The solution is obvious - tag/categorize the videos, according to very strict rules, let the advertisers decide which tags to serve. Allow the publishers to dispute the tags.
For instance, "nudity" can be defined as "visible genitals, female nipples" in the US.
"Controversial" tag should not even exist, it makes no sense, any non-trivial subject is controversial.
And honestly, YouTube can benefit from a more precise tagging/category system, it's currently extremely crude.
It's a clip-art style "coloring video" drawing a baby with a lot of syringes, which then each empty their colored liquid into the baby. Technically, perfectly innocent. In context of a positive flood of videos with an undertone ranging from brain damaging to abusive targeted at little kids it doesn't seem that innocent to me. The sum isn't larger than the whole, but it's larger than each individual piece seen in a vacuum. However, where to draw the line? I would draw the line at "if it targets little kids, demonetize it", not even because of the content of such videos, simply because I think marketing to little kids is immoral no matter in what context, but I know that's not going to fly. But there could be a category for it, and then people could check out which advertisers advertise to little kids and let that inform their wallet voting.
For me, YT is just totally ruined anyway. Yeah I still watch videos on it, 99% of the video material on the web is on YT, but even using an ad-blocker what used to feel lame now feels positively fucked up considering how horribly bad YT has handled this before it blew up as well as after advertisers started retracting ads. I want to turn my back on it for good, and if we can't find a way to self-host and directly pay what we watch, I'll find a way to live without video on the web.
Okay so I've watched quite a few of those particular videos now to make sense of them... And I've come to the conclusion that the reaction to the syringes is cultural misunderstanding. My hunch is that the purpose of the syringes is to get children comfortable with the vaccination process. There are number of other videos where the syringes are being demonstrated on animals to make the animals feel better after getting sick. In this case, it seems like US Americans are projecting their particular sensibilities onto videos made by some people in an entirely different part of the world. Yes, they're weird to me too, and definitely not high quality, but I've actually started to appreciate some of those videos as being well intentioned propaganda, as opposed to some of the other videos that are literally showing children rape scenes and violence. It's important that we don't just lump everything that makes us uncomfortable into the same category.
I found that channel by following chains of featured channels from hardcore ElsaGate channels. You'll also find such coloring videos on channels that have blatantly messed up content, too.
> it seems like US Americans are projecting their particular sensibilities onto videos made by some people in an entirely different part of the world
What part of the world would that be? Just saying "oh, there's probably a culture that has these different sensibilities" is heard a lot around ElsaGate, without ever actually referencing a specific culture. And what is an "entirely different" part of the world? Made of antimatter?
> It's important that we don't just lump everything that makes us uncomfortable into the same category.
None of this makes me feel "uncomfortable" though, and I'm not American either, so don't lump my reaction and your reaction together as "our" reaction. Also, just because the fringe is not the center, doesn't mean they're not connected: don't lump noticing the connection together with lumping things together.
"Disturbing" or "weird" or "uncomfortable" or "nice" or "awesome" and so on are not very descriptive words. A cold breeze might make me feel uncomfortable, so might a video of a puppy getting hurt, but that doesn't describe these things. It's making it about the people calling it out, and I for one am not buying.
Since the number of categories is limited, even if large, there will always be weird videos that don't strictly fit into any category. It's a slippery slope argument, it doesn't mean we shouldn't organize information better.
This particular video can be under
Art > Drawing > Coloring
I don't see anything damaging about it. Yes, it's weird, but so what?
> “We are shocked and appalled to see that our adverts have appeared alongside such exploitative and inappropriate content,” said a Mars spokesperson in a statement. “We have taken the decision to immediately suspend all our online advertising on YouTube and Google globally. Until we have confidence that appropriate safeguards are in place, we will not advertise on YouTube and Google.”
> I don't see anything damaging about it. Yes, it's weird, but so what?
