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YouTube Censorship


YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach


 

It's their party and they can censor the right if they want to...

Google wins US court case about its right to censor PragerU


Link Here27th February 2020
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
Prager University (PragerU) is a right wing group that creates videos explaining a right wing perspective to political issues.

YouTube didn't much care for the content and shunted the videos up a 'restricted mode' back alley.

PragerU challenged the censorship in court but have just lost their case. First Amendment rights in the US bans the state from censoring free speech but this protection does not extended to private companies. PragerU had tried to argue that Google has become so integral to American life that it should be treated like a state institution.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday affirmed that YouTube, a Google subsidiary, is a private platform and thus not subject to the First Amendment. In making that determination, the Court also rejected a plea from a conservative content maker that sued YouTube in hopes that the courts would force it to behave like a public utility.

Headed by conservative radio host Dennis Prager, PragerU alleged in its suit against YouTube that the video hosting platform violated PragerU's right to free speech when it placed a portion of the nonprofit's clips on Restricted Mode, an optional setting that approximately 1.5 percent of YouTube users select so as not to see content with mature themes.

Writing for the appeals court, Circuit Judge Margaret McKeown said YouTube was a private forum despite its ubiquity and public accessibility, and hosting videos did not make it a state actor for purposes of the First Amendment.

 

 

Toxic comments...

YouTube has updated its policies about comments under videos


Link Here5th January 2020
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
YouTube has posted on its blog outlining a recent changes to the moderation of comments about videos posted. YouTube writes:

Addressing toxic comments

We know that the comment section is an important place for fans to engage with creators and each other. At the same time, we heard feedback that comments are often where creators and viewers encounter harassment. This behavior not only impacts the person targeted by the harassment, but can also have a chilling effect on the entire conversation.

To combat this we remove comments that clearly violate our policies -- over 16 million in the third quarter of this year , specifically due to harassment.The policy updates we've outlined above will also apply to comments, so we expect this number to increase in future quarters.

Beyond comments that we remove, we also empower creators to further shape the conversation on their channels and have a variety of tools that help. When we're not sure a comment violates our policies, but it seems potentially inappropriate, we give creators the option to review it before it's posted on their channel. Results among early adopters were promising -- channels that enabled the feature saw a 75% reduction in user flags on comments. Earlier this year, we began to turn this setting on by default for most creators.

We've continued to fine tune our systems to make sure we catch truly toxic comments, not just anything that's negative or critical, and feedback from creators has been positive. Last week we began turning this feature on by default for YouTube's largest channels with the site's most active comment sections and will roll out to most channels by the end of the year. To be clear, creators can opt-out, and if they choose to leave the feature enabled they still have ultimate control over which held comments can appear on their videos. Alternatively, creators can also ignore held comments altogether if they prefer.

 

 

Updated: A cryptic Christmas message...

YouTube initiates a festive purge of the crypto currency community


Link Here27th December 2019
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
YouTube has been censoring cryptocurrency-related content with a new wave of rule enforcements, according to several hosts. Since 23rd December, the site has been deleting individual videos from cryptocurrency channels. Some hosts have also been given warnings and strikes, which temporarily prevent them from uploading content.

YouTube has not publicly stated that crypto videos are against its rules, meaning that users must read between the lines to deduce what is being targeted.

A leading YouTube creator, Chris Dunn, has noted that his own videos were removed on the grounds that they were responsible for the sale of regulated goods and contained harmful and dangerous content.

Many YouTube hosts are now considering moving to decentralized and uncensorable video platforms, such as PeerTube, LBRY, BitChute, and DTube. Incidentally, Twitter is also planning to create a decentralized media platform.

 

Update: Removing hundreds of videos was an 'error'

27th December 2019. See article from decrypt.co

YouTube said today that its removal of hundreds of crypto-related video sites earlier this week was an 'error'. YouTuve told Decrypt that the sites have since been put back online. However, a quick check today indicated that none had yet been restored.  YouTube spouted:

With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call. When it's brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it.

Offsite Update: After the dust has settled YouTube re-censors the crypto channels

23rd January 2020. See article from ibtimes.com

 

 

Searching for pots and black kettles...

Masters of vague censorship rules, Google, complains about the US government's vague censorship rules about defining children's videos


Link Here 12th December 2019
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
After being heavily fined for child privacy issues about personalised advertising on YouTube, Google is trying to get its house in order. It will soon be rolling out new rules that prevent the profiling of younger viewers for advertising purposes.

The restrictions on personalised advertising will negatively affect the livelihoods of many YouTube creators. It is pretty clear that Peppa Pig videos will be deemed off limits for personalised adverts, but a more difficult question is what about more general content that appeals to adults and children alike?

YouTube is demanding clearer guidelines about this situation from the government internet privacy censors of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The law underpinning the requirements is known as COPPA [the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act]. YouTube wrote to the FTC asking:

We believe there needs to be more clarity about when content should be considered primarily child-directed

Creators are also writing to the FTC out of fear that the changes and vague guidance could destroy their channels.

