MINKE KAMPMAN

So, yes I am cleaning up. I have finally updated WP and I have purchased a new WP theme.A few links are not working and I have to adjust some stuff to my new theme. But for now it will do and I like it. It’s called Basic Math and it is designed by Khoi Vinh & Allan Cole. And if I start to dislike it for some reason, I guess you can read my annoyances back here on the blog.

I had a short interest in default pictures a while back which I collected on Flickr (see here). And I enjoy using default profile pictures from one service, let’s say Flickr on Twitter. Or even better, to use the old Twitter default profile picture, when they introduced a serie of new ones. I don’t know why I like it, is it to show that I am not a newbie on that service or is it to set myself apart in the anonymous default settings without identifying myself.

But today, I changed my profile picture on Facebook in a “no profile” picture by adding the following picture on to it. And I wanted to share with whoever wants to have it. Just save the picture below and upload it on Facebook as your profile picture. It’s meant as a little joke; how funny would it be if Facebook would not have any faces on there anymore?

Title: diploma
Location: UvA
Description: EXECUTE GRADUATION PROGRAM

get agenda

	set place = uva university theatre

	set date = 22 september 2009

	set time = 2 pm - 1 amget program

	when time = 2 pm

		go to \"general introduction\"

	when time = 2.30 pm

		go to \"symposium\"

			when \"symposium\" = listen to annet dekker, eric kluitenberg &

	when time = 3.45 p,

		go have \"break\"

	when time = 4.15 pm

		go to \"granting diplomas\"

	when time = 6 pm

		go to \"borrel\"

			set place \"borrel\" = atrium cafe

	when time = 9 pm

		go to \"party\"

			while \"party\" = enjoy performances, drink alcohol, dance.

	when time = 1 am

		go home

end program

Start Time: 14:00
Date: 2009-09-22
End Time: 01:00

Introduction

1. An ontology of user-options for control on YouTube

2. Research hypothesis, framework and methodology
2.1 Hypothesis: “Adding a user-controlled meta-moderation system to the
YouTube flagging system would make it more democratic.”
2.2 Theoretical Framework
2.3 Methodology

3. YouTube’s regulation model: flagging as part of the whole
3.1 International / legal level of regulation
3.1.1. Notice and takedown policy
3.2 Level for self-regulation
3.2.1. Flagging issues
3.3 Level of automation in content regulation
3.3.1 YouTube video ID technology
3.3.2 Automated Flagging
3.4 YouTube’s model concluded

4. Community’s viewpoint on the flagging system on YouTube
4.1 Methodology
4.2. Flagging problems as experienced by the community
4.2.1 Anonymity & accountability: who flagged my video?
4.2.2 Accountability: I can’t contact YouTube
4.2.3 Motivation: why was my video flagged?
4.2.4 Flagging campaigns
4.2.5 Vote bots
4.2.6 Censorship: the claim to free speech
4.3 Findings

5. Case Study: LGBT community on YouTube
5.1 F(l)agging gay content on YouTube
5.2 Strategies
5.3 Conclusion of case study

6. Flagging on other video sharing sites
6.1. Categories
6.2. Visibility
6.3. Handling of copyright
6.4. SafeSearch

7. Hierarchical moderation systems
7.1 Slashdot (1997): meta-moderation
7.2 Wikipedia (2001): user levels
7.3 Digg (2004): undigging
7.3.1 Funny or Die (2007)
7.4 Additional comments

8. Proposal: Combining flagging with rating
8.1 Model
8.2 Possible points of critique
8.3 Possible benefits

9. Conclusion

References

Appendix I : list of YouTube blogposts related to flagging

I. Blogposts on youtube.com/blog addressing or related to flagging;

Nov 13, 2008 “Flagging at YouTube: The Basics”

Oct 27, 2008 “Addressing Youth Violence on YouTube”

April 17, 2008 “YouTube Policy Enforcement Changes”

Nov 06, 2007 “Improvements to Video Flagging System”

Aug 06, 2007 “Choose Your Own Thumbnail Image”

Oct 19, 2006 “Greetings from the YouTube SQUAD”

“Please Be Decent and Kind”

Oct 08, 2006 “How Flagging Works”

June 24, 2006 “Comments Bug”

Dec 14, 2005

Aug 11, 2005

Benkler, Yochai. “The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom” Yale University Press, 2006.

boyd, danah. “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life.” MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning – Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Volume (ed. David Buckingham). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2007.

boyd, danah. “None of this is Real.” Structures of Participation in Digital Culture (ed. Joe Karaganis). New York: Social Science Research Council, 2007, pp. 132-157.

