still, those "I need a financial advisor / SamSpam worked for me, telegram->" comment clusters feel like they've been the dominant form of spam for years but shouldn't have taken years to target with a model. It's even worse on eBay, where there is a spammer who has used the same set of fake pictures and listings for at least 5 years now. I call them the "Comic Sans Scammer" for reasons you can probably guess and they still drop junk into my feeds like clockwork every weekend. Ugh. I'm sure I don't see all the fronts of these battles, but with the size of the companies in question it feels like I should be seeing more back-and-forth in the fronts that are visible to me.
- flangola7 4y ago
  How do they have so many accounts? Phone numbers cost money
ldoughty 4y ago
Not super positive, but I think there is/was a concern over "moderation" If they are a "platform" that only responds to "complaints", there's more lax rules / risks in court battles. If they proactively moderate too much, they would expose more legal risks.. "why are you removing links to (my product) but not (similar product)?" When it's proactive vs clearly illegal stuff, they can point to the fact they are following the law, which requires them to take action proactively even as a "platform". Of course, you could argue lots of ways why they should do it, but what is Google's incentive? People are not flocking away from Gmail or YouTube. Of course, more and more people complaining could lead to people doing so.
- BaseballPhysics 4y ago
  This is not at all true. Section 230 provides Google with safe harbour to moderate as the see fit with no risk of legal action.

I'm more confused by the youtube comments. They have thousands of employees, couldn't they get an intern to write a bot that bans anyone who posts the same link in a dozen commment sections?

ageitgey 4y ago

Exactly. Or literally ban any comment saying you won something. The fraud spam is totally out of control.

whstl 4y ago
I used to be 100% sure that Youtube was the most dogfooded[1] website on earth. Now I have my doubts. I mean, there's no way the developers haven't seem the deluge of spam. The "can you recommend me a service to download movies for free" one was a thing for about two years. Now it's "you won join our Telegram", literally everywhere. [1] For those who don't know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food
- gardenhedge 4y ago
  I guess the devs are working on higher priority work and don't have the autonomy to choose what to work on
rtkwe 4y ago
Simple explicit filters like that always snag up tons of random innocent users too. The important and hard problem of content moderation is you need to understand the context of the comment/post and that includes cultural context which means it's an even more difficult problem than simply comprehending the language which is a near hard AI problem on it's own.
- whstl 4y ago
  Have you seen those, though? The "sender" name is always "Text me on telegram (hand-emoji) @channel_name" and the text of the body is always the same. This has been going on for months now, in some channels. This is something that pg's 2002 Bayesian filter would very easily catch. http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html
  - rtkwe 4y ago
    I have yeah. Extremely specific spam like that is doable but the filters need to be very specific to avoid false positives and then you're just playing whackamole with minor variations to the spelling or wording.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
warrenm 4y ago
Irony (or not?) ... I [legit] won something by commenting on a YouTube video a couple years ago

jrootabega 4y ago

People can post links? I have never been able to post a link in a YouTube comment. 100% blackholed when there's a link in it.

whstl 4y ago
The ones I've seen post Telegram handles and ask people to send a message.

jjoonathan 4y ago

They probably rotate accounts, but still, those "I need a financial advisor / SamSpam worked for me, telegram->" comment clusters feel like they've been the dominant form of spam for years but shouldn't have taken years to target with a model. It's even worse on eBay, where there is a spammer who has used the same set of fake pictures and listings for at least 5 years now. I call them the "Comic Sans Scammer" for reasons you can probably guess and they still drop junk into my feeds like clockwork every weekend. Ugh. I'm sure I don't see all the fronts of these battles, but with the size of the companies in question it feels like I should be seeing more back-and-forth in the fronts that are visible to me.

flangola7 4y ago
How do they have so many accounts? Phone numbers cost money

ldoughty 4y ago

Not super positive, but I think there is/was a concern over "moderation" If they are a "platform" that only responds to "complaints", there's more lax rules / risks in court battles. If they proactively moderate too much, they would expose more legal risks.. "why are you removing links to (my product) but not (similar product)?" When it's proactive vs clearly illegal stuff, they can point to the fact they are following the law, which requires them to take action proactively even as a "platform". Of course, you could argue lots of ways why they should do it, but what is Google's incentive? People are not flocking away from Gmail or YouTube. Of course, more and more people complaining could lead to people doing so.

BaseballPhysics 4y ago
This is not at all true. Section 230 provides Google with safe harbour to moderate as the see fit with no risk of legal action.