The FTC has responded by initiating a public consultation.

In comments filed with the FTC Monday , YouTube invoked arguments raised by creators, writing that adult users also engage with videos that could traditionally be considered child-directed, like crafting videos and content focused on collecting old toys:

Sometimes, content that isn't intentionally targeting kids can involve a traditional kids activity, such as DIY, gaming and art videos. Are these videos 'made for kids,' even if they don't intend to target kids? This lack of clarity creates uncertainty for creators.

By the way of a comparison, the British advert censors at ASA has a basic rule that if the proportion of kids watching is greater than 25% of the total audience then child protection rules kick in. Presumably the figure 25% is about what one expect for content that appeals to all ages equally.

 

 

YouTube gets real...

YouTube will allow more violent content related to video games as long as it is not real world violence


Link Here3rd December 2019
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
Heads up for all Gaming Creators:

We know there's a difference between real-world violence and scripted or simulated violence -- such as what you see in movies, TV shows, or video games -- so we want to make sure we're enforcing our violent or graphic content policies consistently.

Starting on 2nd December, scripted or simulated violent content found in video games will be treated the same as other types of scripted content.

What does this mean for Gaming Creators?

  • Future gaming uploads that include scripted or simulated violence may be approved instead of being age-restricted.
  • There will be fewer restrictions for violence in gaming, but this policy will still maintain our high bar to protect audiences from real-world violence.
  • We may still age-restrict content if violent or gory imagery is the sole focus of the video. For instance, if the video focuses entirely on the most graphically violent part of a video game.

 

 

As always more rules means more advantage to the biggest players...

YouTube announces how it will restrict personalised advertising for videos directed at kids from 1st January 2020


Link Here8th November 2019
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach

The US authorities came down heavily on Google for YouTube's violations of the 1998 US children's data privacy law called COPPA. This ended up with Google handing over $170 million in settlement of claims from the US FTC (Federal Trade Commission).

COPPA restricts operators of websites and online services from collecting the personal information of under-13 users without parental permission. The definition of personal information includes personal identifiers used in cookies to profile internet users for targeted advertising purposes.

So now YouTube has announced new procedures starting 1st January 2010. All content creators will have to designate whether or not each of their videos is directed to children (aka kid-directed aka child-directed) by checking a box during the upload process. Checking that box will prevent the video from running personalized ads. This rule applies retrospectively so all videos will have to be reviewed and flagged accordingly.

It is probably quite straightforward to identify children's videos, but creators are worried about more general videos for people of all ages that also appeal to kids.

And of course there are massive concerns for all those creators affected about revenues decreasing as adverts switch from personalised to general untargeted ads.

tubefilter.com ran a small experiment suggesting that revenues will drop between 60 and 90% for videos denies targeted advertising.

And of course this will have a knock on to the viability of producing videos for a young audience. No doubt the small creators will be hit hardest, leaving the market more open for those that can make up the shortfall by working at scale.

 

 

Children will see but not be heard...

YouTube will remove all ad personalisation from kids videos on YouTube and will also turn off comments


Link Here 5th September 2019
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
Google have announced potentially far reaching new policies about kids' videos on YouTube. A Google blog post explains:

An update on kids and data protection on YouTube

From its earliest days, YouTube has been a site for people over 13, but with a boom in family content and the rise of shared devices, the likelihood of children watching without supervision has increased. We've been taking a hard look at areas where we can do more to address this, informed by feedback from parents, experts, and regulators, including COPPA concerns raised by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General that we are addressing with a settlement announced today.

New data practices for children's content on YouTube

We are changing how we treat data for children's content on YouTube. Starting in about four months, we will treat data from anyone watching children's content on YouTube as coming from a child, regardless of the age of the user. This means that we will limit data collection and use on videos made for kids only to what is needed to support the operation of the service. We will also stop serving personalized ads on this content entirely, and some features will no longer be available on this type of content, like comments and notifications. In order to identify content made for kids, creators will be required to tell us when their content falls in this category, and we'll also use machine learning to find videos that clearly target young audiences, for example those that have an emphasis on kids characters, themes, toys, or games.

Improvements to YouTube Kids

We continue to recommend parents use YouTube Kids if they plan to allow kids under 13 to watch independently. Tens of millions of people use YouTube Kids every week but we want even more parents to be aware of the app and its benefits. We're increasing our investments in promoting YouTube Kids to parents with a campaign that will run across YouTube. We're also continuing to improve the product. For example, we recently raised the bar for which channels can be a part of YouTube Kids, drastically reducing the number of channels on the app. And we're bringing the YouTube Kids experience to the desktop.

Investing in family creators

We know these changes will have a significant business impact on family and kids creators who have been building both wonderful content and thriving businesses, so we've worked to give impacted creators four months to adjust before changes take effect on YouTube. We recognize this won't be easy for some creators and are committed to working with them through this transition and providing resources to help them better understand these changes.