David, Shay. “Toward Participatory Culture” Structures of Participation in Digital Culture (ed. Joe Karaganis). New York: Social Science Research Council, 2007, pp 176-199.

Deuze, Mark. “Media Work” Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007.

Fuller, Matthew, ed. “Software Studies: A Lexicon” The MIT Press, 2008.

Golder, Scott and Bernardo A. Huberman. “Usage Patterns of Collaborative Tagging Systems.” Journal of Information Science, 32(2), 2006. p. 198-208.

Goldsmith, Jack and Tim Wu. “Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World.” Oxford University Press, 2006.

House of Commons: Culture, Media and Sport Committee. “Harmful content on the Internet and in video games” Tenth Report of Session 2007–08, Vol.II. Oral and written evidence. Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 22 July 2008.

Jenkins, Henry. “Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide” New York University Press, 2006. p.257.

Lange, P. G. “Publicly private and privately public: Social networking on YouTube”. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1) 2007, article 18.

Lessig, Lawrence. “Code: Version 2.0” New York: Basic Books, 2006.

Marlow, Cameron, M. Naaman, D. Boyd, M. Davis, Position Paper, Tagging, Taxonomy, Flickr, Article, ToRead. Collaborative Web Tagging Workshop at WWW 2006. Edinburgh, Scotland, May 22, 2006.

Novek, Beth Simone. “Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful” Brookings Institution Press, 2009.

Pold, Søren. “Button” Software Studies Lexicon. Ed. Matthew Fuller. The MIT Press, 2008.

Rassi, Termeh. YouTube: Examing a Revolution” p. 40 gnovis journal _ Fall 2007 _ Volume 8, No. 1.

Rosen, Jeffrey. “Google’s Gatekeepers” Published November 28, 2008.

Taylor, T.L. “Pushing the Borders: Player Participation and Game Culture” Structures of Participation in Digital Culture (ed. Joe Karaganis). New York: Social Science Research Council, 2007, pp. 112-131

Tisselli, E. “thinkflickrthink: a case study on strategic tagging”. Accepted, to appear:
Communications of the ACM Journal.

“Us/Now”. Documentary. Dir. Ivo Gormley. Banyak Films, 2009. Transcripts of interviews:

Wesch, Michael. “An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube” a YouTube video by Michael Wesch and the Digital Ethnography Working Group. Posted on YouTube on July 26, 2008.

With this thesis I’ve tried to democratize YouTube’s flagging system by suggesting a reputation logic amongst the user community. Thus providing a platform that not only embodies the voice of the community as a whole, but also emasculates the dissident viewpoints which are variously labelled as ‘biased’, ‘ideological’ or ‘extreme’. By analyzing flagging as part of the whole moderation system, I came across some very interesting aspects such as the different interpretations of free speech and censorship, the strength and weakness of anonymity and appropriation of technology.

The tools that YouTube presents to the community can be interpreted as a form of corporate convergence, by which they shape the different flows of media. The way the community appropriates these tools (the flagging feature in particular) is a grassroots convergence that shows a strategy and demand for greater participation. Exemplifying how technology can be a determinant factor in participation, on which point I disagree with Jenkins. Jenkins shows a technological deterministic view by contrasting ‘participation’ with ‘interactivity’; according to him ‘interactivity’ is determined by technology and has a predetermined outcome and ‘participation’ is determined by social and cultural factors and has a more open outcome, more fully shaped by consumer choices. I have shown that users can appropriate given technological tools and make them their own in order to gain more control and participation on YouTube.

