The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 10.1 HUGE Youtube Allegations Scandal, Nerd City, Guyger GUILTY, & Hong Kong Protests Escalate

Episode Date: October 1, 2019

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you've had a fantastic Tuesday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. Buckle up, hit that like button, and let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is another YouTube scandal, although there's probably gonna be a few of those

this week, potentially. That's what the YouTube weatherman is predicting, but what we're talking about here is going to be based on business. So, if you have not seen, there is this new controversy around demonetization. And when we're talking about YouTube monetization, we're not talking about the fantastic brands that support this content during the TIA segment when we're talking about YouTube monetization, we're not talking about the fantastic brands

that support this content during the TIA segment. We're talking about the ads that YouTube serves you, right? The pre-rolls, the post-rolls, the mid-rolls, the little boxes that say buy, you know, is what a lot of creators and companies rely on to continue making more content. And while demonetization, of course, is not a new topic, there is a new focal point,

thanks to a collaboration between several channels. You have YouTube Analyzed, CeeLo, Not That One, Yep, and probably most notably Nerd City, who released a video on their account. And for those unfamiliar with the monetization system, the way it usually works is YouTube representatives like CEO Susan Wojcicki have repeatedly talked about is that the platform has a machine learning program,

meaning your video, your title, all those tags pass through an algorithm that determines whether or not they're ad friendly. And of course, because machines do make mistakes, there is an appeal system that allows human beings to look over the video. And then depending on that human's understanding of the content, they could decide to remonetize it.

Right, so in theory, having this algorithm, this program, whatever you wanna call it, also working with human beings who say, "'Oh, you know what? You got it wrong there.' That should help reduce future instances of incorrect demonetization." But one of the main things here is we don't know what that algorithm actually looks like. There's no transparency.

So in walk-in, these three YouTube channels just swinging their dicks demonetized. They decide to play with this algorithm over two months. And in their report, they looked through roughly 15,000 different words. Those words came from a mix of heavily Googled terms, as well as ones that are commonly viewed in various dictionaries.

And then they assigned a color to each word, green or yellow. Green meaning a video was monetized and yellow meaning demonetized. But the creator, Silo, actually says that the way monetization is decided is more like a zero to one scale. The demonetization bot classifiers have a hidden confidence level ranging from zero to one. Right, so certain words near the middle of the scale, they might be green one day and yellow the next. And so what they did here is that they put an asterisk next to words that gave mixed results. And so to create this list, to test things out,

they uploaded two second clips that they said had no demonetizable audio or video, just keywords in the title. And if a video was demonetized because of a keyword, they would replace that keyword with happy or friend and see if the video would remonetize. And here they say they found some weird results. For example, using anti-vax with two Xs

sometimes got their video demonetized, but when they used anti-vax with one X or even anti-vaxxer, it was always monetized. Also, oddly enough, North Carolina turned out to be a demonetizable word, but not North Korea. YouTube Analyze actually tried to explain this, saying that if a word has too much negative association

with it, a bot might be prone to flagging it. Right, so that North Carolina example might be because of news surrounding transgender bathroom laws making headlines back in July. Right, something that was happening while these creators were compiling their data. They also, oddly enough, had other words like restaurant, you, sunglasses, photos, profit,

and even Shrek reportedly causing their videos to get demonetized. And while common terms that you might expect, like slurs, cuss words, and other words like Hitler were flagged. On the other side of things, if the bots haven't seen a word or phrase used enough, YouTube Analyze suggests that it just might not catch,

which could possibly explain why words like incel and phrases like how to murder weren't demonetized. But one of the big reasons we're talking about this report is if accurate, it seemingly provides evidence that YouTube is demonetizing LGBTQ video. So for example, common LGBTQ terms tend to be flagged yellow on this list. Though again, this system is highly variable.

You have gay being context sensitive. You have homophobia being allowed, but not homosexual. You also have lesbians sometimes being green, but never lesbians, which makes sense because lesbians in a group, dangerous. Everyone knows that, it's just science. Unfortunately, someone's gonna take that serious. Also transgender is fine, but not always trans.