We are also going to continue investing in the future of quality kids, family and educational content. We are establishing a $100 million fund, disbursed over three years, dedicated to the creation of thoughtful, original children's content on YouTube and YouTube Kids globally.

Today's changes will allow us to better protect kids and families on YouTube, and this is just the beginning. We'll continue working with lawmakers around the world in this area, including as the FTC seeks comments on COPPA . And in the coming months, we'll share details on how we're rethinking our overall approach to kids and families, including a dedicated kids experience on YouTube.

 

 

The 4 Rs of YouTube censorship...

YouTube CEO reports on how 'wrong think' is being marginalised and how the mainstream media is being prioritised for news


Link Here 2nd September 2019
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
After a long introduction about how open and diverse YouTube is, CEO Susan Wojcick gets down to the nitty gritty of how YouTube censorship works. SHe writes in a blog:

Problematic content represents a fraction of one percent of the content on YouTube and we're constantly working to reduce this even further. This very small amount has a hugely outsized impact, both in the potential harm for our users, as well as the loss of faith in the open model that has enabled the rise of your creative community. One assumption we've heard is that we hesitate to take action on problematic content because it benefits our business. This is simply not true -- in fact, the cost of not taking sufficient action over the long term results in lack of trust from our users, advertisers, and you, our creators. We want to earn that trust. This is why we've been investing significantly over the past few years in the teams and systems that protect YouTube. Our approach towards responsibility involves four "Rs":

  • We REMOVE content that violates our policy as quickly as possible. And we're always looking to make our policies clearer and more effective, as we've done with pranks and challenges , child safety , and hate speech just this year. We aim to be thoughtful when we make these updates and consult a wide variety of experts to inform our thinking, for example we talked to dozens of experts as we developed our updated hate speech policy. We also report on the removals we make in our quarterly Community Guidelines enforcement report. I also appreciate that when policies aren't working for the creator community, you let us know. One area we've heard loud and clear needs an update is creator-on-creator harassment. I said in my last letter that we'd be looking at this and we will have more to share in the coming months.

  • We RAISE UP authoritative voices when people are looking for breaking news and information, especially during breaking news moments. Our breaking and top news shelves are available in 40 countries and we're continuing to expand that number.

  • We REDUCE the spread of content that brushes right up against our policy line. Already, in the U.S. where we made changes to recommendations earlier this year, we've seen a 50% drop of views from recommendations to this type of content, meaning quality content has more of a chance to shine. And we've begun experimenting with this change in the UK, Ireland, South Africa and other English-language markets.

  • And we set a higher bar for what channels can make money on our site, REWARDING trusted, eligible creators. Not all content allowed on YouTube is going to match what advertisers feel is suitable for their brand, we have to be sure they are comfortable with where their ads appear. This is also why we're enabling new revenue streams for creators like Super Chat and Memberships. Thousands of channels have more than doubled their total YouTube revenue by using these new tools in addition to advertising.

 

 

Offsite Article: YouTube's biased political censorship tested in US court...


Link Here 30th August 2019
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
YouTube faces dueling lawsuits from a conservative group and an LGBTQ+ group, both of which argue that the video site discriminates against them

See article from wired.com

 

 

Peppa Prig...

YouTube announces new rules to ban adult parodies of children's cartoons using tags and titles that may still appeal to children


Link Here25th August 2019
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
A little while ago there was an issue on YouTube about parody videos using well known children's cartoons as a baseline for adult humour. The videos were not in themselves outside of what YouTube allows but were not suitable for the child audience of the original shows. YouTube has now responded as follws:

Content that contains mature or violent themes that explicitly targets younger minors and families in the title, description and/or tags will no longer be allowed on the platform. This content was previously age-restricted, but today we're updating our child safety policies to better protect the family experience.

What content will be removed?

We're removing misleading family content, including videos that target younger minors and families, that contain sexual themes, violence, obscene, or other mature themes not suitable for young audiences. Here are some examples of content that will be removed:

  • A video with tags like "for children" featuring family friendly cartoons engaging in inappropriate acts like injecting needles.
  • Videos with prominent children's nursery rhymes targeting younger minors and families in the video's title, description or tags, that contain adult themes such as violence, sex, death, etc.
  • Videos that explicitly target younger minors and families with phrasing such as "for kids" or "family fun" in the video's title, description and/or tags that contain vulgar language.
What content will be age-restricted?

Content that is meant for adults and not targeting younger minors and families won't be removed, but it may be age-restricted. If you create adult content that could be confused as family entertainment, make sure your titles, descriptions, and tags match the audience you are targeting. Remember you can age restrict your content upon upload if it's intended for mature audiences. Here is an example of content that may still be allowed on YouTube but will be age-restricted :

  • Adult cartoons with vulgar language and/or violence that is explicitly targeted at adults.

