YouTube comments are heavily manipulated, and I fear for our democracy

I've noticed many instances of this and usually, I like looking at comments to find different views or different opinions but sometimes it's a bit too unanimous. I have a suspicion that many of the top comments are fake and made to look like a bunch of random people commenting on the video when it's really a group of people that are trying to change how people think. Which sounds silly but people follow the masses, if the majority of YouTube comments are saying that x thing is bad/good, then people just see that and start believing it as fact since everyone else seems to belive it. I mean the entire comment section is saying that x person is bad, plus there's 100 upvoted on the first comment going into why that is, sooo it must be true :P

Without some corroborating evidence, these claims don't hold any weight. It's not that they're necessarily wrong, it's that there's no way to tell. Imagination produces just the same perceptions, and there is a ton of imagination going around.

Occasionally we do find evidence, and then we can do something about it. Absent that, though, the default explanation has to be that you can simply see anything in anything, especially when emotions are involved. Note the "I fear" in the title of this submission.

What's frustrating is that users don't have access to most of the data, making it harder to look for evidence themselves. They have to rely on someone else to do it and then trust what they say. In a low-trust social climate, that's working less and less, which only fuels more imagination.

Eventually, we won't be able to distinguish between real humans and bots online. No CAPTCHA will work, no Turing test, none of that stuff.

Message authentication (e.g. keysigning, or a centralised provider you trust) works for individual identities that you're already aware of, but the general case of trusting comments online?

Even without all of that, you've never had any idea whether the "person" replying to your comment is paid, or has a bias, or whatever else.

If, say, 30% of Hacker News commenters were "fake" in that future scenario, would we know? How would we know? Once we develop a method, can't that be gamed?

Absolutely nothing, unless diverting attention counts. A few product announcements, something something net neutrality, a little more "juice" for every possible news item with an anti-Facebook or anti-Twitter vibe, and voila! Nobody's talking about YouTube any more. They're in the attention business, after all. They know that letting attention dissipate is their best strategy in this case.

In a better world, they'd be using some of those vast resources and ML expertise to detect the kinds of vote/comment clustering that signal both commercial and political manipulation. Others have done it already. The fact that the self-styled "best and the brightest" are way behind on this says that they don't have the interest.

If you want people to endorse the veracity of your scam, you'll have to pay. Want them to endorse the veracity of claim you've just made up about $politicalentity and you won't...

That will have the effect of said news outlets being extremely scrutinized.

At the same time, any platform such as Twitter, IG & FB should be made illegal worldwide. The only content based platforms that are fine would be heavily scrutinized educational platforms where no politics are allowed.

I know it'll likely never happen. But what about 1000 years from now? Maybe so.

There's no other way around it. Information is power, and those systems are ripping apart humanity.

The printing press and propaganda were/are also obviously bad. BUT. If they were made hyper transparent, hyper centralized, and obliged to follow a few rules such as clear labeling, it'd be way better imho.

Said news outlet should be just one. Regulated by some new UN entity.

By a certain measure that may be true, but if you were to actually measure how often people read and post comments, and what percentage of users do, I think you might not reach that conclusion.

There is a social media aspect to YouTube, but I don't think that is its main function for the vast majority of users (who are probably better described as "viewers").

(that said I think the article is good, and YouTube comment quality should be an embarrassment to Google)

Like the marriage in the aforementioned hypothetical, left of center politics is failing worldwide for other reasons, not because of some nefarious social media plot. People are growing fed up with government as an entity, and as a result, they want less government in their lives. Over the past few decades, the practiced manner of a politician became something that was mimicked and parodied worldwide, and popular culture widely regarded the politician as a crook for far too long. Even some of the most charismatic leaders who were beloved worldwide - most recently President Barack Obama, have been wrought with scandals like Snowden's NSA revelations, and the weak and dishonest manner in which the President responded when the activities of the intelligence agencies were exposed. Even during his first term, he made the (perhaps superior) decision to bail out the Wall street banks, and was subsequently betrayed by the various corporations who gave large payouts to top executives. To working class folks, these things are unforgivable especially when they come at the hands of someone you admired, even loved.

The trust in government as an idea is so low that all someone has to do is stand up and say "these crooks and rascals have lied to you all your life. They have practiced and poll-tested speeches but I am honest, raw and I speak from the heart. The fake and dishonest media there will tell you that I am a thug and I have said this and that. I am a thug, but I am your thug, give me a chance to show these crooks how it's done". The public will fall in love, because after what so many parts of the world have witnessed from their governments for so long, this kind of talk is like sweet seduction.

This kind of post "I read YouTube comments written by bots and the world is going to end because my party lost the last election and they may lose the next one" are disappointing. People can vote for political candidates based on any whimsical or nonsensical reason be it race, religion, "he has a kind face" - whatever they want to. Voting is an individual right. Any attempt to influence a voter - whether it's a bot farm or a person writing an article to stop a bot farm, means only one thing: "I want this person to vote the way I vote". Democracy needs a free market of ideas. No number of botnets are going to convince me to vote for someone who espouses nazism, or worse, communism. If someone else is swayed, it is their right to be, that's okay. Great ideas will win in a free market, bots or no bots. All ideas, no matter how objectionable, should be heard.