Welcome to "Full Frontal."
I'm Samantha Bee.
This time last week, I thought the worst thing about YouTube
was Logan Paul.
Oh, he looks like if high school became a man.
But I was wrong.
Turns out, it's YouTube itself.
Last week, "The New York Times" revealed that the platform's
recommendation system pushes viewers with pedophilic tastes
towards videos of children.
For example, "a user who starts with an erotic video on YouTube
might be recommended videos" of progressively younger women
until some viewers are shown "videos
of girls as young as five or six wearing bathing suits."
Fucking horrifying.
I would've tweeted about it, but after reading that article,
I threw all of my family's phones in a river.
Now the ducks are on a group thread,
and Gina's starting drama again.
Experts say that YouTube could fix this creepy problem by just
turning off the recommendation engine for videos
with children in them.
So far, YouTube has refused to do that.
This isn't even the first time this year
that YouTube has been caught catering to pedophiles.
No one else could get away with that.
Even Woody Allen only married one daughter.
YouTube hasn't shown much interest
in changing their algorithm because actually, it's working
exactly as it's designed, according to "New York Times"
tech columnist Kevin Roose.
No.
This is not an accident at all.
The way it works is essentially by sort
of constructing an individual model of you, the user,
and figuring out which videos will get you
to keep watching the longest.
And so in 2017, or around there, they
implemented a new kind of AI called Reinforce that
was even better at steering people
into new interests and new parts of YouTube
that maybe they hadn't been to before.
That's why, if you watch too many of my videos on YouTube,
you'll end up watching Barefoot Contessa,
then it'll recommend "The Property Brothers,"
and then eventually ISIS recruitment videos.
Guys, don't join.
And YouTube's algorithm doesn't just put kids in danger.
Last week, Carlos Maza, a video producer for Vox,
shared that he's experienced prolonged
racist and homophobic abuse from a right-wing YouTuber.
Not only did YouTube's algorithm pave the way
for those abusive videos to become massively popular,
but YouTube allowed him to profit off of them.
Of course, YouTube pushed those videos.
Controversy drives clicks.
Clicks inspire more content creation.
And the more videos you make, the greater your visibility
and monetary reward.
When YouTube was made aware of the harassment against Maza,
they did what they do best, basically nothing.
In a tweet, Carlos--
to Carlos Maza, YouTube says that they
conducted an in-depth review of the videos
that were flagged to them.
They say that what they saw was clearly hurtful,
but the videos do not violate their policies.
Oh, that is a shame.
If only YouTube had a policy against hurtful content,
specifically-- and I mean it would
be crazy if this existed--
a policy against content that makes
hurtful and negative personal comments/videos
about another person.
Oh, that's right, they do.
But instead of enforcing that, they simply
demonetized Maza's harasser's channel,
which forbids the user from getting
a cut of the ad revenue.
They're not kicking him out, they're
just cutting off his allowance.
Oh, talk about LGBTQ allyship.
Yes, YouTube.
Just keep all that homophobia money for yourself.
But there are lots of other racist and homophobic channels
on YouTube, and not all of their victims
have Carlos Maza's platform.
Most of YouTube's fucked up culture war
is taking place on the margins, and it pays to be there.
And in explaining the decisions of who gets to stay
and who gets to go, YouTube also inadvertently
gives instructions for how to work around those rules,
like how they said that using racial, homophobic, or sexist
epithets on their own don't necessarily violate policies,
and they'll only remove videos for which the primary purpose
is hate or harassment.
Super helpful.
It's like if the first rule of Fight Club
was don't talk about Fight Club, but the second rule was,
but here are some ways you can still
legally discuss Fight Club.
YouTube won't proactively address
the problems of their algorithm for one reason--
their business model depends on it.
And as long as they keep making billions of dollars
from gross shit, they have no real incentive to change.
In fact, YouTube's employees raised concerns
about the false, incendiary, and toxic content online,
and even made suggestions about how to curb it,
but they each got the same response-- don't rock the boat.
That's why blaming YouTube's algorithm
alone won't solve things.
The algorithm is only a tool, and as is
the case with all tools--
I briefly dated it in college.
I mean, like all tools, it's the people making it and using it
who are responsible when it harms someone.
The algorithm was designed by people.
Algorithms are racist because people are racist.
Algorithms are greedy because people are greedy.
Algorithms constantly try to sell
me bras with one enormous cup and one tiny cup
because, well, who knows.
Obviously, it's a bug.
We'll be right back.
[MUSIC PLAYING]