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The other thing they seem to have done around the same time is heavily bias towards showing only positive comments. This is quite damaging when searching for, f

by nojs 3y ago

The other thing they seem to have done around the same time is heavily bias towards showing only positive comments. This is quite damaging when searching for, for example, medical content. At first when I found a video where every visible comment was “Omg! I’ve tried everything for years, and this is the first thing that worked. You’ve changed my life”, I was excited! Now, I realise that almost every physical therapy video contains the exact same comments. Presumably because they are the ones the algorithm pushes to the top. This means it’s really hard to know which content is actually trustworthy, especially when there’s also no downvotes. And for a lot of thing this is really important. It’s as if Amazon showed only the glowing five star reviews - suddenly you don’t know what the common problems are with the product you’re about to buy.

sn_master 3y ago
Couldn't it be also because of bots/paid-humans writing the same kind of comments and liking them to make them bubble to the top?
- seoulmetro 3y ago
  No. Because it does the same thing for comments by normal people. It's an actual feature of YouTube now. YouTube has been censored for a while. Writing anything even remotely critical is weighted down. You can only critically write good things about something, but that's not very easy to do. There's a reason why youtube comments are echo chambers of "happiness for the video". It's like Reddit, where you are writing comments to pass the hive mind filter. Welcome to modern communal interactions, where having a valid or invalid opinion is bad only because it is different.
  - jakear 3y ago
    HN is no different. For a handful of select hot-button topics, any deviation from toeing the party line will result in near immediate downvote barrage and eventual [flagged][dead]. On the flip side, for some (usually the same) topics it’s easy to write banal karma-fishing comments sure to rise to the top of the thread. At least HN has a time-decay aspect on those.
    - account42 3y ago
      Which topics are those? It doesn't take many downvotes/flags to kill a post here but for most issues there isn't a single hive mind and the result really depends on the thread and also time.
    - angusturner 3y ago
      HN still seems to value constructive criticism though, to an extent that is simply not possible on YouTube. YouTube comment section is basically a cesspool of toxic positivity now, with absolutely no informational value at all. I feel like this has been the case for a couple of years now, where nothing even slightly critical will be surfaced by whatever automated algorithm they are using to filter/boost content.
      - avereveard 3y ago
        Eh. I've seen it happen and it's really damaging to discussion. I now actively avoid some topics and let people believe whatever they want around a few topic where the community usually get it wrong, but actively resist getting corrected.
    - supriyo-biswas 3y ago
      Thank you for writing that. I think both karma limits/day and a downvote limit/user need to be instituted to allow for respectful disagreement and useful conversations on HN.
  - KronisLV 3y ago
    > Writing anything even remotely critical is weighted down. You can only critically write good things about something, but that's not very easy to do. While objectivity and truth are both good, the way how people phrase things can sometimes come across as quite mean spirited, almost like an attack on someone else. This is probably in part because there absolutely are people online who actually enjoy posting vile comments and hurting others, so many have their guard up. Ergo, more luck can be had when phrasing things constructively or without a tone that might even accidentally appear dismissive. > There's a reason why youtube comments are echo chambers of "happiness for the video". It's like Reddit, where you are writing comments to pass the hive mind filter. Welcome to modern communal interactions, where having a valid or invalid opinion is bad only because it is different. I'll even go as far as to admit that in my eyes this is for the better. Recently someone from LTT came out as trans and many of the comments initially were just painful to read. Lots of attempts at being as hurtful as possible and just horrible rhetoric, that not only adds nothing to the conversation, but also brings down the mood of everyone. But revisiting the video now, most of the comments are far more civil and the vile things have mostly been purged, reading the comments now doesn't hurt. It's probably quite hard to find a middle ground between being too aggressive or lax with moderation and the degree of this will vary between different communities - what sentiments are okay, what jokes are acceptable, what rhetoric can be used. My hopes are that Internet and the various popular communities will remain humane, while still allowing for discussions and disagreement about most topics. I think that HN typically finds a decent balance: people can have disagreements without getting too uncivil and it's kept that way. I remember discussions about WFH and someone who told me to "get cancer and die" got flagged and more or less removed from the discussion, because that didn't contribute anything.
vikingerik 3y ago