I do agree however with Jenkins’ concept of convergence and how this changes the roles between the corporation and the community. Taking this one step ahead on YouTube by proposing a redesigned model of the existing flagging system in which I add a reputation system and a meta-moderation logic, which potentially eliminates the existing issues and creates a democratic open environment. And thereby empowering and stimulating the grassroots convergence in participating and shaping the community, which ultimately benefits YouTube as well.

Increasing the community’s commitment
The change of rules is inspired by the critical feedback from (part of) the community. Addressing their issues by changing the system could means that this could build up greater loyalty amongst the community through this responsiveness.

Accountability
It is one thing to tap into the power of the distributed flexible volunteer ethic, but corresponding systems of recognition and accountability must be in place. This could be such as system, according to my opinion.

Chance of game play
Game play is not necessarily a negative development. The outcomes can possibly enrich the community and the platform even further. It is unavoidable that through time the demands of the users will change and the system needs to be adaptable to that.

“The interaction of people with information systems is recurrently marked by play and experimentation, as people test the limits of their settings and manage the consequences of unexpected interactions and altered contexts. Digital social structures disrupt the boundaries that define social communities, but the reassessment of context and performance that accompanies this is endlessly generative.”

There will always be a part of the community that will test the boundaries of what is given and explore possibilities. Because the outcome of this is unpredictable, it could also proof to be beneficiary to the community.

Disrupting the ecology of YouTube.
Although this thesis has a high hypothetical degree to it, if it were to be applied to YouTube, one of the biggest pitfalls would be that it would force many user of the YouTube community out of their comfort zone by changing the rules of the game.

“We are in a critical moment of transition during which the old rules are open to change and companies may be forced to renegotiate their relationship to consumers. The question is whether the public is ready to push for greater participation or willing to settle for the same old relations to mass media.”

The risk of game play.
There is also a chance that the strategy of reputation backfires because of game play. It is not unlikely it would create a competition amongst users for achieving the highest rank. And as we’ve seen happening with existing aspects of YouTube, this system of reputation will also be tested on its boundaries and perhaps appropriated in ways we cannot predict.

Chance of oligarchy
With the chance of game play and the consequences of this, it is feasible that a certain amount of users seize power in this newly evolved democracy and turns from being ruled by the people into ruled by the few.

Tyranny of the majority
The phrase ‘tyranny of the majority’, used in discussing systems of democracy and majority rule, is a criticism of the scenario in which decisions made by a majority under that system would place that majority’s interests so far above a minority’s interest as to be comparable to tyrannical despots.

Is this a way of giving the power over to the users?
One could argue that it only applies a part of the moderation system and leaves out the legal and corporate part as earlier mentioned. The user can help enforce the rules of the house, but they are not allowed to either make them or break them. It is however not unlikely that the user community come to see of the platform as their territory, a phenomenon that is also witnessed in the area of player production in games;

“when designers take user engagement seriously, users sometimes come to feel they have a real stake in the product. The issue, then, is not just how to encourage player-produced content. It is also to fundamentally think about, fully acknowledge, and integrate into the game structure the engagement and strong commitment of player-producers and the sense of investment that often follows. Raph Koster, chief creative officer for Sony Online Entertainment, has written an imaginative exercise entitled “Declaring the Rights of Players” (Koster, 2000). It is striking in the ways it envisions virtual world users as citizens of that space, with due attendant rights. As a thought experiment, it is a great example of the kinds of things we might have to consider when we reformulate passive consumption into active engagement.” (Taylor, 2007, p.125)

It should be emphasized the new system is in order to democratize YouTube. And the idea of the users being citizens of that space, with due attendant rights fits right in there. Not only of having the right to free speech, but also the right to be held accountable for their actions. Leaving the company deal with corporate, legal and marketing aspects of this democracy in order for the platform to exist.

