Blog post 7: The Youtube Algorithm

The future of moderation using Deep Neural Networks

By Yves Wienecke
February 16, 2019

Do you remember the first video that you saw on Youtube? I certainly do. Back when I was a young boy and lived in the ever-warm state of Hawaii, I was browing through some homepages on the website “Neopets”. It was here that I stumbled upon an embedded youtube video of pokemon dancing to an at the time popular slice of life anime, “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.”

[11] Animation of the pokemon Pikachu, Plusle, and Minun performing to an anime opening song.

Youtube is a social media video sharing platform that popularised vlogging as well as viral videos. Having been launched in early 2005, the website has seen a fair amount of changes in the past 14 years [4]. One of the largest changes to the website is the size of its user base. Youtube is an extremely successful, active site with over a billion users [15]. However, this prestige does not come without challenges: in just one day, about 65 years worth of videos are uploaded - that’s 576k hours [1]!

With so much incoming content, it’s impossible to ensure that each and every video follows the community guidelines and policy. The logical next step to solving this problem is to look towards technology: instead of limiting the amount of incoming videos or trusting the community alone to report videos that break the community’s guidelines, Youtube employs an algorithm that serves multiple purposes: detect videos that conflict the guidelines, detect and manage cases of copyright infringement, decide which videos are advertiser friendly, and reccomend videos for users to watch.

The Algorithm

Youtube tries to be as transparent as possible when it comes to how its algorithms are implemented. In 2016, Youtube even released a research paper on how the Youtube algorithm uses deep neural networks to decide which videos to reccommend [3]. There are even courses created by Youtube and support pages detailing exactly how their system works [16, 17]. Here is a table by Youtube that nicely encompass exactly what each policy entails:

I’m interested in…	I should check out …
Using a YouTube product or service	YouTube’s Terms of Service
Uploading content or commenting on a video	YouTube’s Community Guidelines
Understanding copyright ownership	YouTube’s Copyright website
Making videos visible to all ages	YouTube’s age-restricted content guidelines
Earning money on YouTube YouTube’s Partner Program policies
Creating content suitable for ads	YouTube’s advertiser-friendly content guidelines

[16] Summary of Youtube guidelines and policies.

The goal of these guidelines, courses, and support pages is to empower creators and improve the overall quality of the content that appears on the site. Nevertheless, theory rarely perfectly works out in practice. Rather than empowering creators, many feel that Youtube’s algorithm is stifling, unfair, and most of all just plain terrible.

Part of this negative sentiment comes from a prevalent feeling of uncertainly when unloading content. Regardless of how transparent Youtube may be of their guidelines and policies, content creators have found and experienced consequences that contradict these guidelines. Additionally, there are many grey areas that significantly complicate how an algorithm views a video.

Youtube Terms of Service

In Youtube’s terms of service, point E of guideline 4 prohibits commercial usage of a video that is not original. This does not define what ‘original’ means – what of the react channels that ‘remix’ a video by basically reuploading a video and recording their reaction to the video for a profit? How about the numerous Russian youtube channels that upload dubbed-over versions of videos and still gain ad revenue?

[12] Youtuber I Hate Everything explains the difference between transformative videos and basically stolen videos.

Youtube Community Guidelines

In the community guidelines, Youtube explains that users can flag content that appears to break policy or guidelines. Accoring to them, each flagged video is judged on a case by case basis. This doesn’t stop users from flagging videos that do not deserve being flagged. Additionally, there are many videos that clearly infringe Youtube’s policies and law, yet they remain for a long period of time before any action from the side of Youtube takes place. For example, some videos that exploit children or have pornography can last over two years before any action is done.

Youtube Copyright website

Copyright is a very important legal concern in checking videos. This is for DMCA compliance. If the Youtube algorithm identifies a video as breaking copyright rules, then all of the profit from that video may go to the party that claims copyright and in some cases, videos are taken down entirely. Once again, there are many instances where this algorithm makes a mistake, for example musicians and producers getting having their video content claimed by themselves [6].

Tweet from content creator Dan Bull about his own content being copyright claimed by himself
[6] The Youtube algorithm decided that Dan Bull’s content infringes upon copyright guidelines, and has the video claimed by the content owner, who happens to be Dan Bull himself.

Youtube Age-restricted Content Guidelines

Another important legal regulation involves age restriction. If a video has material that is inappropriate for children, such as videos that have “vulgar language, violence and disturbing imagery, nudity and sexually suggestive content, and a portrayal of harmful or dangerous activities” [18], then it can be age-restricted. Age-restricted videos are not viewable to people under 18 years of age and viewers who are logged out [18].

Age-restricting content made Youtube a lot safer for children to view, and crippled some channels that depended on cruel public pranks, violence, and softcore porn for survival. Nevertheless, there exist collections of easily accessible content that are not age restricted.