 

 

You may as well go back to watching the BBC news on TV...

YouTube boss says that mainstream news companies will be given precedence over independent creators that are too often politically incorrect, wrong think, or right wing


Link Here 30th July 2019
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach

A YouTube chief has proposed giving precedence to mainstream media over indie creators

The company's chief product officer Neal Mohan claims that the platform has grown so much that it now needs new rules to regulate bad actors. Amid the recent observations of YouTube's biased censorship, the company announced it will crackdown further on what it calls racist content and disinformation. Mohan said:

YouTube has now grown to a big city. More bad actors have come into place. And just like in any big city, you need a new set of rules and laws and kind of regulatory regime.

We want to make sure that YouTube remains an open platform because that's where a lot of the magic comes from, even though there may be some opinions and voices on the platform that I don't agree with, that you don't agree with.

reclaimthenet.org commented:

Mohan suggested that positive discrimination could be applied to authoritative sources like traditional media outlets such as AFP or CNN or BBC or the AP or whoever, raising an issue already mentioned by the independent channels that made YouTube what it is today: their content is often obscured by search results and their subscribers miss the new content, while corporate media (that ironically is often a competitor to YouTube) is already being heavily promoted by YouTube.

 

 

Offsite Article: How can YouTube have such a thriving business in kids videos when it has a 13+ age limit?...


Link Here23rd June 2019
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
YouTube can't remove kid videos without tearing a hole in the entire creator ecosystem. By Julia Alexander

See article from theverge.com

 

 

Jackasses...

Google extended censorship rules covering videos that feature pranks and challenges


Link Here16th January 2019
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach

YouTube has announced new censorship rules for videos featuring pranks and challenges. Google writes in a blog post:

YouTube is home to many beloved viral challenges and pranks, like Jimmy Kimmel's Terrible Christmas Presents prank or the water bottle flip challenge. That said, we've always had policies to make sure what's funny doesn't cross the line into also being harmful or dangerous. Our Community Guidelines prohibit content that encourages dangerous activities that are likely to result in serious harm, and today clarifying what this means for dangerous challenges and pranks.

Q: What exactly are you clarifying related to challenges?

We've updated our external guidelines to make it clear that challenges like the Tide pod challenge or the Fire challenge, that can cause death and/or have caused death in some instances, have no place on YouTube.

Q: What exactly are you clarifying related to pranks?

We've made it clear that our policies prohibiting harmful and dangerous content also extend to pranks with a perceived danger of serious physical injury. We don't allow pranks that make victims believe they're in serious physical danger 203 for example, a home invasion prank or a drive-by shooting prank. We also don't allow pranks that cause children to experience severe emotional distress, meaning something so bad that it could leave the child traumatized for life.

Q: What are examples of pranks that cause children severe emotional distress?

We've worked directly with child psychologists to develop guidelines around the types of pranks that cross this line. Examples include, the fake death of a parent or severe abandonment or shaming for mistakes.

Q: Can I appeal strikes related to dangerous challenges and pranks?

Yes, you can appeal the strike if you think the video content doesn't violate Community Guidelines.

Q: How long is the grace period for me to review and clean up content?

The next two months -- during this time challenges and pranks that violate Community Guidelines will be removed but the channel will not receive a strike. Additionally, content posted prior to these enforcement updates may be removed, but will not receive a strike.

 

 

Offsite Article: YouTube Won't Put Up With Blatant Piracy Tutorials Forever...


Link Here 7th May 2018
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
YouTube has 'how to' videos for pretty much everything

See article from torrentfreak.com

 

 

YouTube Nazis...

YouTube are banning, censorsing and de-monitising independent voices seemingly to put mainstream media back in control


Link Here8th April 2018
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
TruNews is a 'YouTube channel run by the outlandish evangelist Rick Wiles. It has just been targetted by Google's censorship policies nad has been kicked into the unsearchable long grass.

Perhaps banned for being 'fake news' but in reality it is a little too unbelievable to even count as 'fake'. freethinker.co.uk offer an amusing description of why the channel has been censored:

Why? Because Wiles's broadcasts are so damned nutty they serve as a warning to viewers that this is what happens when people's brain's are running on Jesus.

Of course, Wiles is even more miffed. He alludes to Google not following its 'don't be evil' mantra:

I have warned for years that a spirit of Nazism is rising up inside the USA. The new Nazis are here. America is on the verge of a French Revolution-style upheaval during which leftist mobs will seek to execute Christians and conservatives in order to purge American society.

But this isn't the only example of Google being 'evil'.

See video from YouTube titled YouTube Admits Not Notifying Subscribers & Screwing With Algorithms

Jimmy Dore notes that independent news sites often no longer qualify for monetisation, they are booted into the unsearchable long grass (as noted by TruNews) and now Google no longer informs subscribers when new videos are added. He contends that the powers that be want news videos from mainstream media to be the dominant news source for YouTube viewers.

 

 

Messing with people's livelihoods...

