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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

May I make a simpler suggestion:

- a list of clear rules

- takedowns must provide a reference of which video caused the takedown, roughly where in the video it was, and which rule it was violating

Someone may reply that this is feeding information on the rule boundaries to spammers, at which point I make a second suggestion which could apply to more services:

- a "this platform is valuable to me" deposit, of say $10, which guarantees human review of administrative decisions.

It's people's livelihood. You can't just vaporise it. Well, you can, but eventually the angry mob you create will get large enough and come for your statue.

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Simply requiring a small fee for review is a great suggestion!

It would be difficult to structure this but simply allowing a video creator (or any fan of the channel!) to pay a Youtube analyst or a third-party auditor at cost ($10 seems reasonable for 15 minutes of even a decently-payed, English-speaking Western employee's time) to review the channel/video for 15 minutes for actual violations would be a huge boon to real content creators.

This would also allow Google to identify what takedown requests are blackmail botnets and block them from doing further harm.

If anyone at Google is reading this please consider it! So many viewers would be willing to pay that this need not even impact creators.

(Obviously this would have to be kept from getting out of hand and turning into Google racketeering with multiple takedowns of the same channel, but I trust them not to do that)

Asking people to pay for a human reviewer is a recipe for bad PR. Inevitably, some content creator is going to pay $10 and disagree with a ruling even if it's justified. They'll then complain that it's all a scam. To be fair, there wouldn't be a way to prove that it's not a scam. Also, humans are inevitably wrong decisions, especially when it comes to videos that are borderline.

> Asking people to pay for a human reviewer is a recipe for bad PR. Inevitably, some content creator is going to pay $10 and disagree with a ruling even if it's justified.

I don't really see how this is any different now. Google is already generating bad PR by not having an appeal process for these issues and plenty of people are already complaining that it's all a scam.

If a nominal fee gets you a written report that details exactly how you offended YT's policies and creates a possible scenario which you're given the opportunity to course-correct perhaps, then it's a win. What you're arguing would happen is already happening.

> I don't really see how this is any different now.

Right now, blocking a video will lead to Google being unable to earn money from it. Their incentives are aligned with those of the video creator.

> What you're arguing would happen is already happening

No, right now you are not pressured into giving Google money to review their automated decisions. With the suggested system implemented, you might fork over $10 individually for each of your 452 videos and get humans picking mostly the same useless text block in response, not really helping you to understand their decision. You will feel kind of like now, except you notice that YT actually made more money by banning your videos and start to wonder if that is by design...

Courts are great, but have to be independent. Even arbitration can be skewed in favor of bigger companies, since getting their recurring business is in the arbitrators interest.

I'd still be in favor of setting up something like that for lower level decisions, but understand this can only happen if Google finds a way to stay out of the line of fire. And still keeps a way for them to overrule those third party decisions...

> "Right now, blocking a video will lead to Google being unable to earn money from it. Their incentives are aligned with those of the video creator."

I would say that's only true if the volume of video content was a bottleneck for their advertisers. They have more than enough content.

There's the problem that money is an incentive. So if you pay to review takedowns, it is an incentive for Google to do EVEN MORE takedowns, because then they would earn more money.

Another suggestion is to simply hold a small amount of ad revenue for review for larger channels.

The given channel was estimated to make $4 per video. Just holding a small amount of revenue for review would pay for the human time.

Losing $10 is vastly better for the monetized creator than losing the channel completely.

Fee can be refundable if review is not malicious. Win-win.

The bot that issued the takedown should be charged the $10 fee for every decision that is reversed. Today there is basically no consequence for automated false takedown notices if you are a big media cartel, so they don't care. They tune their systems to minimize false negatives at the cost of many false positives because nobody is stopping them.

Of course there are "no consequences" to YouTube for an incorrect anything. They are a private company. Why would they punish themselves?

This isn't about consequences to YouTube. It's about consequences to copyright holders for frivolous takedowns.

When you issue a DMCA notice, you're certifying that the content is yours, under (theoretical) penalty of perjury. But big content studios erroneously issue them using automated systems all the time, and the only way to actually enforce this is for you, the individual getting targeted by one, to personally take legal action against a multinational corporation.

Meaning that, for all practical purposes, the people this affects have zero recourse.

That is wrong.

Nearly 100% of people who receive a DMCA notice of alleged infringement (read: 'copyright strike') from YouTube have the option of filing a counter-notification.

In nearly all cases, YouTube responds to valid counter-notifications by informing the party that initiated the takedown. Counter-notification starts the clock on a 10-day window, within which the party alleging infringement must - if they want to keep the video down - sue you in federal court and prove to YouTube that they they have filed suit against you. Otherwise the video goes back up.

That procedure is almost always available. The downside, of course, is that you might get sued for an enormous amount of money that you may be held liable for. Statutory damages are scary. (But thy are a consequence of infringement, not notice-and-takedown.)

This is why automated content takedown doesn't use the DMCA. It's a system designed by the content cartels.

I’d argue that bot should be charged multiple orders if magnitude more than $10.

