[My comments below] YouTube Doesn't Know Where Its Own Line Is
https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-content-moderation-inconsistent/
"While YouTube has a written policy that ostensibly details
what it deems acceptable, its recent posture toward InfoWars
and other groups shows that it draws those lines
inconsistently in practice. At times, the company seems to
police videos primarily in response to public outcry, which
makes its decisions inherently haphazard and potentially
malleable. It's a gargantuan task to try to moderate a site on
which hundreds of hours of video are uploaded every
minute--but it's even harder if you don't have clear,
consistent rules about what's allowed."
- - -
These are all signs of well-meaning but essentially ad hoc actions
that are causing unpredictable collateral effects (however, the fact
that "unpredictable collateral effects" would occur was itself
entirely predictable under these circumstances). YouTube needs a top
to bottom reevaluation of its Terms of Service and associated policy
structures related to YT Community Guidelines and acceptable content,
as a starting point.
Band-aids will not fix this. And this has to happen starting right
now. YouTube -- which I care about deeply -- is now at terrible risk
from governments overreaching to try "fix" these problems themselves.
That result would be a toxic government-mandated politically-motivated
censorship disaster. And since in many ways YouTube is a microcosm
both of Google and the Internet at large, getting this wrong could
have catastrophic negative impacts that span the entire world.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lau...@vortex.com): https://www.vortex.com/lauren
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Google Issues Mailing List: https://vortex.com/google-issues
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: https://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Google+: https://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
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