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Comment by pippy | Hacker News Reader

The Santa Clara principles are already outdated. Most large sites use learning algorithms to promote content that is advertiser friendly. So for example, if advertisers on Youtube don't like the content you watch you'll be shown less of it. This has massive implications for politics, communities, and news.

It also works the other way around. Content creators on youtube are feeling the pressure of having their videos delisted. So they have to match their content to what advertisers want to show. It's censorship by robot.

The Santa Clara principles are a great step in the right direction. But things are getting harder, and more complicated.

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It's funny how naive youtube content creators are. They complain about their subs not getting their notifications and ask their subs to hit the "notification bell" as if that is going to do anything. They don't realize that youtube is being pressured into moving away from individual content creators to corporate content. You don't see john oliver, jimmy kimmel or SNL subs complaining about not getting their notifications.

HBO, ABC and NBC aren't just content creators. They are subsidiaries of large corporations who are also some of the biggest ad spenders.

It's isn't by accident that john oliver, jimmy kimmel, SNL, etc are so heavily promoted by youtube.

It's in youtube's interest to manipulate the notifications system so that when john oliver releases a video, his views do well since he is advertiser friendly with the corporate seal of approval. But in the long run, this could be very bad for youtube as people's interest declines. It isn't corporate content that brought people to youtube, it was local/individual content.

> They complain about their subs not getting their notifications and ask their subs to hit the "notification bell" as if that is going to do anything

But that's the whole point of the notification bell. If you're subscribed, but haven't rang the bell, the videos will be in your sub feed, and you might get a notification. When you ring the bell and say you want notifications, you'll get notifications for all videos.

They ask you to turn on notifications because that means you're more likely to watch their video earlier than waiting to see it in your sub feed.

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