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Doesn't have to even be that complicated. Remember when YouTube comments used to be a dumpster fire? I'm pretty sure YouTube is doing sentiment analysis on all

Doesn't have to even be that complicated. Remember when YouTube comments used to be a dumpster fire? I'm pretty sure YouTube is doing sentiment analysis on all comments and artificially promoting the ones that tend to be positive.

trustingtrust 3y ago
Positive or negative ? Positive comments don’t generate interaction. If a comment was positive I’d like and move on not comment. Negative comments in the other had generate a lot of interaction. If I was to guess, Google as a marketing company loves interaction.
- thejazzman 3y ago
  I believe their point was that we no longer see as much nonsensical hate in YouTube comments anymore - or at least that rings true to me and I've actually wondered about it for awhile
- wordpad25 3y ago
  You min/max for engagement, but get a local max with negativity, so you increase your variability to find another peak
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Engagement is a really poor proxy for value. I've had an awful lot of engagement that's produced little value. (As I get older, I try to avoid that, increasingly. Not always successfully.) I've had tremendous value from some very brief engagements, often one-liners or casual remarks, though also when someone shares a deep knowledge of a subject or a truly insightful personal experience. Those are all exceptionally valuable, but in terms of "engagement metrics" such as replies, time-on-site, etc., they're often negatives. To turn a phrase: feed a person endless questions and challenges, and you'll keep them on site for a day. Provide them the answer or tools they need, and they disappear forever. (Dating / matchmaking sites face a related version of this problem.) With time, people who do value useful information come to realise the timesuck nature of high-engagement, low-value sites (o hai redditz) and avoid them like the plague. Side observation: I'm playing with FastGPT (largely because it doesn't require registration to use, so I can't compare it to ChatGPT or other registration-required generative AIs), and one of the things that's useful about it is that it gives specific answers to specific questions, rather than sending me off on an endless quest through low-grade online sources. Or even relatively high-grade ones such as Wikipedia, which might answer the immediate question but tend to prompt more. Curiosity ain't necessarily bad, except for cats.... What generative AI does that General Web Search does not is actually quench the thirst. Which is useful from a personal value perspective, though possibly a shock to the system for both online search and content providers.
rockskon 3y ago
This practice leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Presents an inauthentic vision of what people are. Anger and other negative emotions are part of the human condition. Suppressing their expression doesn't change the underlying issue that caused the emotion. Makes YouTube feel more inauthentic and bland.
- pimlottc 3y ago
  It's concerning, yes. But before this, YouTube comments were complete toxic garbage fire for _years_. It's definitely a much nicer experience than it used to be.
  - worthless-trash 3y ago
    A very good reflection of humanity to be honest. Without this, I fear that small deviations from positivity will be met with downvoting and hate.
- d-us-vb 3y ago
  that's only if you're viewing "people" as a whole. If you instead view each commentor as an individual, it only makes sense that you would promote what improves the health of your service and punish those who stir up strife. In general, anyone can find some reason to criticize even the best things, and if there's one lesson humanity can take from social media it's that negativity and cyber-bullying is contagious. I am completely in favor of YouTube for creating a comment section that I actually enjoy reading; one that enhances the video-watching experience. Not even a single flavenoid of bad taste in my mouth about this.
- throwawaysleep 3y ago
  People suck. Unfortunately for the authentic types, nobody wants a product that sucks.
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    People suck online. It's rare to have interactions IRL that are as bad as what you see in the old Youtube comments section. So which is more authentic? How people behave in person or in unfiltered comments/fora?
grpt 3y ago
> pretty sure YouTube is doing sentiment analysis could be. I think it's mainly the phone number requirement within the past few years. The bad accounts have washed out. It's also likely why Google will soon delete old inactive accounts, created before this policy.
_Algernon_ 3y ago
So that's why every comment has seemingly become a variation of "Can we all just appreciate the effort that X puts into their videos"? I guess it is better than flame wars but that's a low bar. These comments are just as uninteresting to read as the flame wars they replaced.
- scrollaway 3y ago
  It is better than flame wars, so unless you have a suggestion, I don’t know what else they could do. But I disagree with your premise. I know several YouTubers with reasonably large communities that have incredibly fun and wholesome interactions in the comments, mainly made possible by this sentiment analysis. Negativity and positivity both have feedback loops. If you display negativity, people will be more negative; if you display positivity, people will be more positive.
  - _Algernon_ 3y ago
    >I don’t know what else they could do They could remove the comment section entirely. They've had some version of a comment section for almost two decades now and at no point during that time have they succeeded at cultivating a platform wide culture for interesting comments. Flame wars were obviously bad and negative. Generic positive comments are slightly better but they still do not say anything interesting related to the content of the video. At this point, comments could just as well exist out-of-band on other platforms that have figured out how to foster discussions better (hint: extensive manual moderation is required, which Google will never provide).
    - Aerbil313 3y ago
      > They've had some version of a comment section for almost two decades now and at no point during that time have they succeeded at cultivating a platform wide culture for interesting comments. I'd propose there is no need for a public comments section. I honestly don't understand this feature creep.
      - 3y ago

trustingtrust 3y ago

Positive or negative ? Positive comments don’t generate interaction. If a comment was positive I’d like and move on not comment. Negative comments in the other had generate a lot of interaction. If I was to guess, Google as a marketing company loves interaction.