The model that I am describing below is an extension on existing systems and form a starting point for discussion on what would work and why. Names, labels and number indications serve this purpose and are made up and not specific to YouTube. Setting up an open protocol/standard not unlike this one would increase transparency, accountability and democracy on YouTube.

A set up of a reputation building model on YouTube would look like this:

1. 0 – 150 points newbie
2. 150 – 500 points resident
3. >500 points citizen
4. >1000 points honored citizen

A newbie can only connect to other users, post videos, video responses and leave comments. Allowing him/her to position him-\herself in the community and get acquainted with the system. A newbie is not able to vote to discourage the practice of flagging campaigns by sockpuppets and vote botting.

A resident does not differ from any YouTube user in the system as it is now. He/ she has access to all existing options, including voting.

A citizen is registered for meta-moderation, a new feature in this model, which allows the user to remove or confirm one flag per video.

An honored citizen is able to lock a certain video, similar controversial articles on Wikipedia, from users flagging it.

Scenario #01
A video gets flagged by five different users, the video gets hidden and checked by five different citizens or one honored citizen. For every flag one citizen is needed.
If it is decided that the video is indeed not in accordance with the TOS the video stays hidden and the account has to hand in 5 points from their account and the flaggers receive 15 points on their account. If however, the video is wrongfully flagged, it would stay up and all the flaggers have to hand in points and the accused account receives points. In order to discourage the overall practice of false flagging, positive rating is always adding more points than negative rating is taking away. This means that the intention to falsely flag a video could turn out to be beneficiary to the attacked account, which contradicts the initial intention.

Scenario #02
A video reaches an average positive rating of higher than four stars after 1000 users have rated it. The video receives immunity, after it is checked by (honored) citizens. The user that posted the video will receive 15 points on his/ her account, while the people who rated it do not receive points. This is to avoid users from rating all the videos five stars.

Very important in such a system is that all the benefits are non-monetary. It would generate a feedback loop between participation and community recognition, similar to Slashdot’s system of meta-moderation. “The system [of Slashdot] rewards both participation on the site and community judgment of that participation” .

Democratizing a complex area such as the moderation of any social network is a “thorny terrain in which spontaneous cultural participation intersects with complicated corporate and legal interests.” (David, 2007, p.115) For not only is it their interest, it is also the company’s responsibility to uphold any legal and corporate interest. That is why I start with democratizing the part of the system that is depended on the community, the flagging aspect.

[Cara Mertes questions the promise to ‘democratize television’ of a new network format Current:] What are you talking about when you say ‘democratizing the media? Is it using the media to further democratic ends, to create an environment conducive to the democratic process through unity, empathy and civil discourse? Or does it mean handing over the means of production, which is the logic of public access? (Jenkins, 2006, p.252)

Not only do I see the latter as a necessary predecessor of the first statement. In that sense I must confess that I am a bit of a technological idealist. But, as Mertes says, you can create the environment, but whether the users are ready for this and will use it to this potential is a preferable, though unpredictable outcome. One cannot force users into a civil discourse, but can lead the way.

The starting point of my proposal, which consists of four main points, would be addressing the issues of free speech and censorship. Videos will no longer be removed without leaving a trace and all comments rated ‘-6’ or lower that are now hidden for the user community should offer the option to be temporarily unhidden in order to read them. This same logic of ‘unhiding’ could be applied to videos in addition to a banner stating the reason why the video was flagged.

The second point would be by taking away the negative connotation of flags, the ‘I don’t agree with this’ aspect, by extending it with an ‘I do agree with this’ option. This could be achieved by a technological convergence of the effects of flagging and rating.

The third point would be proposing a reputation system to form as a non-monetary incentive for users to participate in the discussions that take place at YouTube. A key difference with the existing system is that not only videos are rated and/ or flagged. The user’s account builds up a reputation through the means of receiving or handing in points. The amount of points determine the privileges a user has.

The final point is derived from the third point, because the reputation system would for the basis for my proposed system of meta-moderation by the users. Both of which, I shall discuss in detail in the proposed model that follows.