Gun spree at Google offices may be related to YouTube's de-monitisation censorship policies


Link Here 5th April 2018
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
Nasim Najafi Aghdam, the woman who allegedly opened fire at YouTube's headquarters in a suburb of San Francisco, injuring three before killing herself, was apparently furious with the video website because it had stopped paying her for her clips.

No evidence had been found linking her to any individuals at the company where she allegedly opened fire on Tuesday.

Two of the three shooting victims from the incident were released from hospital on Tuesday night. A third, is currently in serious condition.

Aghdam's online profile shows she was a vegan activist who ran a website called NasimeSabz.com, meaning Green Breeze in Persian, where she posted about Persian culture and veganism, as well as long passages critical of YouTube .

Her father, Ismail Aghdam, told the Bay Area News Group from his San Diego home on Tuesday that she was angry with the Google-owned site because it had stopped paying her for videos she posted on the platform, and that he had warned the police that she might be going to the company's headquarters.

 

 

It's Google's party and it can censor who it likes...

Judge sides with Google over the censorship of alt-right YouTube videos


Link Here 28th March 2018
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Google filed by the conservative site PragerU whose YouTube videos had been censored by Google.

U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh wrote in her decision that PragerU had failed to demonstrate that age restrictions imposed on the company's videos are a First Amendment violation.

PragerU filed its lawsuit in October, claiming that Google's decision to shunt some of its videos into the dead zone known as restricted mode, was motivated by a prejudice against conservatives.

The list of restricted videos included segments like The most important question about abortion, Where are the moderate Muslims? and Is Islam a religion of peace?

In her decision, Koh dismissed the PragerU's free speech claims, arguing that Google is not subject to the First Amendment because it's a private company and not a public institution. She wrote:

Defendants are private entities who created their own video-sharing social media website and make decisions about whether and how to regulate content that has been uploaded on that website.

 

 

Trusted flaggers...

The Daily Caller reveals how Google uses 100 social justice groups as YouTube censors


Link Here28th February 2018
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
The conservative US news website, the Daily Caller, has revealed that Google has recruited several social justice organisations to assist in the censorship of videos on YouTube.

The Daily Caller notes:

The Southern Poverty Law Center is assisting YouTube in policing content on their platform. The left-wing nonprofit -- which has more recently come under fire for labeling legitimate conservative organizations as hate groups -- is one of the more than 100 nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and government agencies in YouTube's Trusted Flaggers program.

The SPLC and other program members help police YouTube for extremist content, ranging from so-called hate speech to terrorist recruiting videos.

All of the groups in the program have confidentiality agreements. A handful of YouTube's Trusted Flaggers, including the Anti-Defamation League and No Hate Speech, a European organization, have gone public with their participation in the program. The vast majority of the groups in the program have remained hidden behind their confidentiality agreements.

YouTube public policy director Juniper Downs said the third-party groups work closely with YouTube's employees to crack down on extremist content in two ways:

First, the flaggers are equipped with digital tools allowing them to mass flag content for review by YouTube personnel. Second, the partner groups act as guides to YouTube's content monitors and engineers designing the algorithms policing the video platform but may lack the expertise needed to tackle a given subject.

We work with over 100 organizations as part of our Trusted Flagger program and we value the expertise these organizations bring to flagging content for review. All trusted flaggers attend a YouTube training to learn about our policies and enforcement processes. Videos flagged by trusted flaggers are reviewed by YouTube content moderators according to YouTube's Community Guidelines. Content flagged by trusted flaggers is not automatically removed or subject to any differential policies than content flagged from other users.

 

 

An army of censors but I bet terrorism will continue unabated...

Google to employ an army of 10,000 internet censors


Link Here9th December 2017
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
Google is escalating its campaign of internet censorship, announcing that it will expand its workforce of human censors to over 10,000. The censors' primary focus will be videos and other content on YouTube, but will work across Google to censor content and train its automated systems, which remove videos at a rate four times faster than its human employees.

Human censors have already reviewed over 2 million videos since June. YouTube has already removed over 150,000 videos, 50 percent of which were removed within two hours of upload. The company is working to accelerate the rate of takedown through machine-learning from manual censorship.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki explained the move in an official blog post:

Human reviewers remain essential to both removing content and training machine learning systems because human judgment is critical to making contextualized decisions on content. Since June, our trust and safety teams have manually reviewed nearly 2 million videos for violent extremist content, helping train our machine-learning technology to identify similar videos in the future. We are also taking aggressive action on comments, launching new comment moderation tools and in some cases shutting down comments altogether. In the last few weeks we've used machine learning to help human reviewers find and terminate hundreds of accounts and shut down hundreds of thousands of comments. Our teams also work closely with NCMEC, the IWF, and other child safety organizations around the world to report predatory behavior and accounts to the correct law enforcement agencies.

We will continue the significant growth of our teams into next year, with the goal of bringing the total number of people across Google working to address content that might violate our policies to over 10,000 in 2018.