thejazzman 3y ago
I believe their point was that we no longer see as much nonsensical hate in YouTube comments anymore - or at least that rings true to me and I've actually wondered about it for awhile
wordpad25 3y ago
You min/max for engagement, but get a local max with negativity, so you increase your variability to find another peak
dredmorbius 3y ago
Engagement is a really poor proxy for value. I've had an awful lot of engagement that's produced little value. (As I get older, I try to avoid that, increasingly. Not always successfully.) I've had tremendous value from some very brief engagements, often one-liners or casual remarks, though also when someone shares a deep knowledge of a subject or a truly insightful personal experience. Those are all exceptionally valuable, but in terms of "engagement metrics" such as replies, time-on-site, etc., they're often negatives. To turn a phrase: feed a person endless questions and challenges, and you'll keep them on site for a day. Provide them the answer or tools they need, and they disappear forever. (Dating / matchmaking sites face a related version of this problem.) With time, people who do value useful information come to realise the timesuck nature of high-engagement, low-value sites (o hai redditz) and avoid them like the plague. Side observation: I'm playing with FastGPT (largely because it doesn't require registration to use, so I can't compare it to ChatGPT or other registration-required generative AIs), and one of the things that's useful about it is that it gives specific answers to specific questions, rather than sending me off on an endless quest through low-grade online sources. Or even relatively high-grade ones such as Wikipedia, which might answer the immediate question but tend to prompt more. Curiosity ain't necessarily bad, except for cats.... What generative AI does that General Web Search does not is actually quench the thirst. Which is useful from a personal value perspective, though possibly a shock to the system for both online search and content providers.

rockskon 3y ago

This practice leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Presents an inauthentic vision of what people are. Anger and other negative emotions are part of the human condition. Suppressing their expression doesn't change the underlying issue that caused the emotion. Makes YouTube feel more inauthentic and bland.

pimlottc 3y ago
It's concerning, yes. But before this, YouTube comments were complete toxic garbage fire for _years_. It's definitely a much nicer experience than it used to be.
- worthless-trash 3y ago
  A very good reflection of humanity to be honest. Without this, I fear that small deviations from positivity will be met with downvoting and hate.
d-us-vb 3y ago
that's only if you're viewing "people" as a whole. If you instead view each commentor as an individual, it only makes sense that you would promote what improves the health of your service and punish those who stir up strife. In general, anyone can find some reason to criticize even the best things, and if there's one lesson humanity can take from social media it's that negativity and cyber-bullying is contagious. I am completely in favor of YouTube for creating a comment section that I actually enjoy reading; one that enhances the video-watching experience. Not even a single flavenoid of bad taste in my mouth about this.
throwawaysleep 3y ago
People suck. Unfortunately for the authentic types, nobody wants a product that sucks.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  People suck online. It's rare to have interactions IRL that are as bad as what you see in the old Youtube comments section. So which is more authentic? How people behave in person or in unfiltered comments/fora?

grpt 3y ago

> pretty sure YouTube is doing sentiment analysis could be. I think it's mainly the phone number requirement within the past few years. The bad accounts have washed out. It's also likely why Google will soon delete old inactive accounts, created before this policy.

_Algernon_ 3y ago

So that's why every comment has seemingly become a variation of "Can we all just appreciate the effort that X puts into their videos"? I guess it is better than flame wars but that's a low bar. These comments are just as uninteresting to read as the flame wars they replaced.

scrollaway 3y ago
It is better than flame wars, so unless you have a suggestion, I don’t know what else they could do. But I disagree with your premise. I know several YouTubers with reasonably large communities that have incredibly fun and wholesome interactions in the comments, mainly made possible by this sentiment analysis. Negativity and positivity both have feedback loops. If you display negativity, people will be more negative; if you display positivity, people will be more positive.
- _Algernon_ 3y ago
  >I don’t know what else they could do They could remove the comment section entirely. They've had some version of a comment section for almost two decades now and at no point during that time have they succeeded at cultivating a platform wide culture for interesting comments. Flame wars were obviously bad and negative. Generic positive comments are slightly better but they still do not say anything interesting related to the content of the video. At this point, comments could just as well exist out-of-band on other platforms that have figured out how to foster discussions better (hint: extensive manual moderation is required, which Google will never provide).
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    > They've had some version of a comment section for almost two decades now and at no point during that time have they succeeded at cultivating a platform wide culture for interesting comments. I'd propose there is no need for a public comments section. I honestly don't understand this feature creep.
    - 3y ago