Their.Tube - YouTube completely in bed with QAnon, etc. promoting bullshit for clicks

[Andrew Reid]

Read my take on it here...

https://www.eoshd.com/news/down-the-rabbit-hole-view-the-youtube-front-page-as-others-do/

View the YouTube front page as others do:

https://www.their.tube

[BTM_Pix]

We have YouTube on the TV and not seeing the toxic comments section makes it ten times better.

However, thanks to that "helpful" algorithm my hitherto discreet interest in the Leica Q2 has been headed off at the pass by the other half, alerted as she was by review videos of it being plastered all over the front page after I'd made the mistake of watching one.

So, yeah, aside from all the sinister stuff,  YouTube is also a grass.

And no one likes a grass.

 

[OniBaba]

Despite "editors" we got ton of lies and propaganda on 'weapon of mass destruction" ownership.

Thanks to youtube "policies" we got censorship on biological sex.

Before "the internet" we got books on conspiracy theories and suicidal sects.

Now we got wikipedia and it seems ALL other internet sources copy & paste its content.

So what?

 

[Thpriest]

Agree it's very worrying how reasonably intelligent and sane people believe some really ridiculous stuff they find on social media. There doesn't seem to be the will or the knowledge of how to stop this from all getting out of hand. You could argue that the election of Trump as well events like Brexit means things have already got way out of hand but they were both supported by elements of the "mainstream media" although many of these outlets just regurgitate social media without any worthy analysis. So we have an amplified feedback loop of absolute crap sucking more and more people into it's vortex.

[andrgl]

Is giving stupid people the crap content they want such a bad thing?

Which came first, the idiot or the content algorithm?

Happy as a pig in shit.

Ignorance is bliss.

[John Matthews]

All YouTube video AI chains end the same- insane, violent, bizarre, and extreme. It doesn't even matter what you start with... eventually it goes there and you have to choose which road accident to watch, or you need to be more intentional on what you let yourself watch.

PS: I give this thread two days before it goes to crazy land and gets shut down.

[Video Hummus]

2 hours ago, andrgl said:

Is giving stupid people the crap content they want such a bad thing?

Which came first, the idiot or the content algorithm?

Happy as a pig in shit.

Ignorance is bliss.

Some idiots came first.

Many idiots came after the algorithm.

The reasons are many. The dissemination and profiteering (by the social tech companies) is just part of the problem. The profits first approach is the cause of much destruction in the world from ecological to societal to our own mental health.

I’m not a doom-and-gloomer but there are seriously dark times ahead. We are seeing even the craziest bat shit fringe bumbling up to the highest levels of society. We are seeing massive inequality in wealth breeding a tinder box of dysfunction and disillusion in everything.

A reset is coming. It probably, most definitely, won’t be pretty.

 

[KnightsFan]

2 hours ago, andrgl said:

Is giving stupid people the crap content they want such a bad thing?

Which came first, the idiot or the content algorithm?

Happy as a pig in shit.

Ignorance is bliss.

Yes, it's a very bad thing to feed gullible people falsehoods that is personalized to appeal to them, and then ask them to vote in elections, be responsible for getting their own vaccinations and preventative healthcare, be responsible for the environment, or drive on the same roads as the rest of us.

If people's actions only affected themselves then "ignorance is bliss" could be true, but when people's ignorance hurts others, there is no bliss.

[RWR]

Yes, yes..they put absolutely no controls on anything....

[Dick Sweeney]

Epic comment and observation - youve manage to put into worrds what I have been thinking and trying to make sense of. We are potentially becoming amplified mirrors of our worse selves......... I commented on this on FB maybe 5 years ago - so I watch a bit of UFC or MMA ( brutal yes - but the guys n gals know what theyre getting into ) but then i'm led to a street fight black on black - then another white on black - then women pulling hair and street brawling - then i'm in the Andes and its tribe on tribe all bloody in the dust with local costume for colour and flavour... then its street bums.... I catch myself laughing amused and cold. WTF have I become... FFS. So is this the desensitised programming before the call to arms ? Is this the call to arms to tear ourselves apart.

[mkabi]

Flat earthers!!! Erk....

[sanveer]

Hahaha. This is like Andrew quarterly rant.🤣

But, entertaining, regardless. 

[MrSMW]

Self-regulation is the answer on an individual level.

I’m not sure which is worse though, Fakebook or MeTube...but probably the latter as for so many it just seems to be a soapbox for people to spout their vitriol. Both my mother-in-law and father have been banned from various groups and I am ‘friends’ with neither. Which says a lot.

YouTube has some really great content. Some exceptional content in fact. But also a million tons of shit and I’m not sure what is worse, that million tons of shit or the misinformation purported as fact from so-called ‘experts’.

 

[Nerv]

unfortunately its all about the views...

[John Matthews]

8 hours ago, sanveer said:

Hahaha. This is like Andrew quarterly rant.🤣

But, entertaining, regardless. 