Well, all of the comments are going to say it's the first thing that worked. It's not going to be the second thing that worked, since once one thing worked the person doesn't need to keep looking for more.
- colpabar 3y ago
  The point is that the comments saying it didn’t work won’t be seen.
  - therealdrag0 3y ago
    People are more likely to comment when it worked and upvote comments that give them hope.
    - account42 3y ago
      > People are more likely to comment when it worked That's just not how people work.
      - therealdrag0 3y ago
        Good point this could have been better phrased. I think I meant more like "In regards to health, my impression is people talk more about things that worked for them even if they're false positives (placebos, regression to mean etc) than they do about true negatives (things that didn't work)." (This is different than other things like online reviews for products which are more biased towards negative experiences.)
    - zrezzed 3y ago
      Uh, do you remember what youtube comments were like 2016-ish and earlier? It seems obvious to me the overall experience of youtube comments is much more dependent on youtube's choices than people's behaviors.
seoulmetro 3y ago
There should be a name for this new phenomenon. It's akin to forced hive mind cleansing of discussion. Bandwagon discussion? One-way communities? I've noticed it for the last couple years too. There is heavy censorship on interactivity in most web apps today. Searching is restricted, discussion is restricted and viewing other discussions is restricted. Restricted by YouTube's bias.
- fomine3 3y ago
  Censoring external link is also a pain. Web is dying.
- orangepurple 3y ago
  Whitewashing, misleading, misdirection, misinformation
- klyrs 3y ago
  Toxic positivity?
  - Out_of_Characte 3y ago
    Lovebombing is a thing
- kitsunesoba 3y ago
  In the case of YouTube at least, to me this seems like it's probably overcorrection being done to try to manage the particular brand of extremely over-the-top negativity that's commonly seen in the comments section. Comments like this often require moderation for being abusive or otherwise breaking ToS but can't be handled right away, so they bubble the positive comments up to so at least the questionable comments are buried a bit and don't get as strong of a bandwagon effect. If this is what's actually happening, it's a case of particularly nasty commenters ruining it for everybody.
  - seoulmetro 3y ago
    Which is a worse problem to the minority than the over-correction is to the majority. Yeah, it makes sense what YouTube is doing, but I wish people would see it for what it is and understand that it definitely isn't a healthy space. Heck, where is these days?
tjoff 3y ago
Don't think I would go to youtube for medical advise without doing real research afterwards. Yes, the comments system is being heavily biased and that is great. People might not remember but youtube comment section was about the most toxic place invented by humans. It was so bad I don't think anyone thought it could be salvaged. This is probably googles biggest achievement of late. Hardly perfect, but it truly have changed many millions of lives for the better. But no, it is not and never has been a good place for discussions. Unfortunate, yes, but this is so much better than anyone could have hoped for.
- jabradoodle 3y ago
  I wouldn't take it being positive for granted. This is exactly the kind of setup that perpetuates echo chambers. Polarisation is a genuinely dangerous phenomenon; when we loose our ability to have a conversation with those we disagree with, dark times are ahead.
  - tjoff 3y ago
    The previous was also an echo chamber though. Not saying youtube doesn't have problems because oh do they have problems. But it is the only case of a big social network, that I know of, that have been able to improve their discourse.
octacat 3y ago
Booking shows only the glowing five star reviews and Amazon probably prefers good reviews too (not the "useful" or "popular" reviews).
- prirun 3y ago
  Amazon makes it very easy to see the 4/3/2/1-star ratings just by clicking the rating you want on the left after clicking the rating on the item page. Not saying all the reviews are legit, but they do let you see the poor ratings, which I find very helpful.
culopatin 3y ago
I noticed this with tutorials. “Omg I’ve been struggling forever with this and this is the best explanation”. Then turns out to be a very shallow overview of the topic that doesn’t actually explain anything and it’s not even a tutorial.
- fennecfoxy 3y ago
  Or people showing off their electronics projects, all the comments are just EE students from countries where the unis are degree factories asking for code etc so they can rip off the project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ-kgruAG68 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ-kgruAG68, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M2AOPGqR-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M2AOPGqR-M etc, so easy to find. It's always the same "how can I contact u" "circuit diagram and code pls" "what is x project cost" <--- important for these countries. So many EE students in places just ripping off other people's projects & the uni doesn't know better or care aha

by nojs 3y ago

sn_master 3y ago

Couldn't it be also because of bots/paid-humans writing the same kind of comments and liking them to make them bubble to the top?