Both Digg and Wikipedia’s software architecture tries to associate expertise with community authority; the latter defined as the ability to shape the participation of others within the online space. At Slashdot, expertise and authority are more granular, valid for a short time. In the book ‘Towards Participatory Culture’, Shay David makes the point that expertise in many online communities is not related to a single individual;

Community expertise resides in two competing dynamics:

(1) the legitimation of “aggregate” opinion, as opinions tend toward an equilibrium, even on controversial issues
(2) the openness of the community to dissenting opinions, with the potential to change the
aggregate consensus.

In successful online communities, these dynamics produce confidence in the knowledge-making process, rather than confidence in any particular instance of expert opinion. The system is legitimate to the degree that it represents a properly constituted authority in the eyes of the community of users. (David, 2007)

An expert in the YouTube community I would say is a user that knows which issues are at play amongst the community. Relating to David’s point on expertise, one could say that a diverse group of random active users can be part of a possible moderating hierarchy.

By looking at the existing hierarchical moderation systems, I see hierarchy amongst users as a proven non-monetary incentive for users to participate. Only ‘Funny or Die’ does not make use of this, but they place themselves (the staff) in the watchdog position. And this particular platform deals with a basic binary question of whether the viewer thinks a video is funny or not. In that sense Digg, but especially Wikipedia and YouTube are platforms containing broader discussions and opinions.

The controversy around the ‘Bury Brigade’ is somewhat similar to the reactions about the misuse of the flagging system on YouTube. Issues like accountability and transparency come up in both these issues. Whether or not the discussion is justified, it’s interesting that both these widely used services stir up such a discussion. Which can be because these users feel left out of the system because of the lack insight in the system and their the minor participative role they play in it. It is not similar to CL Pet controversy on Craigslist, because the people in that discussion blame each other instead of the system. The only aspect on which they blame the system is for not putting their TOS clear enough.

By not only introducing a certain form of hierarchy, but also by positioning the community in the role of the watchdog YouTube would take over certain qualities of both Slashdot as well as Wikipedia. Which results in a system of meta-moderation of flags – flagging of the users will be by the users, for the users – thereby taking the next step in the grassroots convergence on YouTube towards a more open, democratic platform.

On the website www.funnyordie.com, videos are rated on a scale of 0% to 100% funny by the user community. It’s a very simple system, which shows a close resemblance to Digg, and is based on whether the viewer thinks a video is funny or not. Every use can rate a video only once by clicking on either the ‘funny’ icon or the ‘die’ icon. When the ‘die’ icon is clicked, the video will stop and start to play a scene from random action movie in which someone gets killed. When the ‘funny’ icon is clicked nothing happens, except for when it’s clicked after the movie has ended. In that case it starts to play a random clip of a guy playing airguitar.
Videos can reach three different levels. The first level is ‘Chosen One’; this is decided by the staff and these videos have diplomatic immunity, so votes don’t affect them. This is comparable to the articles on Wikipedia that are fully protected from editing. Except at Funny Or Die this decision is not made by a higher level of users (‘administrators), but by company staff. The second level is called ‘Immortal’, which is “a badge of honor.” Achieved when the video has at least 100.000 views and is rated over 80% funny, earning it a immunity for other votes.

“Does this mean every Immortal video will be the funniest thing you’ve ever seen? Maybe not. But this a democracy and sometimes people vote for things that aren’t good (see: White House). So think before you vote.”

The third level is called ‘The Crypt’, which is reached when the video has at least 1.000 views and is rated under 20% funny. Once a video has reached either the first or second level of immunity, it can never be voted down to ‘The Crypt’. The other way around is also possible, videos in ‘The Crypt’ can be “resurrected” by voting them funny to get them out of ‘The Crypt’. What I personally find interesting about ‘The Crypt’ is what I already mentioned earlier about the rating of comments on YouTube and ‘disemvowelling’, the fact that the content is not removed from the website, but more sort of hidden and thus creating a collection of data that most of the users don’t want to see or read. First of, this approach both reveals the collective opinion of the community as well as silences anyone claiming to be robbed of their freedom of speech. And secondly, this avoids senseless discussions (for the “proof” is gone) about falsely flagged videos that are taken down and not mirrored. On this subject MIT started an interesting research project called YouTomb . This project by MIT Free Culture monitors a certain amount of videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation along with the metadata, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown, with a particular emphasis on those videos for which the takedown may be mistaken. Revealing a critical view towards the YouTube flagging system.