While terms like straight and heterosexual were both always green. And here are some of the titles they tried included lesbian princess and kids explain gay marriage. Both were demonetized, but both later monetized when changed to happy princess and kids explain Happy Marriage. And that's massive, if true,

because that could negatively affect thousands of LGBTQ creators on YouTube. And around this, you had LGBTQ creators saying this has pretty much always been an open secret. And hell, I mean, we even talked about it. Back in August, we saw a group of YouTubers suing the platform and claiming that among other things, YouTube is demonetizing their LGBTQ content.

But it also goes further back than that lawsuit. In December of last year, you had a YouTuber asking YouTube chief product officer Neil Mohan this. When I upload a video that contains the word gay or transsexual or anything related to LGBTQ community, it gets demonetized and that happens. Like it has happened to me maybe three times. Why is this? Like why does the system react this way?

I can just tell you categorically that there is no list of words or keywords or terms or anything like that that is going to go into our classifiers making an a priori decision about whether a video is monetized or not. And there is nothing in terms of how our monetization algorithms work that should be based on any kind of a pre-described or predetermined list. Which is a thing that Celo actually refused. Given our testing results, it's made clear that these comments are not accurate. While the current situation may certainly be better than two years ago, it is far from what most LGBTQ creators would deem as acceptable.

And he also notes that Mohan's comments are troubling because as CPO, he has the power to fix this problem. Another example that was provided was Susan Wojcicki having an interview with Alfie Deyes. There she says, We do not automatically demonetize LGBTQ content. Because I've had rumors like, I have the word lesbian in your tags in your thumbnail, or your title, instant flag.

There's no policies that say if you put certain words in the title that that will be demonetized. There's no like flag words from specifically that community that is like more likely to be demonetized. There shouldn't be. There shouldn't be. And the specific use of the word policy there has been pointed out. As Nerd City argues. That's a lie.

It's a lie by omission. It's sneaky language from a very smart woman who talks to a lot of lawyers. There's no policy to demonetize gay words, but there is a protocol where bots are doing exactly that. And then finally, the last thing that these group of creators kind of target is the review process. Right, an important note is YouTube has said

that they are taking steps in the reviewing process. Like last year, they added roughly 10,000 reviewers. And around this, you have the creators arguing, well, there may be a problem with the reviewers. According to Nerd City, YouTube is possibly outsourcing some of these 10,000 workers from a company called Lionbridge, which he says appears to employ people from a number of countries that have anti-LGBTQ laws,

this including Somalia, Afghanistan, and Indonesia. And so he asks if there is no standardized policy in place for LGBTQ content, could reviewers keep a video demonetized based on their own bias? Though I will say it is extremely important to note here that we don't actually know how many workers, if any, are from those countries, or if that bias is actually being taken into account. But we do know that it appears that former workers

with Lionsbridge have complained of unclear guidelines. So this video is made, it starts gaining traction, it really starts blowing up inside of the creator community, which is why yesterday we actually ended up seeing YouTube respond on Twitter saying, I wanted to let you know that we've watched your video and are deleting your account. I'm kidding.

We've watched your video and the right teams are reviewing your concerns in detail. We want to make sure that we give you some clear answers, so we'll follow back up when the teams have been able to take a good hard look. But ultimately, right now, that's where we are. You know, you did have a YouTube spokesperson reportedly telling The Verge,

we do not have a list of LGBTQ plus related words that trigger demonetization, and we are constantly evaluating our systems to help ensure that they are reflecting our policies without unfair bias. Right, but still there, you have that argument from these creators saying,

well, there can be no specific list, but if the system is doing what these creators are saying the system does, I mean, it's just not a list in name. But ultimately, that's where we are with this right now. It'll be interesting to see what else YouTube says. They've already now responded publicly, so there's gonna be even more pressure

for them to actually follow through here. I will say on a personal note, for those hoping for transparency regarding this, I don't think that's gonna happen. I believe that YouTube will once again use their bad actor argument that if they kind of share the secrets of the algorithm or even give you a kind of a snapshot,

bad actors will take advantage of the system, get monetization on maybe really horrible videos that they just titled differently. Then the argument there is that the community can rely on the community. People could use report features, which I mean, maybe you could trust, but not if you can't trust the human reviewers as well.

