Fakey McFakeFace

Three short articles on fake news today, so let's combine them into one.

First up, the Independent reports that YouTube is stepping up its game when it comes to removing fraudulent content :

While it has always banned hate content in general, the site has allowed some specific kinds of harmful videos – such as those promoting Nazi ideology or claiming 9/11 did not happen – to continue being hosted on the site. Those videos, as well as other kinds of "supremacist" content, will now be officially banned.

It will also alter its algorithm in an attempt to stop certain kinds of misleading and harmful videos, such as those promoting fake miracle cures or the flat Earth hoax, will stop being recommended in YouTube's "up next" sidebar. It will also encourage more authoritative videos to try and discourage people from being tricked by those stories.

Excellent progress. Also interesting to note that they're trying to account for such content being useful for researchers (presumably psychologists, sociologists and political scientists). YouTube are at least making exactly the right noises : discussion of just about any topic is fine under certain conditions, but promotion of certain content is not. Questioning the origins and social impact of homosexuality, or considering whether a particular religion is moral or not, are absolutely fine topics for academic discussion. So is holding a strong opinion on those issues. But you can't necessarily go around promoting those opinions as fact, or go around deliberately and systematically abusing people (especially on the basis of something over which they have no control). Even in America, freedom of speech legally only extends to not imprisoning people - it says nothing at all about how private companies respond to it. No-one, anywhere, has an automatic right to not be regarded as an idiot if they keep promoting idiotic ideas.

As for the pseudoscience conspiracy crap, good riddance to bad rubbish. The internet was a better place when the odd fringe lunatic would wander by : it's when they all gather together you get problems. It's better for everyone if such groups are denied the opportunity to get organised. Those who can convince you of absurdities and all that...

Right-wing channels also make up a significant part of YouTube's channels and their viewers. Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that far-right videos were one of the site's most popular categories. The decision also comes amid increasing scrutiny from conservative politicians about whether YouTube has a bias against right-wing creators. As with Twitter and Facebook, the company has been criticised for undermining free speech and being unfair towards its conservative users, despite the fact there is no evidence of those accounts being discriminated against.

Now that last statement badly needs a citation, and a very clear distinction needs to be made between "right wing" and "far right". The two seem to be synonymous in America, but this is not so elsewhere.

Not that YouTube is anywhere near perfect. The Independent article mentions a recent prominent case of inconsistency, of which this BBC article goes into more details :

At the centre of the dispute is journalist Carlos Maza, who presents a popular series called Strikethrough for the news site Vox. He says he has faced persistent abuse from rival video-maker Steven Crowder, who has more than 3.8 million subscribers on YouTube. Whenever Maza publishes a video for Vox, Crowder will post his own "debunking" video, peppered with insulting language attacking Maza's sexual orientation and ethnicity. So, last week, Maza posted a video compilation of the abuse. In the clips, Crowder imitates Maza's accent and calls him, among other things, a "lispy queer", a "gay Vox sprite" and a "gay Mexican".

YouTube said it would investigate. It conducted an "in-depth review" and on Tuesday it came back with an answer. "While we found language that was clearly hurtful, the videos as posted don't violate our policies," it said in a statement. However, after receiving further criticism, YouTube announced Wednesday that it would demonetise Crowder's channel due to "continued egregious actions." This means he will no longer make money from advertising revenues on his videos. 

But Maza said this was still not enough, pointing out that most political content is already demonetised and that Crowder would still be able to sell merchandise via his channel. YouTube attempted to clarify its decision stating that Crowder would need to remove links to his t-shirts in order to reinstate monetisation of his channel.

Okay. Abuse and harassment are different from receiving the occasional insult. No-one would suggest we ban all forms of criticism or even ad hominem attacks, because recognising when someone is behaving like a dick (i.e. Crowder) is an essential part of a democracy and such behaviour needs to be called out. But attacking someone for what they are is wholly different from attacking them from what they do, and responding to an unprovoked attack is different from initiating an attack on someone who has done you no harm. Furthermore, amassing a following based on abusing people is not the same as venting frustration and anger at someone who delights in abusing others. Regulating hate speech certainly doesn't mean we all have to be nice to each other the whole time, but letting the systematic abuse and denigration of minorities go unchecked is the height of folly.

But YouTube said Crowder's comments did not violate the policies because they were sandwiched between "debate". In notes provided by Google and published by news site Gizmodo, the company said: "We take into consideration whether criticism is focused primarily on debating the opinions expressed or is solely malicious."

It's inevitable in a contentious area like this that progress is going to be stochastic and increments only by averages. YouTube seem to have got the right idea but not the right implementation. I personally would err on the side of caution, because it's true enough that only unpopular speech needs protecting. But in this case it seems very clear that the intent is to insult and hurt, not debate, so I have to wonder what YouTube are thinking on this one.

Finally, this video first describes a much more objective case of abusive trolls who YouTube failed to take down. The Finnish take the view, quite correctly, that fake news and misinformation is a serious threat to free and democratic societies, not something that should be tolerated. They're trying a fairly large-scale campaign to educate the population so that they won't be fooled by online trolls. But they're only targetting about 10,000 people, so how this will feed into the rest of society I'm not sure. Perhaps they're selecting people they believe are likely to be influential.

What's really interesting is the level of trust in the media. In Finland, trust is high, even in politicians, and they have by all accounts a society which has achieved the golden objective of peace and prosperity at the same time. In Britain, the press and politicians aren't trusted. Somewhat paradoxically, this isn't because the British are a bunch of skeptically-minded critical thinkers, because they seem to fall victim (at least lately) to all kinds of absolute nonsense. I put it to you that this is the end result of a perpetual media campaign of attacking any and all viewpoints with rabid voraciousness, of an unthinking and perpetual criticism : the media are critical only in the rhetorical sense, not in the philosophical sense. In order to think rationally, trusted sources of information are essential. Without this it's all just emotion-driven drivel and things degenerate into a farce.

Mind you, I don't know anything about Finnish media. A comparative study would be interesting.

(Collected thoughts on fake news can be found here).

YouTube is about to delete thousands of accounts

YouTube will delete thousands of accounts after banning "supremacists", conspiracy theorists and other harmful accounts, it has claimed. The decision was made after an in-depth review of its rules on hateful content, YouTube said.