It’s hard to close the customs.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “All Media” (ID: Quanmeipai), author of Tencent Media.
False information, extreme speech, algorithm filtering bubbles, children should not be content… YouTube, established 14 years ago, has become the world’s largest video website and content creation platform, but it also ushered in a scandal, questioning The autumn of events.
There is always a controversial issue behind these storms: To what extent does YouTube need to be responsible for these massive content as an open platform? And how is it responsible?
Sure, YouTube, users, and agencies have their own answers. But unfortunately, from the accusations that the platform has suffered in recent years, its responsibility for content regulation has not met the public’s expectations.
The user is changing and the opponent is changing. YouTube is a leader in UGC content production, with emerging streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon out of the platform for quality content. In order to maintain the core advantages of openness and freedom in the competition, but have to respond to the needs of users to strengthen content intervention and supervision, this issue of the whole media (ID: quanmeipai) takes you to see how YouTube is going to take the hardest road. .
Adjust child algorithm to protect the Internet
How to protect the safety of teenagers on the Internet in the open sea of information on the Internet? In early 2015, YouTube gave the answer to setting up a “safe island” for kids – the YouTube Kids that provide child content filtering and parental controls.
However, this security zone extends the core algorithm of the YouTube main site and leaves a loophole for the intrusion of bad content. Personalized recommendation and automatic play not only make children indulge in low-quality and repeating videos, but also make it difficult for parents to keep up with the speed of content update and effectively control. Adults, violence and other children should not appear frequently. The Pew report shows that 61% of American parents who let young children watch YouTube say they see content that they think is inappropriate for children.
In addition to the content scandal, YouTube has also experienced an illegal storm. Earlier, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused it of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) to collect child user information and issued a $170 million fine. In the face of the public anger caused by bad videos and the strict investigation by regulators, YouTube has to reinforce the barriers in the security zone.
Download interface for YouTube Kids App
The first is the broadening of the field of protection. Previously, kids and parents only downloaded and used YouTube Kids on mobile devices such as iPads and mobile phones. At the end of August this year, YouTube announced that it will launch an independent website for children under the age of 13 based on the YouTube Kids APP.
Secondly, the video filtering rules on YouTube Kids are ushered in, the age classification is more detailed, and the protection density is increasing. The system content filters were originally classified as 8-12 years old (older) and 8 years old and younger (younger). The new version of the filter divides groups under 8 years old into two groups. Children aged 4 and under are classified as preschool children, and parents can filter more appropriate content for them.
Pre-update content filter interface
It’s not enough to just clean up the video itself, because dangerous content can also lie outside the video. In the comment area of the children’s appearance video, there are often a large number of comments with sexual cues, and even links to pedophiles. Once you click on this link, YouTube’s algorithm will continue to recommend similar content to users. In response to this pedophilia information scandal, YouTube is committed to disabling comments, notifications, and personalized ad delivery for all children’s appearances.
When YouTube used its technology to protect children, some people were “injured” and suffered heavy losses. At the beginning of July, YouTube made major changes to its algorithm, tilting traffic to some “premium” children’s content. The result of this adjustment is that the difference in internal traffic of children’s videos has dramatically increased, and video creators who rely on algorithm recommendations have a few joys. The creators of the channel data plunged were shocked and confused because the YouTube official did not specify the “quality” standard and did not intend to give examples of positive creators.
Optimization calculationLaw empowers users to combat platform violations
As early as YouTube was founded, hate and false information appeared frequently. However, with the expansion of the scale of the platform, the audit work of illegal content has risen sharply. It is difficult to solve this problem completely by manpower or technology.
However, the accusations of YouTube are more focused on “not being able to do it, it is not doing it.” I think that YouTube has not tried to curb these bad things, but instead promoted it and profited from it.
Under the current algorithmic mechanism, once a user clicks on a YouTube video that involves extreme speech, it is possible that the whirlpool of hatred and conspiracy theories can’t extricate themselves. The BBC also found that YouTube’s algorithms recommend fake cancer therapies in multiple language searches, and that advertisements for brands and educational institutions are placed on these misleading videos. For example, when you search for “cancer treatment” in Russian, you will see a video that promotes baking soda therapy, which will lead to more unproven “therapies” such as carrot juice or extreme fasting.
In response to these criticisms, in January of this year, YouTube began with the criticism of the algorithm itself, and made adjustments to the recommendations of various edge ball content. For content that may mislead users in a harmful way, YouTube will reduce recommendations, including fake videos that promote information such as “the terminal cure cure miracle” or “the earth is flat.” This initiative was first tried in a few video recommendations in the United States, and it was confirmed in six months that the amount of video of the edged ball was reduced by 50%. Since then, this practice has been extended to other English markets such as the UK, Ireland, and South Africa.
On the other hand, YouTube has adjusted the penalty mechanism for user reporting, making the platform and user cooperation to purify content control system more transparent and efficient.
YouTube users can report videos that violate the rules, such as pornography, violence, or fake content, based on community guidelines. In the past, the reporting rule was “three strikes”, that is, the account number will be terminated after being reported three times, and each time it is reported, there are corresponding penalties. But one of the big problems with the user reporting mechanism is that creators often complain that these punitive measures are not consistent with the reasons for the report.
After the introduction of the new regulations, the “three strikes out of the rules” rule was followed, and the single punishment was more severe, but the penalty threshold was also improved. YouTube has added a warning system that content creators receive a one-time warning after the first reported content violation, but without penalty. In addition, YouTube will clarify the reasons for the punishment, the consequences, and the way to appeal, so that users can raise objections.