At the same time, we are expanding the network of academics, industry groups and subject matter experts who we can learn from and support to help us better understand emerging issues.

We will use our cutting-edge machine learning more widely to allow us to quickly and efficiently remove content that violates our guidelines. In June we deployed this technology to flag violent extremist content for human review and we've seen tremendous progress.

  • Since June we have removed over 150,000 videos for violent extremism.

  • Machine learning is helping our human reviewers remove nearly five times as many videos than they were previously.

  • Today, 98 percent of the videos we remove for violent extremism are flagged by our machine-learning algorithms.

  • Our advances in machine learning let us now take down nearly 70 percent of violent extremist content within eight hours of upload and nearly half of it in two hours and we continue to accelerate that speed.

  • Since we started using machine learning to flag violent and extremist content in June, the technology has reviewed and flagged content that would have taken 180,000 people working 40 hours a week to assess.

 

 

Sensitive information for advertisers...

A detailed report analyzing Google algorithms that demonetise YouTube videos


Link Here 2nd December 2017
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
Google makes their internal processes difficult to track by design, but the author of a report By Karlaplan states that these changes are fairly recent, suspected to have been implemented on the 30th of August -- the changes having only been discovered in late October.

However, until the publication of this document , little other than anecdotal evidence was presented with complaints from YouTube content creators.

Through extensive analysis of the YouTube Data API and other sources, Karlaplan found that YouTube tags demonetized videos according to both severity and type of sensitive content -- neither of which is transparent to the uploader.

The report also notes that videos are more likely to be hidden from viewers if their likely viewership is low. Perhaps as higher viewership videos may be more likely to be appealed, or more likely to be spotted as examples of censorship and hence generate bad publicity for Google.

Google have published an information page that is quite useful in detailing which videos get censored. Google outlines two levels of sensitivity that advertisers can select when not wanting to be associated with sensitive content. Google explains:

While the Standard content filter excludes the most inappropriate content, it doesn't exclude everything that a particular advertiser may find objectionable. The Sensitive content categories allow you to opt out of additional content that many advertisers find inappropriate. Eg:

Tragedy and conflict

  • Standard: Excludes graphic footage of combat or war

  • Sensitive: Excludes the above plus footage of soldiers marching with weapons

Sensitive social issues

  • Standard: Excludes videos intended to elicit a response about controversial issues

  • Sensitive:  Excludes the above plus news commentary about controversial issues

Sexually suggestive content

  • Standard: Excludes videos about sex or sexual products

  • Sensitive:  Excludes the above plus music videos with suggestive themes

Sensational and shocking

  • Standard: Excludes videos of disasters or accidents that show casualties or death

  • Sensitive:  Excludes the above plus videos of moderate disasters or accidents that show minimal casualties or harm

Profanity and rough language

  • Standard: Excludes videos with frequent use of profanity

  • Sensitive:  Excludes the above plus videos with profanity that has been bleeped out

 

 

Inappropriate themes...

YouTube announces rule change applying to parodies using children's characters


Link Here11th November 2017
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach

YouTube has announced an extension of its age restriction policy for parody videos using children's characters but with inappropriate themes

The new policy was announced on Thursday and will see age restrictions apply on content featuring inappropriate use of family entertainment characters like unofficial videos depicting Peppa Pig. The company already had a policy that rendered such videos ineligible for advertising revenue, in the hope that doing would reduce the motivation to create them in the first place. Juniper Downs, , YouTube's director of policy explained:

Earlier this year, we updated our policies to make content featuring inappropriate use of family entertainment characters ineligible for monetisation,We're in the process of implementing a new policy that age restricts this content in the YouTube main app when flagged. Age-restricted content is automatically not allowed in YouTube Kids. The YouTube team is made up of parents who are committed to improving our apps and getting this right.

Age-restricted videos can't be seen by users who aren't logged in, or by those who have entered their age as below 18 on both the site and the app. More importantly, they also don't show up on YouTube Kids, a separate app aimed at parents who want to let their children under 13 use the site unsupervised.

 

 

David vs Goliath Inc...

PragerU sues Google for restricting their business revenue from Youtube videos


Link Here28th October 2017
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
Prager University, a nonprofit that creates educational videos with conservative slants, has filed a lawsuit against YouTube and its parent company, Google, alleging that the company is censoring its content. 

PragerU claims that more than three dozen of its videos have been restricted by YouTube over the past year. As a result, those who browse YouTube in restricted mode -- including many college and high school students -- are prevented from viewing the content. Furthermore, restricted videos cannot earn any ad revenue.

PragerU says that by limiting access to their videos without a clear reason, YouTube has infringed upon PragerU's First Amendment rights.

YouTube has  restricted edgy content in order to protect advertisers' brands. A number of advertisers told Google that they did not want their brand to be associated with edgy content. Google responded by banning all advertising from videos claimed to contain edgy content. It keeps the brands happy but it has decimated many an online small business.

