eevBLAB 117 - The Youtube Porn Bot Comment Problem

[EEVblog]

The huge Youtube porn bot comment spam problem has to end.

[SiliconWizard]

The platform is prompt to censor anything within a few seconds, but not that. Put a word that they don't like, put a legit link to prove a point, whatever, goneski.

There's otherwise also the infamous comments from accounts trying to impersonate the channel owner and offering to talk on Telegram or whatever.
As if it was hard to spot automatically. But no, it keeps going on. It's probably because it eludes the oh-so-powerful YT AI algorithms. Or maybe they just don't mind. Who knows.

[EEVblog]

The platform is prompt to censor anything within a few seconds, but not that. Put a word that they don't like, put a legit link to prove a point, whatever, goneski.

Ironically, yep, video age restricted and demonetised within minutes. Porn comment spam problem has been going for over 2 years now 

[Whales]

I was wondering if they have a feedback loop to work out what channels to spam more on, but I guess they can't tell what channel you came from if people have to go to their profile summary page first before clicking their link.

[Whales]

Meanwhile something worth having installed as an alternative to look at: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reddit-comments-for-youtube/

It adds them above the youtube comments, so you still have both to look at.  It also supports Lemmy (but I have not seen any yet).

[AndyBeez]

WTF? Google is asking me to verify my age by tapping on a Dave YT video? Not that I did not already catch the content before the censors moved in. I would love to see the infrastructure/AI bot behind that selfie verification. Might make an interesting Mister Beast type video, see how many teens and minors can defeat 'the algo'?

Big tech will always go above and beyond to pharm our metadata and sell it to the NSA because we might all be terrorists protect children from all harms, unless they are Palestinian children of course, but they don't have the internet, parents, limbs or skin anymore.

[ksio89]

Completely lost it at the "Double Bangers" banner lol. And the woman at 1:26, damn!

Seriously now: as expected YouTube was more than eager to demonetize the video, and I wouldn't be surprised if its get deleted. I feel like these pr0n bots are getting more common than the ones who impersonate channel owners and promote gift/reward scams. They are more present in tech channels such as Gamers Nexus, I remember his channel was infested with these bots till a couple of months ago, to the point that every single comment had a reply from a bot.

Can YouTube actually do anything to ban these bots, like a script to detect image profiles or typical copy and pasted comments? If they can, does it mean they simply don't a financial incentive to do so? I wonder if these bots generate enough engagement, views, and thus money from advertisement that Google wouldn't bat an eye.

[Whales]

Andybeez: Use anything but the official Youtube interface and you'll bypass the excuses for collecting your personal information.

https://piped.video/watch?v=AuFSMpFzAnw

[Whales]

As a thought experiment: Is there a way of trying to make this far, far worse?  Eg pin all of those comments?

(1) Would it affect your revenue (I presume advertisers don't care about comments?  Do they even look?)
(2) Would that force Youtube to act, or would they still sleep at the wheel?

[SiliconWizard]

As expected, they have absolutely ironically flagged the video as adult content, and demonetized it (if I got it right), but they are unable to auto-delete the porn comments? Yeah, sure.

[tszaboo]

The platform is prompt to censor anything within a few seconds, but not that. Put a word that they don't like, put a legit link to prove a point, whatever, goneski.

There's otherwise also the infamous comments from accounts trying to impersonate the channel owner and offering to talk on Telegram or whatever.
As if it was hard to spot automatically. But no, it keeps going on. It's probably because it eludes the oh-so-powerful YT AI algorithms. Or maybe they just don't mind. Who knows.

It's even worse.If you forget to place a space after your dots, youtube will think it's an URL in the comment and make it disappear.Several people complained about this. Meanwhile someone names "Write me on whatsapp 1234" stealing the video uploader's photo can spam a reply to every comment for every one of your videos and their response: This is a legitime person leaving comments.

[metrologist]

The platform is prompt to censor anything within a few seconds, but not that. Put a word that they don't like, put a legit link to prove a point, whatever, goneski.

Ironically, yep, video age restricted and demonetised within minutes. Porn comment spam problem has been going for over 2 years now 

Damn! I came here to ask why is that video age restricted.

[Bud]

Youtube will destroy itself with this kind of stuff.

[SiliconWizard]

Well, YT is like those banks, "too big to fail". Or so they say.

[magic]

Sex work is work and they have to advertise somehow.

What really gets me is that these are half-nude females being spammed to channels about stereotypically male topics.
Why is Google doing nothing about this blatant sexism and homophobia?

(Tip: start reporting them for hate speech, maybe then somebody will care )

[abeyer]

Why is Google doing nothing about this blatant sexism and homophobia?

Everyone act now! Write google and demand more gay porn spam!

[wilfred]

I've never before seen these types of comments. I wonder how they decide which channels to insert them into. I don't spend a lot of time in youtube comments but I just checked Big Clive latest and didn't see any. So not 1M subscribers.

[tszaboo]

Youtube will destroy itself with this kind of stuff.

99.9% of people don't leave comments, and probably 99.5% don't read them.

[EEVblog]

99.9% of people don't leave comments, and probably 99.5% don't read them.

Correct.

[Bud]

Then the whole "community engagement" metric is a moot point.

[EEVblog]

Then the whole "community engagement" metric is a moot point.

Not at all. It really helps with the algorithm. But it's just a fact that very small percentage of people actually engage with videos.
A 10% view/thumbs ratio for example is considered exceptional for popular channels.

[.RC.]

It is strange how youtube has made that NSFW, but youtube is chock full of videos with those sorts of female tits and arses semi hanging out for all to see. 

As I often see the front page of youtube with no cookies and a clean cache, the videos they have on the front page there are often one of two of those videos like, girl living alone in forest, and the thumbnail is a woman with her tits half out chopping some wood.  Or there was one up for weeks a women holding some garment with the title "this seems so wrong".  No idea what the video was about as I never watched it. 

Yet youtube blocks Dave's video because he shows a picture of an arse.   I suppose look on the bright side.   It was not his.   

It is clear to me youtube is a highly corrupted organisation.   Videos of tween girls gyrating in swimsuits is fine and dandy.   Someone shooting a firearm must be blocked.

[EEVblog]

It is strange how youtube has made that NSFW, but youtube is chock full of videos with those sorts of female tits and arses semi hanging out for all to see. 

As I often see the front page of youtube with no cookies and a clean cache, the videos they have on the front page there are often one of two of those videos like, girl living alone in forest, and the thumbnail is a woman with her tits half out chopping some wood.  Or there was one up for weeks a women holding some garment with the title "this seems so wrong".  No idea what the video was about as I never watched it. 

Yep, those style of videos show full nudity, but because it's "artistic" I guess they get a pass. Naked news, naked cooking, naked gardening etc.

It is clear to me youtube is a highly corrupted organisation.   Videos of tween girls gyrating in swimsuits is fine and dandy.   Someone shooting a firearm must be blocked.

Politics ruins everything.

[Retep]

As I often see the front page of youtube with no cookies and a clean cache, the videos they have on the front page there are often one of two of those videos like, girl living alone in forest, and the thumbnail is a woman with her tits half out chopping some wood.

You can't hide from "the algorithm". It seems that the algorithm knows you better that you know yourself 

[Retep]

Well, YT is like those banks, "too big to fail". Or so they say.

The problem with YouTube is that there is no real competition to keep them in check. Odysee (https://odysee.com/) seems to be the closest alternative, but both the (slow) user experience and the amount of (worthwhile) content there is nothing compared to YouTube. Looking at number of views of content creators that post both on YouTube and Odysee, the number of Youtube views are typically more than 1000x higher.