The only way to modify that behavior is to make it hurt.

Something I didn't make clear in the original proposal was that the "please treat me with respect" fee would have to be paid before any dispute.

Or the far more radical point of view that people who are economically dependent on Google are employees .. although that is probably impossible to define and unworkable.

Why not ask the reporter for the fee?

These are really basic, reasonable suggestions. It's baffling Google/YouTube doesn't at least afford such basic dignities to its most important population: original content creators.

The answer is pretty obvious, the current system is what Google wants. It’s perfect in their eyes.

The videos are removed because somebody reports them. The "reporters" should also have "a skin in the game" e.g. their "karma" should suffer (i.e. the "amount of belief in their claim") every time they report and the claim is rejected. The initial "karma of the reporter" (for new accounts reporting) should also be low.

On the other side, the content producer's "defending" karma should also increase each time the claim is rejected.

And then, the "content police" should somehow need more "work" to ban or remove something the weaker the claim is or the defendant is "stronger."

I am aware that the "platforms", however, simply don't care much now, simply prioritizing the "reaction."

I love this idea, albeit there are definitely ways to game the system. As a content producer, I would probably pay to have a bunch of fake-users report my channel just so that I could gain "karma" to defend against actual future attacks. Still, I suppose it would probably be an improvement upon the current situation, where there is absolutely no recourse other than posting on various social media channels and hoping your complaint gains enough attention.

Sometimes simple suggestions are complex to implement or have wide reaching implications.

For example, it is very hard to come up with a sort list of clear content rules. There are all sorts of ambiguities. For example, when is nudity ok? What about violence? Every line you draw in the sand will have false positives and false negatives. See any number of stories about Facebook moderators who despite having lots of content rules, will make subjective and contradictory judgement calls.

Furthermore, with a concrete list of rules, bad actors will act just to the left of rules violations. Clearly, having some feedback is required. In this case, however, we don't know what Jordan Pier knew, since this was initially a reaction to the channel's deletion without consulting with Jordan about what happened.

Finally, having a support deposit--no matter how small--will disadvantage many creators and increase the divide between haves and have-nots. I admit that it's frustrating that you literally can't purchase a human's attention, but every policy decision like this has profound ramifications when you have billions of users.

> it is very hard to come up with a sort list of clear content rules. There are all sorts of ambiguities. For example, when is nudity OK? What about violence? Every line you draw in the sand will have false positives and false negatives

These aren't new questions, organizations like the BBFC and MPAA have been wrestling with them for years. And Google will have been wrestling with them internally .. in total secrecy. Yes, there are always going to be edge cases and people intentionally working up to the edge.

> having a support deposit--no matter how small--will disadvantage many creators and increase the divide between haves and have-nots.

I get that, but at the moment everyone's disadvantaged, and the larger creators potentially for tens of thousands of dollars.

The BBFA and MPAA, if I understand correctly, watch every second of content they rate. They have a back-and-forth with creators when there are disputes. They can afford to communicate, well, this is one f-bomb too many and usless you remove it, it's an "R" rating.

Secondly, they work with (largely) mainstream content producers (e.g. movie studios), who rarely act with downright malicious intent because of reputation and money on the line.

I don't believe content moderation is a problem solved well anywhere.

And this costs over $300 an hour. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/...

How come you don't moderate Google's search results and remove homophobia/violence/rape content from them? You already have a platform where you don't care at all about the content you host and present the user with. Your company chose to enter into the content moderation business on YT solely to make it more ad friendly and make more money, its should not be the creators responsibility to suggest changes to your moderation that can "scale" (i.e. make you more money).

If bad actors act just left of the rules violations, change the rule. Google is a private company, not a government. They can change their content policy 20 times before lunch if they wanted. Making things vague hurts legitimate channels more than anything.

If Youtube has the power to change rules whenever they found something new that is inappropriate, they would no longer be simple and clear. Also, they would also have to apply that rule retroactively to innocent videos that also happen to break the rule.

No there should be a deposit for flagging content, refundable one, if content is not in violation fee is kept for work done, if content is malicious. Content is taken down - fee refunded.

There are no ambiguities. Daddy Google doesn't want to look like a movie review board, with all its reactionary decisions, but they want to act like one.

It is ambiguous, because they are dealing with advertisers that don't want their ads around specific contexts. Which are very multivariate and ever changing.

Youtube tried having a list of clear rules. The problem is it doesn't work. People will always find a way to find a way find a grey area. Youtube doesn't want to be in the position where they have to explain why a video of little girl roleplaying a cop is inappropriate, but a regular video of a kid playing is fine. People would complain that it's actually Youtube that is sexualizing children.

When? Explain? I don't remember them trying a clear list of rules..

> come for your statue.

Joke's on them: Google Maps will just give the angry mob directions to the Amazon HQ instead.

That is why you use apple maps ;)

Google will never post a list of clear rules. It would restrict their ability to take down content that goes against their political ideology. Facebook and Twitter are the same in this respect.

Make heavy financial penalties for false takedowns.

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