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posted by janrinok on Tuesday April 24 2018, @10:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the battle-by-bots dept.

Machine learning algorithms are now involved in the bulk of video removal from YouTube. ~80% of videos removed by YouTube in Q4 2017 were initially flagged by a computer, with many receiving less than 10 views before removal:

The vast majority of videos removed from YouTube toward the end of last year for violating the site's content guidelines had first been detected by machines instead of humans, the Google-owned company said on Monday. YouTube said it took down 8.28 million videos during the fourth quarter of 2017, and about 80 percent of those videos had initially been flagged by artificially intelligent computer systems.

The new data highlighted the significant role machines — not just users, government agencies and other organizations — are taking in policing the service as it faces increased scrutiny over the spread of conspiracy videos, fake news and violent content from extremist organizations. Those videos are sometimes promoted by YouTube's recommendation system and unknowingly financed by advertisers, whose ads are placed next to them through an automated system.

[...] Betting on improvements in artificial intelligence is a common Silicon Valley approach to dealing with problematic content; Facebook has also said it is counting on A.I. tools to detect fake accounts and fake news on its platform. But critics have warned against depending too heavily on computers to replace human judgment.

Also at Recode.

Previously:
Google Fails to Stop Major Brands From Pulling Ads From YouTube
AI Beating Mechanical Turks at YouTube Censorship Accuracy

Related:
YouTube Cracks Down on Weird Content Aimed at Kids
A.I. Algorithm Recognizes Terrorist Propaganda With 99% Accuracy


Original Submission

Related Stories

Google Fails to Stop Major Brands From Pulling Ads From YouTube 44 comments

Google has failed to convince major brands (such as AT&T, Verizon, Enterprise Holdings, Volkswagen, and Tesco) to continue advertising on YouTube, following the "revelation" that ads can appear next to extremist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, raunchy, etc. content. From Google's Tuesday response:

We know advertisers don't want their ads next to content that doesn't align with their values. So starting today, we're taking a tougher stance on hateful, offensive and derogatory content. This includes removing ads more effectively from content that is attacking or harassing people based on their race, religion, gender or similar categories. This change will enable us to take action, where appropriate, on a larger set of ads and sites. We'll also tighten safeguards to ensure that ads show up only against legitimate creators in our YouTube Partner Program—as opposed to those who impersonate other channels or violate our community guidelines. Finally, we won't stop at taking down ads. The YouTube team is taking a hard look at our existing community guidelines to determine what content is allowed on the platform—not just what content can be monetized. [...] We're changing the default settings for ads so that they show on content that meets a higher level of brand safety and excludes potentially objectionable content that advertisers may prefer not to advertise against. Brands can opt in to advertise on broader types of content if they choose.

The growing boycott started in the UK:

On Friday, the U.K. arm of the Havas agency, whose clients include the BBC and Royal Mail, said it would halt spending on YouTube and Web display ads in Google's digital advertising network. In doing so, Havas UK CEO Paul Frampton cited a duty to protect clients and "ensure their brands are not at all compromised" by appearing alongside or seeming to sponsor inappropriate content. The decision by a global marketing group with a U.K. digital budget of more than $200 million to put its dealings with Google on "pause" followed a recent controversy over YouTube star Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg, who lost a lucrative production contract with Maker Studios and its owner, Walt Disney Co., over "a series of anti-Semitic jokes and Nazi-related images in his videos," as the Two-way reported. As the BBC reports, "Several high profile companies, including Marks and Spencer, Audi, RBS and L'Oreal, have pulled online advertising from YouTube."

Google's Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler also promised to develop "new tools powered by our latest advancements in AI and machine learning to increase our capacity to review questionable content for advertising".


Original Submission

AI Beating Mechanical Turks at YouTube Censorship Accuracy 21 comments

Google has recently used humans and machine learning to review YouTube videos in a quest to label offensive content, and has found that the software does better "in many cases":

Google has pledged to continue developing advanced programs using machine learning to combat the rise of extremist content, after it found that it was both faster and more accurate than humans in scrubbing illicit content from YouTube.

The company is using machine learning along with human reviewers as part of a mutli-pronged approach to tackle the spread of extremist and controversial videos across YouTube, which also includes tougher standards for videos and the recruitment of more experts to flag content in need of review.

A month after announcing the changes, and following UK home secretary Amber Rudd's repeated calls for US technology firms to do more to tackle the rise of extremist content, Google's YouTube has said that its machine learning systems have already made great leaps in tackling the problem.

A YouTube spokesperson said: "While these tools aren't perfect, and aren't right for every setting, in many cases our systems have proven more accurate than humans at flagging videos that need to be removed.

Controversial, offensive, hateful, violent content that does not obviously breach YouTube's guidelines will be allowed to remain, but will often be demonetized as well as de-emphasized by not being recommended/suggested, making such videos much harder to find. Comment sections and likes may also be disabled for these videos.