seoulmetro 3y ago
No. Because it does the same thing for comments by normal people. It's an actual feature of YouTube now. YouTube has been censored for a while. Writing anything even remotely critical is weighted down. You can only critically write good things about something, but that's not very easy to do. There's a reason why youtube comments are echo chambers of "happiness for the video". It's like Reddit, where you are writing comments to pass the hive mind filter. Welcome to modern communal interactions, where having a valid or invalid opinion is bad only because it is different.
- jakear 3y ago
  HN is no different. For a handful of select hot-button topics, any deviation from toeing the party line will result in near immediate downvote barrage and eventual [flagged][dead]. On the flip side, for some (usually the same) topics it’s easy to write banal karma-fishing comments sure to rise to the top of the thread. At least HN has a time-decay aspect on those.
  - account42 3y ago
    Which topics are those? It doesn't take many downvotes/flags to kill a post here but for most issues there isn't a single hive mind and the result really depends on the thread and also time.
  - angusturner 3y ago
    HN still seems to value constructive criticism though, to an extent that is simply not possible on YouTube. YouTube comment section is basically a cesspool of toxic positivity now, with absolutely no informational value at all. I feel like this has been the case for a couple of years now, where nothing even slightly critical will be surfaced by whatever automated algorithm they are using to filter/boost content.
    - avereveard 3y ago
      Eh. I've seen it happen and it's really damaging to discussion. I now actively avoid some topics and let people believe whatever they want around a few topic where the community usually get it wrong, but actively resist getting corrected.
  - supriyo-biswas 3y ago
    Thank you for writing that. I think both karma limits/day and a downvote limit/user need to be instituted to allow for respectful disagreement and useful conversations on HN.
- KronisLV 3y ago
  > Writing anything even remotely critical is weighted down. You can only critically write good things about something, but that's not very easy to do. While objectivity and truth are both good, the way how people phrase things can sometimes come across as quite mean spirited, almost like an attack on someone else. This is probably in part because there absolutely are people online who actually enjoy posting vile comments and hurting others, so many have their guard up. Ergo, more luck can be had when phrasing things constructively or without a tone that might even accidentally appear dismissive. > There's a reason why youtube comments are echo chambers of "happiness for the video". It's like Reddit, where you are writing comments to pass the hive mind filter. Welcome to modern communal interactions, where having a valid or invalid opinion is bad only because it is different. I'll even go as far as to admit that in my eyes this is for the better. Recently someone from LTT came out as trans and many of the comments initially were just painful to read. Lots of attempts at being as hurtful as possible and just horrible rhetoric, that not only adds nothing to the conversation, but also brings down the mood of everyone. But revisiting the video now, most of the comments are far more civil and the vile things have mostly been purged, reading the comments now doesn't hurt. It's probably quite hard to find a middle ground between being too aggressive or lax with moderation and the degree of this will vary between different communities - what sentiments are okay, what jokes are acceptable, what rhetoric can be used. My hopes are that Internet and the various popular communities will remain humane, while still allowing for discussions and disagreement about most topics. I think that HN typically finds a decent balance: people can have disagreements without getting too uncivil and it's kept that way. I remember discussions about WFH and someone who told me to "get cancer and die" got flagged and more or less removed from the discussion, because that didn't contribute anything.

vikingerik 3y ago

Well, all of the comments are going to say it's the first thing that worked. It's not going to be the second thing that worked, since once one thing worked the person doesn't need to keep looking for more.