Layout cooperation professional organization to create platform news ecology
To reverse the negative image of false information and extreme speech, YouTube can be said to be painstaking. The adjustment algorithm mentioned earlier, the update penalty system, stillIt is a “self-help” based on native content. And to add professional news elements to the platform, it is to ask for “foreign aid”, and please be close to the potential power of YouTube.
Although YouTube is not a professional news platform, it has become a major source of information for many netizens. The Pew Center’s study of adults in the United States found that from 2013 to 2018, the percentage of users who got news on YouTube rose from 20% to 38%, almost doubling. More than half of YouTube users say the site is more important to “helping them understand what’s going on in the world.”
The Pew report shows that 53% of American adult users think YouTube is important to help them “understand what is happening in the world”
However, as we mentioned in the previous section, 64% of users said they would see obvious fake video content when using YouTube. For those users who watch the world through YouTube, YouTube still has a lot of room for improvement in content quality.
In addition, Commonsense’s research on American teenagers also found that about half of all users who got news through YouTube said that YouTube is their most used news source, and the push for news content consumption is precisely YouTube’s recommendation. Features.
It’s not hard to see that YouTube has great potential in developing a news audience and promoting news consumption, but there is a lack of accuracy. Professional and high-quality news content can precisely fulfill its talents and make up shortcomings.
In recent years, YouTube has placed news-based video at the top of its platform strategy. Prior to this, news was not the focus of YouTube compared to online video and live games.
In 2017, YouTube added an “instant news” section covering major events on the homepage of the site. In order to make people’s results in the search for news more reliable, YouTube also added a “hot news” category in the search. Under the support of the platform for news, from the beginning of 2018, the creators of news videos found that the playback volume of their own channels increased significantly.
Be prepared for the above internal preparations, YouTube began to invite professional journalists and institutions to enter the platform. In the middle of 18 years, as part of the Google News Initiative (GNI), YouTube87 news organizations selected for the Innovation Fund were announced to help them create online news and try new video news.
This time, the $25 million cooperation is not just a matter of “paying for the first-hand, paying for the content”, but also the process of integrating news organizations into YouTube’s online community and mining platform audience. One of the selected institutions, France’s top news creator HugoDécrypte will launch a live show with the support of the fund and turn it into an online gathering space, allowing HugoDécrypte’s YouTube community to learn about the important news issues of the day and discuss .
All Media’s previous article “YouTube has spent $25 million to build a trustworthy “news ecology” “ also mentions other parts of the Google News Initiative, including providing expert support for the media, discovering new features of video products to improve news business, and more.
Running and maintaining the content environment
As a content creation platform, YouTube has a large number of content creators and consumers, active in countless vertical areas. This highly segmented community feature has made YouTube the darling of more and more brand advertisers – although the audience growth on YouTube is not the fastest, the audience is often more loyal, and the realization is usually more stable.
One example is News UK, which recently identified YouTube as the original video focus publishing platform. Previously, News UK was more interested in Facebook, a large user, or focused on bringing users back to their own platforms to better monetize through advertising and subscriptions. After deciding to expand the vertical market, News UK Style, a vertical magazine of News UK’s deep-fashioned fashion, has produced four YouTube series to boost advertising revenue and achieve four times revenue growth in 2018.
From the perspective of the YouTube platform, maintaining the vitality of the content ecology in these segments and increasing the enthusiasm of user participation has naturally become a top priority.
YouTube’s other vital vertical category music has generated a lot of controversy over the past few months due to its rankings. In July of this year, Indian rapper Badshah broke the record of the most views in 24 hours with 75 million broadcasts. However, this new record has been questioned a lot.
In the music industry, it’s common practice to serve music videos as ads at the beginning of other YouTube videos, because users count as many views as long as they watch the ads long enough. according toBloomberg reported that Badshah and his team achieved their amazing growth in playback by embedding and promoting their own videos.
A record change has sparked a series of controversies about the YouTube music ranking system. In the end, YouTube decided not to recognize this record and set out to adjust the statistical method of music video playback. When ranking on the music list, YouTube will no longer count for ad views; instead, popular music videos will be ranked based on natural play.
The adjustment of the statistical method of playing volume is also partly due to the guarantee of the fairness of platform creation. After removing the amount of ad playback, the list can more accurately reflect the popularity of the content itself, rather than the marketing means. This time, YouTube chose to stand with the love of users.
Conclusion
YouTube’s 2019, to some extent, can be described as “water reversal.” When the legitimacy of social network information dissemination is frequently challenged, disputes such as traffic black production, false video, and child safety hazards appear on YouTube, which can be counted as a concentrated exposure after the superposition of old and new problems. The combination of content + algorithms, while promoting the prosperity of the platform, shows amazing destructive power.
The first and foremost nature is the user and the platform itself. Looking back at YouTube’s actions in the past year, it has carried out a series of repairs and adjustments either actively, passively, or half-pushing. For YouTube, when the algorithms in the platform are spreading content that is unfortunate or deviating from the user’s value, “responsibility” is actually a very easy decision. The real difficulty is how to weigh the gains and losses of each step and how to regain the trust of users.
So, whether it’s cracking down on extremism, maintaining information security, creating a news ecosystem, or catering to some of the user’s interests, YouTube can finally stand out and risk-taking, and it needs to pull a longer timeline. Observed. From the perspective of the future, perhaps the giant-type platform should reflect on how to put away its pride and luck when formulating rules at the beginning.
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