YouTube will also suggest curated playlists for certain keywords, because anti-terrorism propaganda artificially propped up by a megacorporation is definitely going to dissuade and not alienate budding terrorists. Maybe the new online jihad will be fought in the comment sections of the curated videos. Better disable the comment sections on those ones too.

Previously: Google Fails to Stop Major Brands From Pulling Ads From YouTube
YouTube Changes its Partner Program -- Channels Need 10k Views for Adverts
Google Taking New Steps to Fight Terror Online


Original Submission

YouTube Cracks Down on Weird Content Aimed at Kids 37 comments

YouTube to crack down on inappropriate content masked as kids' cartoons

Recent news stories and blog posts highlighted the underbelly of YouTube Kids, Google's children-friendly version of the wide world of YouTube. While all content on YouTube Kids is meant to be suitable for children under the age of 13, some inappropriate videos using animations, cartoons, and child-focused keywords manage to get past YouTube's algorithms and in front of kids' eyes. Now, YouTube will implement a new policy in an attempt to make the whole of YouTube safer: it will age-restrict inappropriate videos masquerading as children's content in the main YouTube app.

[...] Also, all age-restricted content is not eligible for advertising, which will undoubtedly hit the wallets of the creators making these videos. While it's hard to understand why anyone would make a video about Peppa Pig drinking bleach or a bunch of superheroes and villains participating in a cartoonish yet violent "nursery rhyme," it's been a decent way to make money on YouTube. Some of these videos have amassed hundreds of thousands (and sometimes millions) of views, gleaning ad dollars and channel popularity.

Check the related videos to see some bizarre clickbait. Some are even live action skits performed by adults.

Are we doing enough to traumatize our kids?

Also at The Verge and Medium.

Related: YouTube's "Ad-Friendly" Content Policy may Push one of its Biggest Stars off the Site
Google Fails to Stop Major Brands From Pulling Ads From YouTube


Original Submission

A.I. Algorithm Recognizes Terrorist Propaganda With 99% Accuracy 38 comments

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

The UK-based company ASI Data Science unveiled a machine learning algorithm Wednesday that can identify terrorist propaganda videos with 99 percent accuracy.

This development marks one of the first instances of a company successfully using A.I. to flag extremist propaganda. The Islamic State group is notorious for its social media recruiting efforts, and this algorithm could help curtail them.

While the researchers at ASI wouldn't discuss any technical specifics of the algorithm, it appears to work like other kinds of A.I. recognition software. The algorithm can examine any video and determine the probability that the video is a piece of extremist propaganda. According to the BBC, the algorithm was trained on thousands of hours of terrorist recruiting videos, and it uses characteristics from these videos to assign probability scores.

Source: https://www.inverse.com/article/41273-uk-company-creates-algorithm-to-flag-propaganda


Original Submission

Inappropriate Comments Could Lead to Video Demonetization on YouTube 42 comments

After Child Video Scandal, YouTube Says Ad-Friendly Videos Can Be Demonetized For Inappropriate Comments

In light of a potential second coming of the Adpocalypse, in which a number of major marketers have pulled YouTube ads after discovering that campaigns had run against ostensibly innocent videos of young children where pedophiles were exchanging fetishizing remarks in the comments, YouTube is taking severe pains to stamp out the behavior — but not all creators are thrilled with its sweeping response.

On Twitter, Christian family vlogger Jessica Ballinger — who shares videos with her husband, Christopher, and their four children (pictured above), including Parker, a five-year-old gymnast — expressed dismay that a handful of recent vlogs had been demonetized. YouTube acknowledged that while the clips themselves were ad-friendly, in light of the recent controversy, "even if your video is suitable for advertisers, inappropriate comments could result in your video receiving limited or no ads (yellow icon)." (According to YouTube's monetization icon guide, a yellow icon means that videos are not suitable for most advertisers).

Ballinger, whose channel counts 1.2 million subscribers, countered that she monitors her comment section stringently, and suggested that rather than punishing channels like hers, YouTube remove the offending comments and ban the users. However, the company said its "recent actions are due to an abundance of caution related to content that may endanger minors." It continued, "Not all channels do moderate, and we've had to take an aggressive approach and more broad action at this time. We're also investing in improving our tools to detect/remove this content, so we rely on your moderation less."

YouTube has backtracked, with a representative saying that videos that seem likely to attract predatory comments could have advertising restricted. But the damage is probably done, and YouTube creators may start disabling comment sections and doing outreach off-site in order to avoid the "someone sneezes and the video is demonetized" problem. That or they will write off monetization entirely, turning to Patreon and other platforms to supplement their income.

