YouTube "Tweaks" Its Search Algos After Las Vegas Conspiracy Theories Go Viral

In Silicon Valley"s ongoing crusade to make sure that you only consume mainstream media propaganda, you know because $100,000 worth of Facebook ads crushed Hillary"s campaign and changed the course of human history forever, YouTube has joined the likes of Facebook and Twitter in saying that it will promote more "authoritative sources in search results" going forward.  All of which, once again, begs the question of who gets to determine who is an "authoritative source?"

As the Wall Street Journal points out today, YouTube searches for "Las Vegas Shooting" earlier this week included a video from "End Times News Report" with the title "Proof Las Vegas Shooting Was a FALSE FLAG Attack - Shooter on 4th Floor."  The video, created by Jake Morphonios who posts YouTube videos in his spare time, quickly went viral and amassed over 1.1 million views in just 27 hours...but all that changed when YouTube decided to censor Morphonios" content and replace it with mainstream media videos...you know for your protection.

For example, the fifth result when searching “Las Vegas shooting” on YouTube late Tuesday yielded a video titled “Proof Las Vegas Shooting Was a FALSE FLAG attack—Shooter on 4th Floor.” The video said there were multiple shooters in Sunday’s mass shooting, a claim dismissed by law enforcement. Posted by a channel called the End Times News Report, it amassed more than 1.1 million views in about 27 hours.

The high search ranking of the End Times News Report video claiming there was a second shooter in Las Vegas helped it gain 371,000 views over four hours late Tuesday. On Wednesday, YouTube removed the video.

Jake Morphonios, who runs the End Times News Report along with a damaged-inventory-liquidation business in Kernersville, N.C., said the video eventually reached 2.5 million views. “It was a hot topic, of course, and was going to get some views anyway, but it really did get caught in [YouTube’s] algorithm and went viral from there,” he said. “Clearly it got into featured videos or something.” The 43-year-old said he has posted about 800 videos and typically gets about 5,000 views each.

He said he aims to offer viewers information on news events that mainstream news sources won’t. “It’s my opinion, it’s my analysis, and everyone’s got an opinion, and I can understand that maybe they don’t want me to be considered the equivalent of The Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or something like that,” he said. “But still, I’m not presenting myself as mainstream media. I’m just a guy with a computer offering an opinion. And to be punished for that is, well, it’s draconian.”

Not surprisingly, YouTube said the the "tweaks" made to their search engines were designed to promote more "authoritative sources," especially when searches are related to "major news events."

In response to criticism on social media of some search results this week, a person familiar with YouTube said the company is accelerating the rollout of planned changes to its search engine. On Wednesday night, the video service began promoting more authoritative sources in search results, especially pertaining to major news events, the person said. YouTube doesn’t disclose how it determines which sources are authoritative.

But while YouTube refused to offer any insights into how they plan to decipher "authoritative sources" from "non-authoritative sources", running the same search for "Las Vegas shooting" today, after YouTube"s "tweaks", provides some clues on their methodology...

Conclusion, YouTube"s "tweaks" have turned it into nothing more than a mainstream media echo chamber.

YouTube Takes Steps To Censor "Controversial" (a.k.a. "Conservative") Content

Last night YouTube took to its "Official Blog" to more or less announce that they would be taking steps to censor content they found to be "controversial" even if it didn"t break any laws or violate the site"s user agreement.  And while the message vowed to be part of an effort to "fight terror content online," the move was met wth widespread skepticism among YouTuber"s as nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to censor conservative speech.

Tougher standards: We’ll soon be applying tougher treatment to videos that aren’t illegal but have been flagged by users as potential violations of our policies on hate speech and violent extremism. If we find that these videos don’t violate our policies but contain controversial religious or supremacist content, they will be placed in a limited state. The videos will remain on YouTube behind an interstitial, won’t be recommended, won’t be monetized, and won’t have key features including comments, suggested videos, and likes. We’ll begin to roll this new treatment out to videos on desktop versions of YouTube in the coming weeks, and will bring it to mobile experiences soon thereafter. These new approaches entail significant new internal tools and processes, and will take time to fully implement.

But it"s not just content creators that will be impacted as anyone who merely searches for keywords that YouTube deems "questionable", for whatever reason, will be promptly redirected to propaganda videos intended to "directly confront and debunk" whatever "questionable" content that user was looking for.

Early intervention and expanding counter-extremism work: We’ve started rolling out features from Jigsaw’s Redirect Method to YouTube. When people search for sensitive keywords on YouTube, they will be redirected towards a playlist of curated YouTube videos that directly confront and debunk violent extremist messages. We also continue to amplify YouTube voices speaking out against hate and radicalization through our YouTube Creators for Change program. Just last week, the U.K. chapter of Creators for Change, Internet Citizens, hosted a two-day workshop for 13-18 year-olds to help them find a positive sense of belonging online and learn skills on how to participate safely and responsibly on the internet. We also pledged to expand the program’s reach to 20,000 more teens across the U.K.

