| Tragedy, conspiracy and the problem with trending videos |
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| The social media companies got gamed again this week. |
| This time conspiracy theorists used the system to get videos questioning the authenticity of survivors of the Florida high school shooting to the top of trending charts on YouTube and Facebook. |
| This isn't the first time it's happened, nor will it likely be the last. Because the system is ripe for it. |
| In a nutshell, if you are creative, outrageous, different, do wild and crazy and unexpected things (like biting into Tide Pod detergent) or espouse provocative alternative thoughts, you, too, can get to the top of a social media Trending tab, especially on YouTube. |
| The Google-owned network has seen itself a hotbed of controversy for much of 2017 and now 2018, for a variety of reasons. |
| Let's go down a quick list: videos aimed at children that got re-edited with violent and sexual themes. One of its most popular performers posting a video of a dead body and then another of him shocking a rat with a Taser. And waves of conspiracy theory videos that challenged the facts of recent tragedies. Several were YouTube hits. |
| In each instance, YouTube said it would take down videos if they were "flagged" by a viewer. |
| And after a flurry of public outrage — and some advertiser grumbling — YouTube apologized. In the case of conspiracy videos, it said it would change its algorithm to only allow for credible news sources in the trending chart, a useful tool for viewers to find what's new and hot. |
| Yet the system broke down again this week when a video attacking one of the student survivors as a fake, from a YouTube user named "Mike M.," became the No. 1 trending video on YouTube Wednesday. YouTube apologized, again. It was also one of the trending videos on Facebook, which removed it and called it "abhorrent." |
| Analysts have begged for YouTube to bring in human oversight, and while YouTube says it will do just that, where were they this week? |
| Joshua Cohen, the co-founder of Tubefilter, a blog that covers online video, says human intervention goes against the grain of everything that Google stands for. |
| "Google thinks there is a tech solution to these problems," he says. |
| Viewed by over 1.5 billion people monthly, YouTube gets 400 hours of new video submitted every minute, and the Google-owned unit has built a thriving business based on a computer-run operation, with little human intervention. (Google generated over $32 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter, mostly from ad sales that are primarily self-service.) |
| Blogger Rakesh Agrawal says tech firms have a libertarian work ethic to present a platform for many different points and views, and doesn't want to be seen in the position of censoring material. |
| "That's not a good approach anymore," he says. "Trending needs to be reviewed. There's no reason an editorial team can't look at this." |
| So it is just bad people abusing the system, or a YouTube algorithm that is based on getting the most viewers watching at all times? Jamie Cohen, director of the New Media Program at Molloy College in Rockville Centre, NY picks the latter. |
| "Trending is a cycle that feeds on itself," he says."It's using free labor (submitted videos) to create a platform." |
| YouTube is an ad-supported network that depends upon companies like General Motors, Procter & Gamble, McDonald's and others to spend millions of dollars each year, promoting their products. Our view: until advertisers and viewers get serious about stepping back from YouTube, the issues won't go away. |
| In other tech news this week: |
| —AirBNB will add a hotel like loyalty program for its most frequent guests with a membership program that offers as-yet unnamed benefits. Airbnb plans to launch it this summer with a 100,000 guest trial before rolling it out globally before the end of the year. |
| —Verizon Wireless said it would resume electronically locking smartphones, a move that could lead to hiccups for subscribers who need to travel internationally soon after buying a phone. At first Verizon will lock phones — meaning you can't use them on another wireless service — until a customer buys one and activates Verizon service on it. But sometime this spring, the nation's largest wireless carrier will keep phones locked for an unannounced period even after subscribers put them into service. Verizon says a surge in thefts forced it to end its practice of selling phones unlocked, ready for use on any compatible wireless service. |
| —Snap responded to the 1 million angry Snapchatters who complained about the new app revamp. Reality star Kylie Jenner expressed her displeasure as well, and sent the stock tanking, resulting in the loss of nearly $1 billion in market value. "Sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore?" she tweeted. "Or is it just me... ugh this is so sad," |
| —Fox News said it will launch a streaming service with 24-hour right-wing opinion. It looks to launch in the fall. |
| —Meet Erica. On our recent trip to Japan, we met the humanoid Erica, the most realistic and authentic robot we ever saw, and recorded our conversation. You can watch it here. |
| This week's Talking Tech podcasts |
| —A two-parter with photographer/educator Sue Bryce. The art of taking great portraits, and how to make memorable Instagram photos. |
| —Preview: new Samsung Galaxy S phones. We take a look at what's expected from the latest Samsung premium phones, which will be officially unveiled over the weekend. |
| —My rant: YouTube needs to hire humans to fix its woes now. |
| —How to record, host and distribute your podcast for free with Anchor. The app updates with free tools that compare to spending $100 to $1,000 yearly in hosting feeds. |
| —The new buzzword: Hey. As in "Hey Siri," and "Hey Google." What's with the Hey word anyway? |
| That's it for this week's Talking Tech weekend wrap. Please subscribe to the TalkingTech newsletter via this link. (And enjoy our weekly dose of Timelapse sunset zen.) Follow me on Twitter, @JeffersonGraham. And if you haven't checked out the daily #TalkingTech podcast yet, now's the time. You can listen on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to online audio. |
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