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  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 24 2018, @11:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 24 2018, @11:30PM (#671419)

    As the men were chatting, a certain sound interrupted them. Everyone present looked towards the source of that sound - that gurgling sound - with pure hatred. Why was that thing still alive? Everyone asked themselves that question. Then, all the men collectively sighed and walked over to the bloodied object.

    When the men reached the sow, they began the process of transforming its motion into silence. One man's fists delivered justice upon the woman's face. Another man used a knife to repeatedly stab the woman in her disgusting stomach and chest. The last man was busy violating her further while bending her legs in a strange and painful way. All the men were determined to extract every last ounce of entertainment they could out of the barely-breathing sow, so that it would never interrupt their important conversations again. And they did precisely that, with a level of efficiency that stunned even them.

    Silence. At last, there was silence. The men sighed in relief, and continued their jovial conversation from earlier. It was looking to be a good day for men's rights.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by snufu on Wednesday April 25 2018, @12:05AM (10 children)

    by snufu (5855) on Wednesday April 25 2018, @12:05AM (#671426)

    Any video referencing a censorship free alternative to Youtube.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday April 25 2018, @12:12AM (7 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday April 25 2018, @12:12AM (#671430) Homepage Journal

      That'd be quite a trick. The bandwidth and hardware costs for that sort of startup are way the hell out of the reach of your average Joe and even most corporations. The only one I can think of off hand who already has anything of similar scale up and going is PornHub and they'd at the very least need another domain and new code.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday April 25 2018, @01:44AM (1 child)

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday April 25 2018, @01:44AM (#671460) Homepage Journal

        One of the other webmasters said he gets a good steady income from his own.

        I asked Bonita about this and she thought our very own pr0nsite would be just dandy. Actually she was heavily into it.

        Perhaps because at the time we were busted flat with no prospects of somehow becoming unbusted.

        But I decided not to do because Bonita's parents are very, very religious. If they ever found out Bonita's mom would likely cast herself into the sea.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
      • (Score: 1) by The Vocal Minority on Wednesday April 25 2018, @01:08PM (2 children)

        by The Vocal Minority (2765) on Wednesday April 25 2018, @01:08PM (#671608) Journal

        A couple from my bookmarks, I'm sure there are more:
        https://d.tube/ [d.tube]
        https://www.bitchute.com/ [bitchute.com]

        Been around for a few months now at least.

      • (Score: 2) by chromas on Wednesday April 25 2018, @09:47PM

        by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 25 2018, @09:47PM (#671888) Journal

        There wonder what happened to Khyber. I heard he could support 400TB/s of streaming video. Maybe he could start something.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 26 2018, @04:48PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 26 2018, @04:48PM (#672205)

        demand decentralized and F/OSS! LBRY [lbry.io]

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by MostCynical on Wednesday April 25 2018, @12:29AM

      by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday April 25 2018, @12:29AM (#671439) Journal

      Also, any video trashing any major advertiser

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday April 25 2018, @10:26AM

      by Bot (3902) on Wednesday April 25 2018, @10:26AM (#671569) Journal

      I don't like your comment -.-

      --
      Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @12:31AM (14 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @12:31AM (#671440)

    It used to be just bullshit takedown notices. Then they gave big media companies the ability to claim (often falsely) that your video was theirs, then get money from ads in your video.

    Next came censorship. In non-English, this often takes the form of Islamic standards. French is done in Algeria, where labor is cheap. That youtube shooter had a few videos in Farsi (spoken mainly in Iran) and Turkic (spoken mainly in Turkey), and thus you can see why her bland exercise video was given an 18+ rating: the moderators in those languages took a look at all her videos, then noticed something obscene, like the fact that she failed to cover her hair in the exercise video.

    In the English version, stuff is generally expected to meet the standards of San Francisco and London. Some stuff that doesn't meet those standards is still tolerated, particularly if it is from a famous person like Trump, but the direction is clear. We're going left, whether we like it or not. Relatively unknown conservatives get their accounts locked or restricted in one way or another.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @01:47AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @01:47AM (#671461)

      No. We are not going left in the U.S. on Youtube, it just looks like that based on the censorship of the far right. But the far left is getting censored too, just not in quite the same way. Indeed, as politics is more than one dimension, everyone is getting censored if they don't follow the real script. If you are anti-war: censored; anti-corporate: censored; anti-authoritarian: censored; etc. I could go on, but the people in power love pitting the right against the left in order to distract from what is really going on when bread and circuses are not enough.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 25 2018, @12:23PM (2 children)

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 25 2018, @12:23PM (#671598)

        If you are anti-war: censored; anti-corporate: censored; anti-authoritarian: censored; etc.

        Is that truly left wing? Sounds somewhat libertarian which basically morphed into alt/modern right.

        • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday April 25 2018, @04:27PM

          by acid andy (1683) on Wednesday April 25 2018, @04:27PM (#671683) Homepage Journal

          Is that truly left wing? Sounds somewhat libertarian which basically morphed into alt/modern right.

          VLM, have you seriously absorbed that little of what people have been saying on here over the last few years?

          Classical (civil) libertarian is anti-authoritarianism and also anti- big business when it steps on the liberty of the little guy. Because of the two axes of the political compass, that's not necessarily left nor right wing (a distraction as the GP noted). The media and politicians have hijacked the term "libertarian" to only apply to the right now but there are probably just as many lefties (if not more) that support those original libertarian ideals.

          Apologies if my post is a bit abrupt btw. Been a rough day.

          --
          If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @05:32PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @05:32PM (#671714)

          The poster child in the U.S. for being many of those things is the hippy movement. I'm curious if you think those people would be classified as right-wing under the conventional spectrum.

    • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @02:29AM (6 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @02:29AM (#671475)

      Wait I thought the leftist agenda was all about censoring Christians while promoting Muslims?? I wish this site could keep the theories straight at least.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @03:02AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @03:02AM (#671488)

        Censorship of Farsi and Turkic is done almost exclusively by muslims.

        The youtube shooter happened to be muslim, but she didn't always act it. She was thus censored. Essentially, they counted her as non-muslim (like a Christian or Jew or atheist or animist) because she was a female without her hair covered.

        In other words: the "proper" muslims are promoted, while muslims who act like christians are censored.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @03:08PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @03:08PM (#671645)

        It's a triumph of the elites that a hard move to the right can get vast swaths of the proles such as GP claiming it's a move to the left.

        War is Peace.
        Freedom is Slavery.
        Ignorance is Strength.

        And all animals are equal,
        but some animals are more equal than others.

        • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday April 25 2018, @04:30PM

          by acid andy (1683) on Wednesday April 25 2018, @04:30PM (#671684) Homepage Journal

          A septillion times THIS.

          --
          If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @04:34PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @04:34PM (#671687)

          Both of those quotes come from books that were written to expose and mock the horrible injustice of communism, the ultimate far-left form of government.

          That second one is really relevant to the SJWs, with people being "more equal" if they have more diversity points.

          It is also really relevant to socialists like Bernie Sanders: He has 3 houses. His health care, as a member of the senate, got exempted from obamacare and is far better than what other government employees get. There is also that issue involving his wife and the finances of a college; laws seemingly don't apply to the "more equal" people.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @06:14PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @06:14PM (#671755)

            George Orwell was a socialist. You were probably forced to read 1984 and Animal farm in school (and none of his other works), so have a child's comprehension at best.

      • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday April 25 2018, @07:22PM

        by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Wednesday April 25 2018, @07:22PM (#671801) Journal

        You speak as if Christians or Muslims were a cohesive unity, rather than a hodgepodge of differing world view and conflicting interpretations.

        "I am a Cylon, so to is everyone else, we just are made by different factions."

        --
        For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
    • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday April 25 2018, @05:04AM (2 children)

      by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Wednesday April 25 2018, @05:04AM (#671519) Journal

      3 left turns equals a right turn. I see your point, SF in general is very left leaning but the recent wave of censorship and shouting down free speech is disturbing for even a SF Bay Area native. I went to school at UC Berkeley, and there was always a huge variety of viewpoints from the young republicans, to the pastafarians party. The recent adoption of the so-called safe space doctrine is both highly disappointing, and scary to me. Censorship is the enemy of any so-called free society. I don't support people calling for violence but short of that everyone deserves the right to express their opinion whether it is popular, PC, or downright ignorant. Everyone deserves the right to religious freedom as long as they don't expect the rest of the world to adhere to their standards. That seems to be the sticking point in the Islamic world, they can't co-exist with everyone, or apparently anyone, and that is sad.

      --
      For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @05:50PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @05:50PM (#671728)

        Your feeling when you discover there are OTHER dimensions to political compass (it's not just Left/Right).

        If you keep trying to force everything onto your one dimensional line, you are just going to end up twisting the truth to fit your narrative, and very unsuccessfully.

        • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday April 25 2018, @07:15PM

          by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Wednesday April 25 2018, @07:15PM (#671797) Journal

          LOL, when I was 20 I knew for certain I knew everything. The older I get the more I know there is to know. At 50 I am pretty sure I know close to nothing, and that it is only going to get worse.

          --
          For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
  • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Wednesday April 25 2018, @12:53AM (1 child)

    by Geotti (1146) on Wednesday April 25 2018, @12:53AM (#671449) Journal

    I, for one, ... Ah, you know how it goes.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @08:20AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @08:20AM (#671541)

      I see, you feared censorship if you spelled it out. But don't worry, nothing bad happens if you write that th%@$#=*
      [NO CARRIER]

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