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Is political pressure behind YouTube's video labeling?

http://www.rt.com/usa/417950-youtube-labeling-guardian-warner/

Publisher:  RT
Date Written:  06/02/2018
Year Published:  2018  
Resource Type:  Article

YouTube has started labeling videos by government-funded media after their recommendation program was the subject of a Guardian investigation and a letter from the Senate Intelligence Committee's ranking Democrat.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) slammed the video service for "optimizing for outrageous, salacious and often fraudulent content" and encouraging "manipulation by bad actors, including foreign intelligence entities," after the UK-based Guardian published a story about YouTube's recommendation algorithm.

The February 2 article argued that YouTube's algorithms 'distort truth' by providing users with personalized video recommendations based on their viewing history. That code determines which videos are promoted in the 'Up next' box.

YouTube/Google is now apparently labeling all state-funded media as such. Interesting move in response to pressure from the US government to crackdown specifically on Russian media. pic.twitter.com/S8I24XRRGB
— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) February 3, 2018

"Companies like YouTube have immense power and influence in shaping the media and content that users see," Warner told the publication. "I've been increasingly concerned that the recommendation engine algorithms behind platforms like YouTube are, at best, intrinsically flawed in optimizing for outrageous, salacious and often fraudulent content."

The newspaper argued that this amounted to a digital threat to representative democracy. Its investigation however was largely based on the research by former Google and Microsoft employee Guillaume Chaslot.

“On the eve of the US Presidential Election… more than 80% of recommended videos were favorable to Trump, whether the initial query was ‘Trump’ or ‘Clinton’,” Chaslot wrote.
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