So you don't, probably not having looked at thousands of video descriptions and thumbnails on hundreds of channels featuring bondage, pregnant children, adults and children impregnated after having been drugged, dolls in bath tubs filled with things, objects and persons under car wheels and feet, drinking urine and eating poop, dominance and submission, binge eating of candy or just objects, objects being removed from a body or lumps removed by getting a syringe, babies faking their death, adults and kids with pacifiers, maggots, people being eaten, limbs being removed, unresolved tension, and dozens of other concepts [you see, that stands for something, there is just no space to expand all placeholders, just like when I said "flood" or "targeted at little kids"] repeated ad nauseam, across live action, claymation, 2D and 3D "art", all underlaid with the same handful of music and audio samples, produced on all continents except Africa maybe. So what?
Like many forms of abuse, e.g. mobbing or sexual harassment, each individual act can be explained away, and people who don't really look into things just see the one-off "weird thing". So what?
Then there's all the stuff that's neither here nor there, like making people jealous by drawing a heart on someone's belly, or a million "finger songs", or "Jony Jony Yes Papa". That's how babies learn colors. It's just copycats that experiment with the medium while not straying from the script that doesn't exist.
And of course, it's just the brains of toddlers, those aren't sponges or anything, and quite obviously, if it's not traumatizing to you, there can be no damage. We know that even "just" too much lack of healthy interaction can stunt development, but what's millions of hours of low-effort, "weird" content gonna do?
Anyways, I'm not here to tell you how you live your life, I'm just stating how I live mine. If you're not at work and not easily grossed out, maybe enjoy this 0.01% slice: https://i.imgur.com/MziRRQw.jpg -- but that's still just images, that's without the deceptive music and channel descriptions that advertise themselves as great entertainment for kids. And you can always find something there or in the ElsaGate subreddit that can serve as lightning rod, to say oh, this is overreacting, let's dismiss it all out of hand.
Not even once. Not even in the context of something called "Youtube for Kids". Pearl-clutching consideration for others: not okay. Pearl-clutching shock over people having consideration for others: totally on.
Argument for what? For me personally being turned off from YT for good? Heh. If you think thinking of those who can't defend themselves yet is some sort of no-no, then that is your "entire argument". In the end, I don't care what simplification you use as your personal lightning rod, it's your life. If you were a friend, you would have been for the longest time - as it is, no biggie.
Strict rules for tagging would just run into the same problems as strict rules for demonetization. LGBT groups won't be any happier to see their content publicly branded "sexually explicit" than just demonetized.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to do this -- even strict objective and unbiased rules will piss people off.
The classic example I can think of, that has already generated headlines, concerns nudity policies in social media (Facebook in particular) that have flagged breastfeeding mothers for "nudity" (and thus ticked people off). A "by the letter" policy risks much more of this sort of thing... flagging something as "bad" that much of the social norm says isn't really a big deal.
One other thing I would worry about with "objective" rules is what culture determines the "watch list". The cultural norms for what is taboo actually does vary to some degree from culture to culture. Youtube is used heavily in so many countries, with diverse cultures. How can a single policy encompass the social norms of countries as diverse as, say, heavy Youtube using countries such as India, Japan, the UK, Germany, and the US? (And this isn't even accounting for the diversity of culture within these countries.)
As an example, the swastika, which is extremely taboo in Germany and triggers "hate speech" flags in much of the rest of the West, is (usually styled differently but still) a religious symbol in India. You could create a generic flag category for "swastika", but chances are this will eventually flag some, say, Hindu content from India and tick those people off.
I suppose you could structure the rules to account for as many cultural norms as possible, but that can get very complicated fast.
So a lecture quoting from the Old Testament, or an atheist quoting its worst parts, would get banned under your regime? Because, at least for the first three examples, you are explicitly including meta-discussions of the subject.
It's impossible to create an "objective" standard. Because what you want to rate is meaning, and meaning is subjective, based on context and intent.
