Youtube enlists super flaggers

[Yunru]

Source:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-576...ending-videos/

In an invite-only program, Google's video-sharing site gives roughly 200 people, government agencies, and organizations the power to flag up to 20 videos at a time.
YouTube has a team of staffers to review videos 24 hours a day seven days a week, but inappropriate content still slips onto the site. So, it appears Google is relying on an army of "super flaggers" to help pinpoint videos that violate its community guidelines.

Around 200 people and organizations have been given this flagging super power, according to The Wall Street Journal. Among this elite group is the British police unit, according to the Financial Times.

These special people and groups have the ability to flag up to 20 videos at once to be reviewed by YouTube staff. According to the Journal, 90 percent of the videos flagged by these people get pulled from the site or restricted to only adult users -- this is a far higher pull rate than videos flagged by the average YouTube user.

YouTube doesn't allow for sex and nudity, hate speech, copyright infringement, and a slew of other "violating" actions. According to its community guidelines, "predatory behavior, stalking, threats, harassment, intimidation, invading privacy, revealing other people's personal information, and inciting others to commit violent acts" are taken very seriously and could lead to someone being permanently banned from the site.

According to the Financial Times, the British police unit is apparently looking for extremist propaganda and terrorism-related videos, which are also not permitted on YouTube.

"We have a zero-tolerance policy on YouTube towards content that incites violence," YouTube told the Financial Times. "Our community guidelines prohibit such content and our review teams respond to flagged videos around the clock, routinely removing videos that contain hate speech or incitement to commit violent acts. To increase the efficiency of this process, we have developed an invite-only program that gives users who flag videos regularly tools to flag content at scale.

Of the 200 super flaggers, Google said that fewer than 10 are either government agencies or non-governmental groups, according to the Journal. The vast majority of the trusted flaggers are individuals who have spent a lot of time identifying those YouTube videos that violate community guidelines.

And some random video:


I cant belive what kind of lies they are saying. Now a single guy can pretty much destroy every channel they want if those people start speaking agaisnt them.
Is it time to switch to something new ?

[Anyael]

All that I learned from this is that google should open a porn video sharing site to go along with youtube.

But come on, governments already had a scary landline telephone number to call if the need to remove the video was urgent. This just streamlines the process.

[Novx]

I'm not watching an 18 minute video but based off the text you seem to be upset that they want to keep youtube clean? These people can't just delete videos/channels...they simply report them to the Youtube team and have a higher priority than other reports.

[Yunru]

I'm not watching an 18 minute video but based off the text you seem to be upset that they want to keep youtube clean? These people can't just delete videos/channels...they simply report them to the Youtube team and have a higher priority than other reports.

If some1 makes a video that is made to get people for protest, they can take it down instanty. Its more of a freedom of speech thingy.

[Stevecow]

People who make youtube videos and don't like the rules need to switch to a different format. Try hosting the video yourself. If you feel like you have to have the exposure youtube gives you to get your opinion heard then your video probably wasn't that good in the first place. With the amount of social media such as twitter, reddit and facebook, getting directed to your video that isn't on youtube isn't hard. If I subscribed to any youtube channels and the author said he was moving then I would follow. For the record, I don't subscribe to anyone and I use adblock so they don't make anything from me anyway.

[OneSent]

The dude makes a good point concerning how fast videos with copyrighted music get "fixed", yet they seem to have trouble weeding out the really, truly heinous material that can sometimes make it's way onto YouTube and remain there for awhile. Also, his hair and goatee are glorious!

This bit could be of concern, since they could pretty much deem whatever they don't like as "extremist propaganda".

According to the Financial Times, the British police unit is apparently looking for extremist propaganda and terrorism-related videos, which are also not permitted on YouTube.

Not really surprised, to be honest. As social media starts to become more and more of a routine in our daily lives, you can expect them to start cracking down on whatever they don't like.

With more unofficial information getting shared than any other time in media history, it was inevitable that they would eventually seek to control that.

[Graeham]

It's a bit of a slippery slope. On one hand there's a lot of shady material on Youtube that does need to be flagged and taken down. Though there's a risk it'll simply be abused to try and silence people who ask critical questions which is unfortunately how these sort of scenarios tend to play out.