Like the companies blog already mentions, it is suppose to be a democracy. But this does not mean that the whole moderation system depends on the user community as a blogpost from May 7, 2007 reveals. In which misuse of the program is reported about someone who created a program that generated fake votes. This shows that they’ve set up other ways, besides the voting system, to keep the site clear. But similar to Digg they actively promote user participation in order for the system to work.

“Digg is democratizing digital media”

At Digg.com logged-in users can give it thumbs up to an article he/she likes and ‘digg it’, contributing to the popularity of that item. “Once a submission has earned a critical mass of Diggs, it becomes ‘popular’ and jumps to the homepage in its category. If it becomes one of the most popular, it qualifies as a ‘Top 10’. If a submission doesn’t receive enough Diggs within a certain time period, it eventually falls out of the ‘Upcoming’ section.”
A user can also give it the thumbs down and ‘bury’ it. Opening a dropdown menu containing categories such as duplicate story, spam, wrong topic, inaccurate and ‘OK, This is Lame.’ The same logic is applied to the comment section of the site.
Digg offers the option to change your vote on a comment: “If you’ve voted down a comment that you now want to support, just hit the thumbs-up button once to neutralize your down-vote and then a second to record your positive vote time (and vice-versa).” This does not apply the same way to votes on an article.

“You can un-Digg a story by logging in and clicking My Profile. Find the story in the Recent Activity section (or click the History tab) and you’ll find an un-Digg button next to each item. You can’t unbury a story, however.”

It is not visible to other users which articles have been buried by a certain user, in contrast to articles he/she has Digged. The company does not reveal how the algorithm behind this whole process works exactly to prevent users from “gaming the system.” But it “takes several factors into consideration, including (but not limited to) the number and diversity of Diggs, buries, the time the story was submitted and the topic.” Due to the mystery of around the exact workings of the algorithm and the identity of the buriers, it has also been the topic of discussion amongst (part of) the Digg community that claim the existence of so-called ‘Bury Brigade’ misusing the ‘bury’ option in an organized, collective manner to bury certain stories. And critizing the ‘bury’ option for being undemocratic, because of its anonymous nature and unaccountability. Thereby showing a resemblance to YouTube’s flagging campaigns and the type of reactions by the community. In reaction to users gaming the system, Kevin Rose announced an update in the algorithm on the company blog in September, 2006. To prevent people from gaming the system he does not disclose how it exactly works, but the update includes a “unique digging diversity of the individuals digging the story. Users that follow a gaming pattern will have a less promotion weight.” Which means that it would take a more diverse pool of diggers to get a story on the homepage.

In the end digg is yours to control. No matter which stories are promoted, it’s up to the masses to digg or bury them. If you see content you disagree with – bury it. If enough people do the same, the system will automatically remove the story.

This could be seen as a point where co-existing forms of convergence briefly meet, the grassroots convergence demands attention for what they experience as a problem and the corporate convergence reacts by adjusting the algorithm. In its turn this adjustment received a lot of critique from the community as well. But convergence is not an end-point, but an ongoing process.

An article on Wikipedia is not only created collaboratively, but also maintained that way. By users of Wikipedia, which can be divided into different types of users;

Regular user levels
- Anonymous users
- New users
- Autoconfirmed users
Special user levels
- Administrators
- Bureaucrats
- Stewards

The regular user levels are appointed automatically by software and special user levels are granted by the community. Each type of user has its own specific privileges or constrictions, such as the ability to (semi-) protect pages or edit these type of pages. This feature is needed when so-called ‘edit wars’ arise around one particular article due to controversy.