Also, I mean, some of you remember the news cycle. The media loves to hit YouTube whenever possible. We've covered reactions from the media in the past where there's some bigoted video that has like 11 or under a thousand views. You know, some journalist takes a screenshot of an ad on that, all of a sudden we're looking at the adpocalypse again.

But understand with all that said, I do personally believe that the system needs to be better. I just really, I'm very thankful for our fantastic sponsors, people that support on Patreon, because demonetization is an annoying part of our everyday. And if we didn't have the other stuff, it would be a crippling part of our everyday. But ultimately, hey, that's where the story is right now.

Of course, we're gonna have to wait to see what happens. But of course, as always, I'd love to know your thoughts on this. And then let's talk about the brief, but also huge update around Amber Guyger. And she, if you don't remember, is the now-fired Dallas police officer who shot an unarmed black man in his home.

As far as how that happened, Guyger claimed that she thought that she was entering her apartment and that the person in her home was an intruder. You know, and she ended up being fired. She was facing a manslaughter charge. And so, you know, it's been a while. The case has been playing out in court.

And before the jurors came to a verdict, they were told, one, the jurors could consider the castle doctrine as a defense, which as NBC News explained, "'Such laws generally dictate when a person can use force, "'including deadly force, when they feel like their home "'or castle, property, or life are being threatened.'" And two, the jury was told to decide if Geiger was actually guilty of first degree murder.

And if not found guilty of that, the jury could then consider first degree manslaughter. And this is the result we saw today. We, the jury, unanimously find the defendant, Amber Geiger, guilty of murder as charged in the indictment. So right now that means Amber Geiger is facing up to 99 years in prison.

And so that's where we are right now. It'll be interesting to see what the sentence is. And something that I will say that kind of stood out to me around this news, one, the number of people that were actually surprised that she was found guilty and to the number of people that were pointing Out how odd it is that that's something that seems so blatantly obvious Was still surprising to us that for many there is this expectation that the system does not work that the system is not Geared in their favor or even close to neutral even in a situation described as unarmed man in his home. But yeah, we'll have to keep our eyes open

to see what happens here. And then we need to talk about Hong Kong again. Now for those that watch the show, you know that we've been covering these ongoing protests since they started back in June. But a quickie oversimplified explainer to get us all up to speed, the demonstrations in Hong Kong started as a series

of largely peaceful protests against a proposed extradition bill. And notably a bill that would allow Hong Kong to extradite people accused of certain crimes to mainland China. So many people didn't like this bill because they were concerned that it was going to give mainland China too much influence over Hong Kong,

which is an autonomous city state. Right, worried that it would take away the personal freedoms that they're granted in Hong Kong that mainland Chinese citizens just, they don't have, like free speech. But as time went on, we saw this situation become increasingly more violent. With protesters and police clashing more frequently

and aggressively. And as time went on, as the demonstrations progressed, the protests expanded to go beyond the extradition bill, becoming a broader movement, calling for democratic political reforms and police accountability, which actually on that note, since we last talked about the situation, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced last month

that she would fully withdraw the extradition bill. And that may seem like a big win for the protesters as it was one of their main demands, but there are two important things of note here. First, something that really isn't being reported a lot is that Lam specifically said that this bill would formally be withdrawn when Hong Kong's legislature meets in October.

So the bill has not actually been withdrawn yet. And second, by the time that she has made this announcement, the protest movement has morphed into something much, much bigger than this one bill. So you had a large number of protesters feeling that it was too little, too late. With many activists saying that Lam did not address their other demands,

like launching an independent investigation into police brutality, giving amnesty to those arrested, and other democratic reforms like universal suffrage. So despite Lam's hopes that withdrawing this bill would help slow or stop the protest, they have kept going strong. And today, October 1st, marked the 115th day of protests. And with this, according to reports,

since the protest started on June 9th, Hong Kong police have arrested more than 1500 people and fired at least 2000 rounds of tear gas. But also October 1st is significant for another reason. And that's because today China celebrated the 70th anniversary of communist rule in China, also known as China's National Day. Chinese officials celebrated

with a massive military parade in Beijing. Speaking before the parade in front of the Tiananmen Square where nothing bad has ever happened, wink, wink, n nudge nudge, Chinese President Xi appeared to deliver a message to Hong Kong saying, "'No force can shake the status of our great motherland. "'No force can obstruct the advance

"'of the Chinese people and Chinese nation.'" Also saying that China would maintain the lasting prosperity and stability of Hong Kong without specifically mentioning the protests. And meanwhile in Hong Kong, officials had long anticipated that the pro-democracy protesters would hold massive demonstrations on National Day.