I saw a guy put a "trap" on a prominent social network to get rid of any "friends" that were into conspiracy theories and such. Worked like a charm. I'm actually wondering if that's what he had planned.

[IronFilm]

On 11/16/2020 at 3:08 AM, Andrew Reid said:

I’ve said it years ago on EOSHD. The front page of YouTube needs a human editor and it needs to be regulated like network TV is.

But then you'll fall into the same problem as mainstream media has fallen into, why do you think they've declined in appeal over the years? 

Individualized feeds is a *good* thing.  You don't want to see all the Cycling Racing videos that I see in my YT feed, neither do I want to see all the videos about cooking or painting (in Mandarin! Which I can't understand at all) that my girlfriend sees in her YT feed. Her YT feed on her laptop and mine on my PC look radically different, zero overlap. 

Having an identical ("curated") feed pushed onto everyone is also a dangerous path to go down as well, if anything, that gives even more power into the hands of YouTube / The Curator. A "One Size Fits All" approach is not good. 

Yes, YouTube's algorithm is not perfect, and has downsides. But going back in time to having a small handpicked selection pushed on everyone, would be an even worse outcome. 

[aaa123jc]

I honestly don't get how YouTube's algorithm works. Half of the times, they recommend good contents that I may watch, which is great I guess, but the other half, stupid videos that I'm not remotely interested at. 

Anyway, I think the problem is not that YouTube needs a human editor. What the company needs, is people with ethic to screen out the brainless and harmful contents. But as a company, YouTube doesn't give a f**k about anything other than profit. So the brainwashing stupid videos will keep on existing and blooming as long as there are people who will watch them. 

[EphraimP]

5 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Having an identical ("curated") feed pushed onto everyone is also a dangerous path to go down as well, if anything, that gives even more power into the hands of YouTube / The Curator. A "One Size Fits All" approach is not good. 

Yes, YouTube's algorithm is not perfect, and has downsides. But going back in time to having a small handpicked selection pushed on everyone, would be an even worse outcome. 

This is a really good point. The firehose approach to content delivery isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as the platforms actively weed out hate speech and disinformation. Unfortunately, they aren't great at it, hence our current and soon to be ex-president's seemingly incomprehensible hold on a tragically large portion of our population.. The catch is as viewers we need to be discerning in what we choose to view and use common sense and rationality in how we make sense of what we're viewing. Unfortunately that takes a level and type of education that is sadly lacking in my country at least,

BTW, Merckx or De Vlaeminck?

5 hours ago, aaa123jc said:

I honestly don't get how YouTube's algorithm works. Half of the times, they recommend good contents that I may watch, which is great I guess, but the other half, stupid videos that I'm not remotely interested at. 

Anyway, I think the problem is not that YouTube needs a human editor. What the company needs, is people with ethic to screen out the brainless and harmful contents. But as a company, YouTube doesn't give a f**k about anything other than profit. So the brainwashing stupid videos will keep on existing and blooming as long as there are people who will watch them. 

Part of the issue is that YOU need to be an active editor and work to train the algorithm to serve you better content, by disliking crap videos you happen to watch, activity using the "not interested" and "do not recommend channel" features to scrub your feed of the types of content and channels you're not interested in, and use the search function to train the algorithm.

As individuals, we cannot change the actions of giant players like social medial conglomerates except by carefully organized mass action on a global scale. But we can be savvy enough to reap whatever benefit these channels offer us while negating as much of the downsides as possible.

[aaa123jc]

36 minutes ago, EphraimP said:

Part of the issue is that YOU need to be an active editor and work to train the algorithm to serve you better content, by disliking crap videos you happen to watch, activity using the "not interested" and "do not recommend channel" features to scrub your feed of the types of content and channels you're not interested in, and use the search function to train the algorithm.

As individuals, we cannot change the actions of giant players like social medial conglomerates except by carefully organized mass action on a global scale. But we can be savvy enough to reap whatever benefit these channels offer us while negating as much of the downsides as possible.

I agree. But I'm afraid not many care to do the self editing, even myself unfortunately. More often than not I simply not click into those videos and don't take the time to dislike them. 

[Michael S]

Marketing and the public have always been involved in an arms race of sorts. I remember when I still went to school that during classes we had lessons about how marketing in either writing or on TV tried to influence and the techniques used. It made us aware of the techniques used and that these messages were not created in our interest. That was child's play compared to the tools and techniques marketing has available nowadays but I still think that the answer is to educate people and make them aware of these things. Once a particular trick isn't effective anymore, it will stop and later on some clever marketeer will come up with something new. All the chaos and mayhem that is currently associated with these social media platforms really help in creating awareness of the issue, so I expect it to become less effective over time and simmer out, until the next big thing of course. In the mean time, curating your own feed is probably the best you can do. The platforms will thank you for it as it will improve their userprofiles even further 😉