So who will be responsible for choosing which content qualifies as "controversial" and/or "questionable?"  Well, as the Daily Caller points out, that responsibility will fall upon "impartial" groups like the Anti-Defamation League that recently published a list of "alt-right" and "alt-lite" YouTubers yet failed to highlight extreme leftist organizations like Antifa...must have just been an oversight.

According to YouTube, the system, while largely automated, will mix in human reviews in the form of its already established “Trusted Flagger” volunteer program that works with over 15 institutions to deal with extremist content, including the Anti-Defamation League.

The ADL recently released a list naming members of the “alt-right” and the “alt-lite,” the latter of which included controversial YouTube personalities like Gavin McInnes, Mike Cernovich, and Brittany Pettibone. Curiously, the ADL is selective in what it chooses to label as “extremism.” It does not have violent far-left ideologies like Antifa and militant leftist organizations like Redneck Revolt on its radar.

It’s worth noting that the “Trusted Flagger” system was later transformed into the much maligned “YouTube Heroes” program, which invited the public to help moderate content. It was heavily criticized for giving social justice activists the power to manipulate the platform.

Despite the apparent focus on targeting extremism, YouTube’s announcement includes the company’s efforts to artificially promote videos through its “Creators for Change” program, which in YouTube’s own words pushes creators who are “using their voices to speak out against hate speech, xenophobia, and extremism.”

Not surprisingly, these moves to censor content creators while shoving propaganda videos down the throats of users, has been blasted by conservatives online who feel like they"ve been targeted.

“If a video doesn’t break YouTube’s terms of services then they absolutely SHOULD NOT be attempting to dampen the reach of the video any further,” said YouTuber Annand “Bunty King” Virk, who raised his concerns with The Daily Caller. “Who determines what’s passable and what isn’t? At what point do we finally realize that saying the right thing isn’t always about saying what people want to hear?”

“By these standards, if YouTube existed previous to the Emancipation Act, they’d be censoring videos criticizing slave owners, since being anti-slavery wasn’t popular… at all,” he added. “The popular opinion isn’t always the right opinion.”

“No one can really say who’s going to be impacted by this new road map, and that’s the point isn’t it? If their policies and terms of service aren’t there to help guide creators anymore, then why even have them? So really, anyone could be at risk without even knowing it,” he said.

“I have no problem with YouTube cracking down on terrorist recruitment videos and the likes,” clarified Undoomed. “What I don’t understand is how such videos could’ve possibly been considered acceptable under the extant TOS and policies.”

“I think there is a high probably for collateral damage with this new attitude,” he said. “Some people could conceivably consider skeptics and anti-SJWs ‘extremists,’ while all we are doing is arguing for a little common sense, and of course for freedom of speech as demanded by the Constitution.”

“My suspicion is that ‘trusted flaggers’ is just a code word for the ‘usual suspects’. i.e. the same type of radical left-wing reactionaries that have reshaped Twitter into an Orwellian nightmare,” he concluded.

The "Russians" won"t stand a chance in 2020....

Guess What Term Is Suddenly Surging On Pornhub

While politics & porn often go hand in hand, the latest "fake news" allegations from Buzzfeed, which revolved around a supposed urine-soaked revenge at Moscow’s Ritz Carlton Hotel, have sparked a "golden showers" spike among porn sites.

As we have detailed previously, the bizarre story, which emerged in a dossier reportedly compiled by a “former British intelligence official” and was published by BuzzFeed as supposed proof of Trump’s “deep ties” to Russia, claims Trump hired several prostitutes to “perform a ‘golden showers’ show in front of him” on a bed in the hotel’s presidential suite. Trump did so, the unverified report explains, because he knew outgoing President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, “whom he hated,” had slept in said bed during one of their official trips to Russia.

The dossier’s contents were either widely discredited or flat-out disproved, with many publications raising questions as to why BuzzFeed would chose to publish the unfounded claims. Nevertheless, the damage had been done, and within 24 hours of the tale’s viral debut, online porn giant PornHub reported a 289 percent increase in “golden shower” searches, while #WaterSportsGate and similar hashtags started trending on Twitter.

By January 11th, Pornhub reports that searches containing “Golden Shower” increased by 289% compared to the usual daily average. Our statisticians also found that “watersports” searches increased by 215% along with other related terms like “pissing”. Searches for “Donald Trump” were up by 273% on January 11.

As Pornhub also notes, across the United States, golden showers seem to be more popular in Northern States — perhaps as a way to keep warm in the winter? Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts proportionately search more often, while popularity is much lower down south in Hawaii, Mississippi, Texas and California.

"What I Saw In The Baltimore Protests Last Night" (Unedited)

I visited the Occupy Amsterdam encampment in 2011. Several people there proceeded to tell me that they supported capitalism 100%, and that they were really just against "corporate greed". Which told me that they simply didn"t understand what capitalism even is. 

The core issue is that neoliberalism has successfully co-opted virtually the entirety of center-left politics. This reality is perhaps most evident among the major financial news outlets such as the Financial Times as Bloomberg, which are the quintessential mouthpieces of corporate culture and of the financial industry. Their articles and op-eds are typically saturated with a progressive-sounding rhetoric, though they rerpesent naked capitalism and profit-seeking.

This is one of several reasons why I reverted back to my roots in the progressive left.