 

 

Update: Censor first, ask questions later... much later when it is all to late...

YouTube censorship by demonetisation proves punishing to those unfairly censored, especially to small players


Link Here12th September 2017
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
YouTube's algorithms, which are used to censor and demonetize videos on the platform, are killing its creators, according to a report.

Most of the initial censorship is left to algorithms, [which probably flag that a video should be censored as soon as it detects something politically incorrect], which presumably leads to the overcensorship underpinning the complaints].

Creators complain that YouTube has set up a slow and inefficient appeals system to counter cases of unfair censorship. Ad-disabled videos on YouTube must get 1,000 views in the span of seven days just to qualify for a review.

This approach hurts smaller YouTube channels, because it removes the ability for creators to make money on the most important stage of a YouTube video's life cycle: the first seven days, the report explains. Typically, videos receive 70% or more of their views in the first seven days, according to multiple creators.

Some of the platform's most popular creators, are saying that the majority of their videos are being affected, dramatically reducing their revenue. Last week, liberal interviewer Dave Rubin, who has interviewed dozens of prominent political figures, announced that a large percentage of his videos had been demonetized, cutting him off from being able to make money on the millions of views he typically gets, perhaps due to the politically incorrect leanings of his guests, eg Ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, feminist activist and scholar Christina Hoff Sommers, and Larry King.

YouTube issued a response saying little, except that they hope the algorithms get better over time.

 

 

Update: Stop YouTube from banning the Bible...

US catholic church becomes an early victim of YouTube's censorship of anything politically incorrect


Link Here 7th September 2017
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
US catholics have become an early victim of newly introduced censorship measure from YouTube presumably because their teaching is considered offensive due to politically incorrect attitudes towards gays and abortion. Catholic Online writes:

More media organizations are criticizing YouTube's increasingly oppressive soft censorship policies which are now eliminating mainstream news reports from the video sharing network. Many content creators on YouTube are losing millions in revenue as the Google-owned firm reduces and cuts off payments in pursuit of profits and control.

YouTube is censoring content though various indirect means even if that content does not violate any terms of service. The Google-owned firm is removing content that it deems inappropriate or offensive, and is taking cues from the Southern Poverty Law Center. The result seems to be a broad labeling of content, and the suppression of even mainstream news. Many of Catholic Online's bible readings have been caught up in YouTube's web of suppression, despite containing no commentary or message other than the reading of the scriptures.

YouTube is not a government agency but a private platform, so it is free to ban or restrict content as it pleases them. Therefore, their policies, no matter how arbitrary, are not true censorship. However, the firm is practicing what some call soft censorship.

Soft censorship is any kind of activity that suppresses speech, particularly that which is true and accurate. It takes many forms. For example, broadcasting celebrity gossip in place of news is a form of soft censorship. Placing real news lower in search results, preventing content from being shared on social media, or depriving media outlets of ad revenue for reporting on certain topics, are all common forms of soft censorship.

For some unknown reason, Catholic Online has also been targeted by these policies. Saints videos and daily readings are the most common targets. None of this content can be considered objectionable by any means, and none of it infringes on YouTube's terms and conditions. It is suspected that anti-Christian bigotry, such as that promoted by liberal extremist organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center, are to blame.

The problem for content creators and media organizations is that there are few places for them to go. Most video viewing takes place on YouTube, and there are no video hosting sites as well known and widely used as YouTube. Other sites also restrict content and some don't share revenues with content creators. This makes YouTube a monopoly; they are literally the only show in town.

The time has come for governments around the world to recognize that Facebook, Google, and YouTube control the public forum. If freedom of speech is to be protected, then these firms must be compelled to abide by free speech rules.

 

 

Update: Objectionable censorship...

YouTube introduce a new tier of censorship to restrict the reach of 'objectionable' videos


Link Here2nd September 2017
Full story: YouTube Censorship...YouTube censor videos by restricting their reach
Youtube has been introduced a new tier of censorship designed to restrict the audience for videos deemed to be inappropriate or offensive to some audiences.

The site is now putting videos into a limited state if they are deemed controversial enough to be considered objectionable, but not hateful, pornographic or violent enough to be banned altogether.

This policy was announced several months ago but has come into force in the past week, prompting anger among members of the YouTube community.

YouTube defines Limited Videos as follows:

Our Community Guidelines prohibit hate speech that either promotes violence or has the primary purpose of inciting hatred against individuals or groups based on certain attributes. YouTube also prohibits content intended to recruit for terrorist organizations, incite violence, celebrate terrorist attacks, or otherwise promote acts of terrorism. Some borderline videos, such as those containing inflammatory religious or supremacist content without a direct call to violence or a primary purpose of inciting hatred, may not cross these lines for removal. Following user reports, if our review teams determine that a video is borderline under our policies, it may have some features disabled.