Youtuber MattsWhatItIs exposes how simple it is for a completely new Youtube user to get from the homepage to sexually explotative videos of children after just searching ‘bikini haul’ and two clicks. These videos are reuploaded by channels dedicated to collecting this content, filled with comments of emails where viewers share child pornography, and timestamps to certain spots in the video that feature the child in a sexual manner, accompanied with comments of a sexual nature [13]. These videos have existed for over two years and continue to thrive with ads that generate income, until backlash from the Youtube community and advertisers pushed this issue to the forefront of Youtube’s concerns.

[13] MattsWhatItIs commenting on Youtube’s lack of activity in addressing videos featuring child exploitation.

Another sketchy trend of child exploitation was seen earlier in 2017. From the years 2014 to 2017, strange animations and videos of popular disney and marvel characters started to appear throught Youtube with a large amount of views. In these videos, the characters engage in some kind of either violent, sexual, disturbing, or just otherwise innappropriate activity. Unfortunately, a large percent of views that these videos accumulates came from the sister app Youtube Kids, whose goal is to “make it safer and simpler for kids to explore the world through online video” [19].

This phenomena is named Elsagate, and there is a whole subreddit dedicated to understanding the intricacies around the youtube genre [5]. Interestingly enough, after Youtube’s regulations on prank channels, some prank youtubers turned to creating Elsagate content in search of alternative means for generating profit [8].

[8] Ethan Kleine of h3h3Productions takes a look at some Elsagate channels.

Youtube Partner Program policies

To speed the process of video validation for certain well-known and trusted content creators, Youtube has a special program that is a part of the Youtube Partner Program: the Google Ad Program. Youtube chooses specific creators to be a part of the program, and participants enjoy benefits such as being considered the top 5% of content, getting preference for adverstisement, and being spread around youtube reccomendations, searches, and the trending list. Unfortunately, this system seems to have done a lot of harm for the platform after events in 2018 regarding an infamous participant of the program.

On New Year’s Eve in 2017, Logan Paul and his filming crew shot a video wherein the team explores Mount Fuji in Japan. This mountain is well known in Japan as a spot for committing suicide. It even gained the name ‘suicide mountain.’ It is not suprising, then, that Logan Paul stumbled upon a hanging carcass while exploring this area for … a dead body :/. What is surprising is how Logan Paul mistreats and disrespects this body by filming it, joking around, and even featuring it in the thumbnail of his video [7].

This is just one of many controversies that Logan Paul is responsible for, but the key factor which enraged Youtube users is Youtube’s response. Even though the video thumbnail included an actual dead body, Youtube’s algorithm didn’t find a problem at all and even promoted the video to the site’s trending page. Additionally, Jake’s television series with Youtube was only temporarily cancelled after backlash from the community, but still aired whereas popular content creator PewDiePie’s red series was cancelled altogether for making nazi jokes.

This of course happens at a time when many other popular content creators discuss their suspicions over Youtube’s algorithm due to issues with monetization, new videos not being displayed on subscribers’ home page, and extremely popular videos not appearing on the trending page. To many Youtube creators and viewers, this response is evidence that Youtube does not care about its audience.

Advertiser-friendly content guidelines

Advertising is obviously of upmost importance for Google. As more and more users prefer online streaming services to traditional forms of media content, advertisement shifts its focus from the television to the computer. Youtube and content creators get a majority of their revenue from advertisers, but this comes at a cost of restricting content to be advertiser friendly.

There have been a number of incidences where advertisers pulled from serving ads on the platform due to their ads being played on controversial videos. After ads were served on extremist videos, companies like GSK, Pepsi, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, and Enterprised pulled their ads [14]. Many news channels are deemed to not be advertiser-friendly, which lead creators looking to sponsorships for revenue.

However, it is also important that content creators do not have ads served on their videos if the ad goes against the beliefs and values of the content creator. A clear cut example of this occured earlier last year after anti-LGBT ads were served on videos uploaded by LGBT creators [10]. To rub salt in the wound, Youtube’s algorithm equated any LGBT content with content that was not advertiser friendly, which severly cut ad revenue to LGBT creators [2].

[9] Hank Green discussing some of the problems with Youtube’s advertiser-friendly algorithm.

My Commentary on Youtube’s Algorithm

Youtube can not survive without some way of moderating the content that it serves. I think that technology is a fantastic way of addressing the issue of moderating a whole ocean of videos, but the current algorithm, as with other implementations of deep learning, is prone to making mistakes and biases based on the biases of the people who create the algorithm. In this case, the preference lies in where the money is - advertisers. Youtube preferes to make money and is slow to respond to its userbase unless advertisers and money is involved.

The Google Ad Program reveals a clear preference for certain content creators over others, and it certainly seems to prioritize the wrong sort of content producers while ignoring actually popular and quality creators. The rift between Youtube and its userbase is especially felt in the disconnect seen in the 2018 Rewind, which has 15 MILLION dislikes as opposed to 2.5 likes [20]. This video featured “prominent youtubers” like Will Smith (?!?!?!).

