YouTube stealth censoring

Hobbes

This isn't a coolvids post.

Anyone who was looking at YouTube the other day would of noticed a video from littleloca complaining about how people where cheating to get thier video onto the main pages.

Well another video appeared explaining that littleloca herself had been cheating and detailed how she did it (although she hinted at it).

A quick check of other users it appears that nearly all the high profile youtubers are in fact cheating.

How are youtube handling this? Well they are putting a special flag on the videos that are pointing out that people are cheating so they never show up on the main pages or peoples subscriptions unless you directly go to that persons page.

Take this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAmmVmHImPU

If you subscribe to it, and then check your subscriptions it won't show up. It also has the stats to be on the main pages but again isn't showing up.

Checking some of the other cheating videos appears Youtube are doing this to them as well.

Lust4Life

You actually look at the videos on the front page?

I always do pointed searches for specific videos.
My time is too precious to look at some 12 year old's idea of a cool video.

But I DO love youtube!

Thrill

Stick her on the most disgusting list, along with all those other stat lovers.

Adam

Not to sound like a *complete* prick, but... who cares? What's your point?

Hobbes

Lust4Life wrote:

You actually look at the videos on the front page?

Its not the front page. Basically it is the most discussed, most popular, most views pages.

who cares? What's your point?

Well if your a youtube fan then its two issues.
1. YouTube can make your videos pretty much disappear. Unless your directly searched for or someone directly looks at your profile your video doesn't show up at all.

It allows youtube to kill off stuff they don't like without making it look too obvious.

2. The ranking system is flawed which means that given a short time the place is going to be full of spam videos, or that certain agendas can be spammed to give the feeling that something is popular. Similar to viral marketing.

Oh and a lot of the spammers are actually making serious cash. Littleloca+morbeck for example got contracts based on thier visual hits.

Adam

Hobbes wrote:

Well if your a youtube fan then its two issues.
1. YouTube can make your videos pretty much disappear. Unless your directly searched for or someone directly looks at your profile your video doesn't show up at all.

It allows youtube to kill off stuff they don't like without making it look too obvious.

Good, it means they have a effective system for hiding shít!

Hobbes wrote:

2. The ranking system is flawed which means that given a short time the place is going to be full of spam videos, or that certain agendas can be spammed to give the feeling that something is popular. Similar to viral marketing.

It's already full of spam, but if it's moderated well enough it will be kept to a minimum. What do you consider to be spam on youtube? Imo the majority of stupid home videos of, say, a cat doing something boring that the owner thinks is "cute" and wants to share with the world are spam.

phantom_lord

How dare youtube do what they want on their website...

r3nu4l

phantom_lord wrote:

How dare youtube do what they want on their website...

Yeah, you'd never see that on boards.ie...oh, wait!

Well, now that Google have bought them over it will be harder for advertisers to upload videos for free, Google wouldn't like that!

A lot of sites do this kind of thing, it's not exclusive to YouTube. Right? Wrong? It depends on your view but it's nothing new.

Hobbes

Well if they are going to cheat and it being acceptable then why bother having the pages marked as such when the videos there are not real.

Falls under the same as fake reviews.

Adam

Hobbes wrote:

Well if they are going to cheat and it being acceptable then why bother having the pages marked as such when the videos there are not real.

Falls under the same as fake reviews.

I'm sorry, what?

Hobbes

Mirror wrote:

I'm sorry, what?

They have the following pages on YT.

Most Viewed
Top Rated
Most Discussed
Top Favorites

All of which people are cheating to get onto it. For example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo7pBc9f_Ys
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCa3I0PTvic

A quick check and they have been cheated onto the pages and are actually spammed up by the same person/people. There is actually speculation that it is a competitor spamming those to turn people off youtube.

With regards to flagging videos to disappear. The site is supposed to let you host to the public. They are not doing that. If they don't agree with the videos then they should just nuke them rather then hiding them.

To put it into another example. Imagine you posted on boards.ie but was flagged so that any post you put in only you could read and no one else could see. Would you still use that service?

r3nu4l

Well, nuking (deleting) them is a stronger form of censorship than making them more difficult to find. I think YouTube are probably hedging their bets here so that they can't be accused of outright censorship.

Besides, the Google search system makes it easy to promote your site over someone else's so why shouldn't YouTube do this as well?

Again I neither agree or disagree, I see your point completely and from a purely subjective point of view it is 'unfair and wrong' but it's a business at the end of the day and will do what it takes to make a better business that will eventually be profit driven once Google take complete control.

As for a boards.ie flagging system...mods (like yourself my good man ) often SNIP text from people's posts when deemed necessary and users cannot read them. You also don't like having to explain or justify your decisions (and rightly so) therefore boards does have a somewhat if not exactly similar system in place.

mike65

I get the feeling no one gives a damn!

Anyone hear about that brutal assault in tallaght which has been on youtube since Feb? The guy who commiitted the act should, by now have been talked to by the cops. Someone spotted it and recognised the location.

Mike.

Adam

r3nu4l wrote:

Well, nuking (deleting) them is a stronger form of censorship than making them more difficult to find. I think YouTube are probably hedging their bets here so that they can't be accused of outright censorship.

Besides, the Google search system makes it easy to promote your site over someone else's so why shouldn't YouTube do this as well?

Again I neither agree or disagree, I see your point completely and from a purely subjective point of view it is 'unfair and wrong' but it's a business at the end of the day and will do what it takes to make a better business that will eventually be profit driven once Google take complete control.

As for a boards.ie flagging system...mods (like yourself my good man ) often SNIP text from people's posts when deemed necessary and users cannot read them. You also don't like having to explain or justify your decisions (and rightly so) therefore boards does have a somewhat if not exactly similar system in place.

Exactly what I'm too hungover to say!