[Stevecow]

The dude makes a good point concerning how fast videos with copyrighted music get "fixed", yet they seem to have trouble weeding out the really, truly heinous material that can sometimes make it's way onto YouTube and remain there for awhile. .

Think this is because of people who work for the music production company. They hire people to look out for their copyrighted music in videos. I know the UFC does this. Post a PPV UFC fight on youtube the night after the fight or even minutes after the fight and it will be taken down right away. Dana White has even said they hire people to scout the internet looking for these illegal copyrighted videos. This is why I think the music industry is so quick about it too.

[Senathor]

I see no issue with this at all.

[Kaiser499]

Just another form of censorship.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

If some1 makes a video that is made to get people for protest, they can take it down instanty. Its more of a freedom of speech thingy.

Youtube isn't the government. So it's not necessarily a Freedom of Speech issue. Now unless there is some board room where Youtube officials are working with the government in coop(Not trying to sound like a conspiricy theory) then yes Freedom of Speech issue. If anything it might be a censorship issue and not close to a Freedom of Speech issue.

I'm not putting too much faith on the Youtube community because well there are those who would turn a blind eye to actual guideline breaking and things that aren't really harmful are reported by them. That's my say on the matter.

[Konker]

If some1 makes a video that is made to get people for protest, they can take it down instanty. Its more of a freedom of speech thingy.

Making a video is freedom of speech. Asking a 2nd party to publish said video to their network is not. YouTube or any party for that matter is not obligated to distribute your free speech for you.

[klocker2003]

If some1 makes a video that is made to get people for protest, they can take it down instanty. Its more of a freedom of speech thingy.

Correct, it is completely a freedom of speech issue. Google does not want their service to host issues that they disagree with. They are fully exercising their freedom of speech, which apparently is wrong? Freedom of speech does not mean you are granted unrestricted access to use any platform you want to say whatever it is you want.

As stated, if you have a problem with this, use another format to get your word out. If you disagree with googles tactics, build a multi billion dollar industry and crush them, until then feel free to utilize your freedom of speech to denounce a company utilizing their right to use freedom of speech.

Oh, and before anyone puts this out there, youtube is a direct link to google, so anything allowed to be said on there can be construed as something google permits to be said, therefore everything on youtube is their "speech". Its the same as if someone put a hate sign on your car and you drove it around, it doesn't matter that someone else put it there, you should have taken it off before you displayed it around town.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Correct, it is completely a freedom of speech issue. Google does not want their service to host issues that they disagree with. They are fully exercising their freedom of speech, which apparently is wrong? Freedom of speech does not mean you are granted unrestricted access to use any platform you want to say whatever it is you want.

As stated, if you have a problem with this, use another format to get your word out. If you disagree with googles tactics, build a multi billion dollar industry and crush them, until then feel free to utilize your freedom of speech to denounce a company utilizing their right to use freedom of speech.

Oh, and before anyone puts this out there, youtube is a direct link to google, so anything allowed to be said on there can be construed as something google permits to be said, therefore everything on youtube is their "speech". Its the same as if someone put a hate sign on your car and you drove it around, it doesn't matter that someone else put it there, you should have taken it off before you displayed it around town.

You're half right. Google censoring willy nilly without any rhyme or reason just leads to discontent. Just because Google is a big company doesn't mean they can suddenly play tyrant with the services they provide. They should be nice to the customer/consumer AND the consumer shouldn't try and be hateful to the company either. It's not necessarily black and white.

[Kraenen]

Youtube keeps going downhill...anyone else get this thing the other week where your entire history, video playlists, and subscriptions were deleted?

[PACOX]

Its Google's platform, they can do what they want with it as they please. There are 1000s of other video hosting sites out there that have 1000s of different guidelines.

[wookybear]

Youtube keeps going downhill...anyone else get this thing the other week where your entire history, video playlists, and subscriptions were deleted?

Did they create you a free integrated Youtube/G+ account? I thought everything had vanished until i realised I now had multiple accounts and they keep trying to convince me to use the one they created with my real name.

[Powerogue]

It sounds like it still has to go through the youtube staff at the end. It's (hopefully) not like one can just go berserk and kill an entire channel for no valid reason.

[DeltrusDisc]

Vimeo... if only you were free...

I do see why it isn't free though, it actually supports videos above 30 fps ffs!

[apepi]

This will just solve everything, Yeah!