New Scientist Australian Edition – 24 August 2019

24 | New Scientist | 24 August 2019

A

FEW years ago, the biggest

complaint about YouTube

was that if you left it

running, you would eventually

find yourself watching Psy’s

Gangnam Style music video for

the 40,000th time. How I long

for the days when all we had to

worry about was too much bouncy

K-pop. Now, YouTube’s algorithm

leads us in the opposite direction,

autoplaying ever more marginal

videos rather than more popular

ones. As a result, according to a

two-year investigation by the

New York Times, YouTube has been

one of the major forces pulling

fringe politics and conspiracy

theories into the mainstream.

To make matters worse,

allegations that children were

forced to perform for camera has

led to the closure of at least two

popular YouTube channels in the

US. And this is on top of recent

accusations from YouTube

employees, denied by the

company, that it won’t enforce

its content rules for prominent

YouTubers, allowing some

channels to get out of control.

Put simply, YouTube is a

garbage fire and it is high time

to throw the whole thing away.

Let me make one thing clear.

I love DIY video. Nothing is more

delightful than watching people

yell about anime, explain the

origins of the universe, melt

giant cubes of cheddar with red

hot nickel balls (look it up) and

dance to, well, anything.

The problem is that YouTube,

which is owned by Google, is

doing more than allowing people

to share fun stuff. It is working

hard to sculpt its users into the

ideal audience for video adverts.

And the ideal audience is one that

can’t look away. Ever.

This is where the algorithm that

chooses your next video comes in.

Sometime in 2016, someone

seems to have realised that the

average human would spend more

time on YouTube if the platform

could recreate the psychological

experience of seeing a horrific

auto accident. When the video

you want to watch is over,

YouTube will autoplay another

that is the same, just more so.

And so on, until you are watching

somebody in a hockey mask

explaining how aliens are

controlling the cheese economy,

and Brexit is the only defence.

Meanwhile, the quest to make

money encourages YouTubers

themselves to become more

extreme to garner more views.

One popular YouTuber, Logan

Paul, filmed himself making jokes

next to the body of a man who

had hanged himself in a forest.

A recent Washington Post

investigation reported that

YouTube moderators allege they

are given one set of rules for top-

grossing YouTubers, and another

for smaller ones. It cited cases

such as that of popular YouTuber

Steven Crowder who was allowed

to remain on the platform after

what seemed to be clear violations

of its terms of service by posting

homophobic and racist abuse

about journalist Carlos Maza.

Maza received death threats from

followers of Crowder. YouTube

denies applying double standards,

but as a private company it isn’t

regulated by US free speech laws,

so there is no legal obligation for

it to allow Crowder to remain.

So how do we clean up this

mess? I have some modest

proposals. One is that we shut

down YouTube altogether. Some

US lawyers have argued that

YouTube is violating child labour

laws by making money on

YouTube channels featuring

children. These laws exist to

prevent backstage parents and

producers from abusing kids,

which is exactly what is alleged

to have happened in some cases.

Making YouTube liable for

violating these laws and others

would probably bring the

company to a standstill.

A more interesting possibility

would be to split YouTube into two

companies: a video-sharing site

for people who have no more than

a few thousand followers and a

professional video production

company that must abide by

child labour laws and follow the

Hollywood studio model, with

unionised actors and writers.

The video-sharing site wouldn’t

allow advertising and would cap

audiences at, say, 10,000 followers.

YouTubers who amassed a bigger

following could apply to work at

the YouTube Studio, and follow

labour laws accordingly.

And finally, what if we turned

YouTube into true public

broadcasting? Chop it up, hand

it over to PBS, the BBC, the CBC

or any number of other public

broadcasting corporations, and let

governments regulate the content

in their countries. The private

sector has failed, and it is time to

try a new model for video sharing.

When YouTube as we know it

goes away, I guarantee you won’t

miss it. And maybe we will get

RE something better. ❚

UT

ER

S/D

AD

O^ R

UV

IC

This column appears

monthly. Up next week:

James Wong

“ Put simply, YouTube

is a garbage fire and

it is high time to

throw the whole

thing away”

Let’s shut down YouTube Some modest proposals for making

the internet a better place, courtesy of Annalee Newitz

This changes everything

What I’m reading

Tropical Forests in

Prehistory, History, and

Modernity by Patrick

Roberts, about how

human civilisation began

in the tropics.

What I’m watching

John Wick 3: Parabellum,

an inexplicably wonderful

Keanu Reeves movie.

What I’m working on

A short story about how

hacker drama causes the

robot uprising.

Annalee’s week

Annalee Newitz is a science

journalist and author. Her

novel Autonomous won

the Lambda Literary Award

and she is the co-host of the

Hugo-nominated podcast

Our Opinions Are Correct.

You can follow her

@annaleen and her website

is techsploitation.com

Views Columnist