colpabar 3y ago
The point is that the comments saying it didn’t work won’t be seen.
- therealdrag0 3y ago
  People are more likely to comment when it worked and upvote comments that give them hope.
  - account42 3y ago
    > People are more likely to comment when it worked That's just not how people work.
    - therealdrag0 3y ago
      Good point this could have been better phrased. I think I meant more like "In regards to health, my impression is people talk more about things that worked for them even if they're false positives (placebos, regression to mean etc) than they do about true negatives (things that didn't work)." (This is different than other things like online reviews for products which are more biased towards negative experiences.)
  - zrezzed 3y ago
    Uh, do you remember what youtube comments were like 2016-ish and earlier? It seems obvious to me the overall experience of youtube comments is much more dependent on youtube's choices than people's behaviors.

seoulmetro 3y ago

There should be a name for this new phenomenon. It's akin to forced hive mind cleansing of discussion. Bandwagon discussion? One-way communities? I've noticed it for the last couple years too. There is heavy censorship on interactivity in most web apps today. Searching is restricted, discussion is restricted and viewing other discussions is restricted. Restricted by YouTube's bias.

fomine3 3y ago
Censoring external link is also a pain. Web is dying.
orangepurple 3y ago
Whitewashing, misleading, misdirection, misinformation
klyrs 3y ago
Toxic positivity?
- Out_of_Characte 3y ago
  Lovebombing is a thing
kitsunesoba 3y ago
In the case of YouTube at least, to me this seems like it's probably overcorrection being done to try to manage the particular brand of extremely over-the-top negativity that's commonly seen in the comments section. Comments like this often require moderation for being abusive or otherwise breaking ToS but can't be handled right away, so they bubble the positive comments up to so at least the questionable comments are buried a bit and don't get as strong of a bandwagon effect. If this is what's actually happening, it's a case of particularly nasty commenters ruining it for everybody.
- seoulmetro 3y ago
  Which is a worse problem to the minority than the over-correction is to the majority. Yeah, it makes sense what YouTube is doing, but I wish people would see it for what it is and understand that it definitely isn't a healthy space. Heck, where is these days?

tjoff 3y ago

Don't think I would go to youtube for medical advise without doing real research afterwards. Yes, the comments system is being heavily biased and that is great. People might not remember but youtube comment section was about the most toxic place invented by humans. It was so bad I don't think anyone thought it could be salvaged. This is probably googles biggest achievement of late. Hardly perfect, but it truly have changed many millions of lives for the better. But no, it is not and never has been a good place for discussions. Unfortunate, yes, but this is so much better than anyone could have hoped for.

jabradoodle 3y ago
I wouldn't take it being positive for granted. This is exactly the kind of setup that perpetuates echo chambers. Polarisation is a genuinely dangerous phenomenon; when we loose our ability to have a conversation with those we disagree with, dark times are ahead.
- tjoff 3y ago
  The previous was also an echo chamber though. Not saying youtube doesn't have problems because oh do they have problems. But it is the only case of a big social network, that I know of, that have been able to improve their discourse.

octacat 3y ago

Booking shows only the glowing five star reviews and Amazon probably prefers good reviews too (not the "useful" or "popular" reviews).

prirun 3y ago
Amazon makes it very easy to see the 4/3/2/1-star ratings just by clicking the rating you want on the left after clicking the rating on the item page. Not saying all the reviews are legit, but they do let you see the poor ratings, which I find very helpful.

culopatin 3y ago

I noticed this with tutorials. “Omg I’ve been struggling forever with this and this is the best explanation”. Then turns out to be a very shallow overview of the topic that doesn’t actually explain anything and it’s not even a tutorial.

fennecfoxy 3y ago
Or people showing off their electronics projects, all the comments are just EE students from countries where the unis are degree factories asking for code etc so they can rip off the project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ-kgruAG68 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ-kgruAG68, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M2AOPGqR-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M2AOPGqR-M etc, so easy to find. It's always the same "how can I contact u" "circuit diagram and code pls" "what is x project cost" <--- important for these countries. So many EE students in places just ripping off other people's projects & the uni doesn't know better or care aha