One of history's most famous photos is of a fully nude girl, maybe 8 or 9 years old. It makes no sense to stick any labels to such an image without considering the context it was created in, and the cultural significance it has.
"And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him."
"If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die"
No, I read with plenty of care. Which is why I asked you to clarify why meta-discussions are included for the first three examples, but not the last.
I'd also posit that it's impossible to define a clear distinction between a "lecture quoting a text advocating murder" and actually advocating murder.
Just as it is impossible to just say penis->nudity, without losing the vast difference in meaning and effect from a photo of Michelangelo's David to hardcore pornography.
That's because, fundamentally, there just is no such clear delineation. Give me any two photos including a penis, and I'll give you one that is more offensive than one, yet less offensive than the other.
The tech community loves to ignore the long history of these problems, and denigrates everything that can't be expressed as a smart contract as "biased" or "subjective".
But that's ok... In less than 200 years we'll have a great algorithm who will finally render the definitive test of what's porn and what's art: "I'll know it when I see it".
> I'd also posit that it's impossible to define a clear distinction between a "lecture quoting a text advocating murder" and actually advocating murder.
A steel-manning of context should be enough to draw a distinction. Sadly, most contexts today are being redefined by folks who are seeking or making porn for those who need to get off on their own moral outrage.
> Advocating murder of group X -> ban (even if you're quoting a religious text).
An alarming number of social justice advocates have been equating words with violence. Canadian Bill C-16 (now law) is particularly troubling because under the Ontario Human Rights Code it makes debate over gender neutral pronouns a punishable offense. It seems to me that the folks at YouTube are, necessarily, responding with the most "conservative" policies to avoid "controversy" (i.e. boycotts).
C-16 just adds gender identity to the list of identities you're already not permitted to discriminate or advocate violence against (race, color, ethnicity, religion, age, sex, disability). It does not prohibit debate over pronouns. Go read it: http://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/bill/C-16/royal-as...
That's true - but the Canadian Dept of Justice indicated (and then removed the link from their website) that they would enforce it in accordance with the Ontario Human Rights Code. Go read it: http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/code_grounds/gender_identity
> The solution is obvious - tag/categorize the videos, according to very strict rules, let the advertisers decide which tags to serve. Allow the publishers to dispute the tags
Tagging would use the same ML model that youtube is current running for demonetization, so there will be error as well.
Problem here lies with the expectation, it aims with recall not precision. In other words, false negatives really hits Youtube's image, twice already this year. People only needs to find a handful problematic videos with misplaced ads and claim Youtube had some major problem, which might not be case behind the scene. Yet each time it becomes major media parade on bashing the company and result in an exodus of advertisers.
If the goal is to eliminate false positives, which means less tolerance and stronger censorship, it will hurt a lot of innocent Youtubers, regardless. The crisis lies however with Youtube's model, if they cannot do a good job, no matter by algorithm or by human, managing the balance between quality and quantity of videos on their platform while keeping the advertisers happy and assured, it is just a matter of time, Youtube would ultimately degraded into our era's little television.
Afaik they already thought of that solution because YouTube videos support tagging/categories but it's the video uploader who sets those tags.
The problem is that once you introduce such a system, and leave all the control over the tags to the uploader, people start gaming it for better search rankings/more views.
So you are back to the same old problem of "who checks if the content actually matches the tags".
I think a better solution is to have some core principles that Youtube's censorship team abides by. If the video in question doesn't violate all the principles (or X number of them), then it remains up.
Of course that is difficult and actually involves discussions, which Youtube doesn't seem interested in having.
There is zero censorship involved here. This isn't a leak about deciding what gets taken down, its about what is able to be monetized. The leak in fact specifically mentions this choice was used to avoid censorship by removing video.
For instance, "nudity" can be defined as "visible genitals, female nipples" in the US.
"Controversial" tag should not even exist, it makes no sense, any non-trivial subject is controversial.
And honestly, YouTube can benefit from a more precise tagging/category system, it's currently extremely crude.