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I think this is absolutely wrong. Youtube algos offer plausible deniability, something that was existentially threatening to any future profitability for youtube in the case of copyright claims.

I'm fairly sure that most of the content watched on youtube was uploaded by someone other than the copyright holder, at least historically. Having an algo people have to actively thwart, can be unaware that the particular content is copyrighted, and/or generates a significant enough number of false positives that google can claim that they're trying hard enough to damage a portion of their legal business is a tool in and of itself.

Not using an algo makes it clear you're doing editorial, and once you're doing editorial, oversight follows. Anyway, even with the algo you can do as much editorial you want through training and dispute resolution. By slow-walking some disputes and fast-tracking others, you can change the shape of your business to hopefully be more independent of legally fragile stolen content.

The Trump/Russia conspiracy was a boon to all of these algorithmically filtering DMCA carriers, now they can actually explicitly filter points of view. I decided that point was inevitable anyway after I heard of the first facebook censoring of an anti-wingsuit post. IMO humans + that degree of editorial = worst case scenario, at least laundering it through the AI means that editorial requires some cost and degree of engineering skill.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/features/why-ar...

> “The post got deleted by Facebook, and I pissed off the entire community,” says Lewis. “My message was followed up by the most fatal month in BASE. I just painfully sat back and watched my friends die one after the other.”




Your point seems to be hiring humans is wrong, because YouTube incorporated more AI to pretend like they're doing something, remain in the good books of copyright folks and make themselves more money. Is that correct? So, what if a person does not sympathize with Google or care about them making more money? Ultimately your perspective is shaped by whose side you're on.


My point is that hiring humans is wrong for Google.

> So, what if a person does not sympathize with Google or care about them making more money?

I have no advice for them. They should do what makes them happy. My point is that Google does not sympathize with them (mostly because it is not a person) and makes decisions based on how the people who control it will benefit.


Okay fair enough.. :)




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