You know, this in an attempt to upstage mainland China, send them a message, or at the very least, officials had long anticipated that the pro-democracy protesters would hold massive demonstrations on National Day. You know, this in an attempt to upstage mainland China, send them a message, or at the very least, detract from their National Day parade. So along with this, we saw police warning of violence and potential terrorism ahead of National Day, authorities announcing a ban on protests, shutting down key subway stations and commercial buildings.

But that ban didn't stop the estimated hundreds of thousands of those in Hong Kong who defied authorities and showed up to hold demonstrations. And these protests started out largely peaceful with only a few minor scuffles reported. Protesters could be seen holding flags and banners and sprinkling fake money, which is a traditional Chinese funeral custom

that the protesters seem to be mocking by pretending to mourn National Day. Along that line of thinking, some banners and protesters referred to the day as a national day of grief. And while some of the demonstrations remained peaceful, things started to escalate in other parts of the city later in the day.

According to reports, right before sundown, police used large amounts of tear gas, as well as water cannons and physical force to clear protesters. And while a large number of the protesters were reportedly marching peacefully, others threw bricks and petrol bombs at the police. The Hong Kong police force saying on Twitter

that rioters in one district had injured multiple officers and reporters with a corrosive fluid. There are also reports that some vandalized shop fronts, restaurants, and government buildings across the city. Reports saying that they seem to target places that were perceived to be pro-Beijing. But arguably the most significant thing that happened all day was when a Hong Kong police officer

shot a protester. And this reportedly not with a rubber bullet, but with an actual one. This is just massive because this is the first time that a police officer has fired a live round at a protester since the protest started. In the video of the event, the person who was shot can be seen in a group of people dressed in black,

chasing after a police officer and tackling him to the ground. Then it appears that they're kicking him, beating him with what looks like metal pipes. That person is then seen approaching another officer standing nearby with a handgun drawn. That person then swings at the officer with a pipe and that officer fires at the man from about three feet away.

Now following this, in a press conference, a spokesperson for the Hong Kong police force defended the officer's a pipe and that officer fires at the man from about three feet away. Now following this, in a press conference, a spokesperson for the Hong Kong police force defended the officer's actions saying, "'The police officer's lives were under serious threat. "'To save his own life and his colleagues' lives, "'he fired a live shot.'" The spokesperson also went on to say that the person who was shot was an 18-year-old

who had been shot in the left shoulder and was conscious as he was taken to the hospital. But regarding that, most local and international media outlets have reported that the man was shot in the chest, not the shoulder. Local outlets in Hong Kong saying this was a student who attended a local high school, and it is unclear what condition he is in. Though there have been some reports that he is one of the two men reportedly in critical condition at a local hospital following the day's events.

But once again, that has not been officially confirmed. And later, in a separate press conference, Hong Kong's police chief condemned the protesters and reiterated the officer acted in self-defense. And also adding that the protester who was shot had been arrested and the authorities were deciding if they were going to bring him up on charges of assaulting a police officer. You know, ultimately that is where we are with the situation right now. Obviously things are still escalating.

And of course, like with everything we cover on the show, I'd love to know your thoughts about what is happening. And I'd also love to know what you think will happen. And that's where I'm going to end today's show. And hey, remember if you like this video, let us know, hit that like button. Also, if you're new here, you want more of these dives into the news, be sure to hit that subscribe button. Definitely tap that bell to turn on all notifications. Also, if you're not 100% filled in today, you want to watch our extra bonus deep

dive, or maybe you just missed yesterday's show, you want to catch up, you can click or tap right there to watch either of those. But with that said, of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.