In a world currently dominated by corporations and controlled by the politics of businessmen, money takes the prize. It’s not surprising at all that Youtube’s algorithm then looks to main a coin whereever possible, I think that there is a significant number of cases where the algorithm hinders rather than helps Youtube. To combat this, I think that Youtube needs to do a better job at listening to the people who actually use their site and be more connected to their concerns.

As Hank Green suggests, content creators should be able to choose which kinds of ads they would like to appear on their videos if advertisers are able to choose which kinds of channels they want their ads be associated with [9]. If a large amount of Youtubers are concerned about an issue, Youtube should seek to promote direct contact with prominent content creators, not just present general blanket states about how they are looking to “resolve the issue.”

Conclusions

I do not doubt that Youtube is constantly working on and improving their algorithm. A lot of problematic content has been filtered from the site, but there is still a lot of work to be done before the system works for Youtube, advertisers, and content creators alike. This is a grey area that is hard to navigate, but also of utmost importance for the longterm survival of the website.`

Youtube states that it wants content creators to ignore the algorithm and be themself. In a perfect scenario, the algorithm should just work without bias, without controversy. However there are many clear cut examples of the algorithm simply not doing its job, as well as millions of other grey areas that need to be worked out.

I feel that there should be more done on Youtube’s side for promoting and reccommending content that the community reccomends, rather than only content that can generate the most ad revenue. Perhaps Youtube can provide precise feedback to content creators by specifying exactly for which reasons a video was identified as not being advertiser friendly.

While an algorithm can streamline and improve the accuracy of moderation, companies must be very careful as to not develop a feeling of mistrust and inhumanity between the company and its userbase. Algorithms make make imporant snap judgements in mere seconds, but these judgements impact real people’s lives. Therefore, companies should be careful as to not misrepresent how much care and devotion they put into their own software and into their relationships with their audience.

Sources

[1] Barker, Bryen. “How many videos are uploaded on YouTube every day?” Quora, 26 Sep. 2018, https://www.quora.com/How-many-videos-are-uploaded-on-YouTube-every-day.

[2] CaliforniaLuv84. “Why Is YouTube Demonetizing LGBT Videos? (WITH PROOF).” Youtube, 6 Nov. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpjnXAyJM2w.

[3] Covington, Paul, Jay Adams, Emre Sargin. “Deep Neural Networks for YouTube Recommendations.” Proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, ACM, New York, NY, 29 Sept. 2016, https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-data/pdf/45530.pdf.

[4] Domain Tools. “Whois Record for YouTube.com.” Domain Tools, 23 Feb. 2019, http://whois.domaintools.com/youtube.com.

[5] Elsagate. “ElsaGate.” Reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/ElsaGate/.

[6] Ernesto. “YouTube’s Copyright Protection System is a Total Mess, Can it Be Fixed?” Torrent Freak, 22 Dec. 2018, https://torrentfreak.com/youtubes-copyright-protection-system-is-a-total-mess-can-it-be-fixed-181222/.

[7] h3h3Productions. “The Logan Paul Odyssey.” Youtube, 16 Jan. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3Dlpky9ey8.

[8] h3h3Productions. “Toy Channels are Ruining Society.” Youtube, 25 Jan. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBWf6Zvn0jQ.

[9] hankschannel. “Worse than Demonetization: Anti-Gay Ads on LGBTQ+ Videos.” Youtube, 1 Jun. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC3OOXD_2MA.

[10] Hills, Megan C. “YouTube Is Running ‘Anti-LGBT’ Ads Alongside Videos By LGBT Creators.” Forbes, 4 Jun. 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/meganhills1/2018/06/04/youtube-anti-lgbt-ads/#4e09a9134f73.

[11] Ichiinyan. “Pikachu,Plusle and Minun - Hare Hare Yukai.” Youtube, 20 Sep. 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNQQfcLXHU4.

[12] I Hate Everything. “I HATE REACTION VIDEOS.” Youtube, 2 Oct. 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE2tbCfvn4k.

[13] MattsWhatItIs. “Youtube is Facilitating the Sexual Exploitation of Children, and it’s Being Monetized (2019).” Youtube, 17 Feb. 22019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O13G5A5w5P0.</br>

[14] Solon, Olivia. “Google’s bad week: YouTube loses millions as advertising row reaches US.” The Guardian, 25 Mar. 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/25/google-youtube-advertising-extremist-content-att-verizon.

[15] Youtube. “Press.” Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/press/.

[16] Youtube. “Lesson: An introduction to YouTube policies and guidelines.” Youtube, https://creatoracademy.youtube.com/page/lesson/copyright-guidelines#strategies-zippy-link-5.

[17] Youtube. “Advertiser-friendly content guidelines.” Youtube, https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6162278.

[18] Youtube. “Age-restricted content.” Youtube, https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802167?hl=en.

[19] Youtube. “Youtube Kids.” Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/yt/kids/.

[20] YouTube Spotlight. “YouTube Rewind 2018: Everyone Controls Rewind | #YouTubeRewind.” Youtube, 6 Dec. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJOTdZBX1g.
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