These videos will remain available on YouTube, but will be placed behind a warning message, and some features will be disabled, including comments, suggested videos, and likes. These videos are also not eligible for ads.

Having features disabled on a video will not create a strike on your account.

Videos which are put into a limited state cannot be embedded on other websites. They also cannot be easily published on social media using the usual share buttons and other users cannot comment on them. Crucially, the person who made the video will no longer receive any payment.

Earlier this week, Julian Assange wrote: 

'Controversial' but contract-legal videos [which break YouTube's terms and conditions] cannot be liked, embedded or earn [money from advertising revenue].

What's interesting about the new method deployed is that it is a clear attempt at social engineering. It isn't just turning off the ads. It's turning off the comments, embeds, etc too. Everything possible to strangle the reach without deleting it.

 

25th February
2010
  

Update: Justice Gives Way to Victim Advocacy...

Google execs sentenced for bullying video posted on YouTube

Three Google executives were convicted in Italy of allowing film of an autistic schoolboy being bullied to be posted online in a ruling that could profoundly change the way in which video clips are put on the internet.

The three Google executives — David Drummond, senior vice-president and chief legal officer, George Reyes, Google's former chief financial officer, and Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel — were each given a six-month suspended prison sentence, but were cleared of defamation charges. A fourth defendant, Arvind Desikan, senior product marketing manager, was acquitted.

Alfredo Robledo, the prosecutor, said that he was very satisfied with the verdict in the case, adding: Protection of human beings must prevail over business logic. Robledo said that the video, which was posted on September 8, 2006, had remained online until November 7 and should have been taken down immediately.

Google said that it would appeal against the ruling. The American company said that the decision attacked the principles of freedom on which the internet is built. Bill Echikson, a Google spokesman, said: It's the first time a Google employee has been convicted for [violation of] privacy anywhere in the world. It's an astonishing decision that attacks the principle of freedom of expression.

Italian bloggers also criticised the verdict, with one blogger on the La Stampa website declaring: From today we are less Western and more Chinese.

Matt Sucherman, vice-president of Google and its deputy general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, conceded that the video was totally reprehensible , but said that Google had taken it down within hours of being notified of it by Italian police and that none of those convicted had had anything to do with it. He said: They did not appear in it, film it, upload it or review it. None of them know the people involved or were even aware of the video's existence until after it was removed.

Sucherman said that the ruling by the judge, Oscar Magi, meant that employees of hosting platforms like Google Video are criminally responsible for content that users upload. If social networks and community bulletin boards were held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them — every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video — then the web as we know it will cease to exist and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.

 

8th August
2009
  

Update: Video Privacy...

YouTube expand their posting guidelines

YouTube have increased the range of activities that are barred to include, amongst other things, invasions of privacy.

If a video you've recorded features people who are readily identifiable and who haven't consented to being filmed, there's a chance they'll file a privacy complaint seeking its removal, say its new guidelines: Don't post other people's personal information, including phone numbers, addresses, credit card numbers, and government IDs. We're serious about keeping our users safe and suspend accounts that violate people's privacy.

It also said that material designed to harass people was not welcome. If you wouldn't say it to someone's face, don't say it on YouTube, say the new guidelines: And if you're looking to attack, harass, demean, or impersonate others, go elsewhere.

The new guidelines also seek to govern the behaviour of people reacting to videos: Users shouldn't feel threatened when they're on YouTube. Don't leave threatening comments on other people's videos.

 

12th December
2008

 Offsite: U Tube Blocked...

YouTube pulls risque; videos to chase profit

See article from irishtimes.com

 

3rd December
2008
  

YouTube Down the U Tube...

YouTube restrict suggestive material to adults and demote it in searches

Our goal is to help ensure that you're viewing content that's relevant to you, and not inadvertently coming across content that isn't. Here are a few things we came up with:

  • Stricter standard for mature content - While videos featuring pornographic images or sex acts are always removed from the site when they're flagged, we're tightening the standard for what is considered sexually suggestive. Videos with sexually suggestive (but not prohibited) content will be age-restricted, which means they'll be available only to viewers who are 18 or older.
     
  • Demotion of sexually suggestive content and profanity - Videos that are considered sexually suggestive, or that contain profanity, will be algorithmically demoted on our Most Viewed, Top Favourited, and other browse pages. The classification of these types of videos is based on a number of factors, including video content and descriptions. In testing, we've found that out of the thousands of videos on these pages, only several each day are automatically demoted for being too graphic or explicit. However, those videos are often the ones which end up being repeatedly flagged by the community as being inappropriate.
     
  • Improved thumbnails - To make sure your thumbnail represents your video, your choices will now be selected algorithmically.
     
  • More accurate video information - Our Community Guidelines have always prohibited folks from attempting to game view counts by entering misleading information in video descriptions, tags, titles, and other metadata. We remain serious about enforcing these rules. Remember, violations of these guidelines could result in removal of your video and repeated violations will lead to termination of your account.



 

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