Applying the so-called wiki-logic to decision making processes has been explored by law professor and information law expert Beth Simone Novek in her book “Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful.” In this book she describes how she worked with a team of experts to help inexperienced citizens participate in patent examination. They used the Internet to create communities of self-selected experts to contribute their time and effort to the policy process. And thereby, exemplifying its title, showing how technology can be used to create a participatory culture of government.

On YouTube there is not an official hierarchy amongst user accounts, with the exception of users that are part of the Partnership Program . But this only offers the possibility to monetize videos and does not offer any privileges in the sense of favoriting. In this chapter I will briefly address some existing systems of hierarchical moderation. I will not give an extensive analysis on each of them, because overall they are quite well known. Therefore I will highlight the exemplary aspects that I think are of interest and/ or applicable to YouTube.

7.1 Slashdot (1997): meta-moderation

Slashdot’s system of meta-moderation is a pioneer in its field by using crowdsourcing as a way to detect trolls. An random, automated system selects a few users providing them with the a temporary privilege to annotate comments as being ‘offtopic’ for example. Providing the comments with a score ranging from –1 to 5. Other users can adjust their filter, so they will not see the trolling comments and other spam. The concept of crowd-voting has worked so well that sites as high-traffic as the NYT now use it .

SafeSearch is a feature in every Google/Yahoo!/Flickr account that can be turned ‘off’, on ‘moderate’ or ‘on’ by the user. By doing so, the user allows the engine to filter the content that shows up in the results. This ‘filter’ focuses on pornography and explicit sexual content. With the filter on ‘moderate’ it blocks explicit images/video only, while fully turned on it blocks explicit text and images/video. Flickr has it set on by default. Yahoo and Google have the default set on moderate filtering.

With Flickr and Yahoo the geographical location is a factor in adjusting the filter. “If your Yahoo! ID is based in Singapore, Hong Kong or Korea you will only be able to view safe content based on your local Terms of Service so won’t be able to turn SafeSearch off. If your Yahoo! ID is based in Germany you are not able to view restricted content due to your local Terms of Service.” Something we also saw in YouTube’s self-regulatory model, which is partly based on a global/legal level as well. Except that was not communicated so directly to the user community.

Yahoo! SafeSearch cannot guarantee that as well that all explicit content will be recognized and filtered out of the results. While “Google’s SafeSearch system seems to reflect a focus on avoiding underblocking (i.e. avoiding linking to sexually-explicit content) at the expense of increased overblocking (omitting listings of content that is not sexually-explicit).”

Google’s SafeSearch works through continual crawling of the Web by a filter and by incorporating updates from user suggestions. Google’s filter uses advanced proprietary technology that checks keywords and phrases, URLs and Open Directory categories.

“Google’s help site suggests that SafeSearch is primarily driven by automated systems — computer classification of sites that are sexually-explicit versus not, in contrast to the human review purportedly used by companies like N2H2 (ref: N2H2’s “Human Review Advantage”). For lack of human review of SafeSearch’s filtering decisions, Google readily admits that its system is not completely accurate.”

But even though it’s an automated system, it does leave open the option for the users to request removal of a certain page with the Webpage removal request tool. This allows Google to improve the SafeSearch filter.

An interesting aspect is that on Google and Yahoo! the filtered content won’t show up in the results, but in Flickr they show it distorted, like this:

The distortion of the image is comparable to the warning screen on age-restricted videos on YouTube as well as the hiding of comments through rating. It’s visible to the community when it has been flagged and the choice to watch the video/picture anyway is made by the user self.

This means that in Google and in Yahoo! this SafeSearch function works similar to flagging. It controls the content on a site, but instead of deleting unwanted content SafeSearch holds it back from the viewer if he/she doesn’t which to see it. And this time it is not the community that decides which content isn’t conform wishes, but an algorithm makes this decision.

In the flagging procedures of Blip.tv, Dailymotion, Veoh and Yahoo the copyright infringement flag redirects the user to another form/instructions outside the flagging menu. 56.com, Google Video, Spike, Tudou and Youku don’t include copyright in their flagging options. Although 56.com does give the “other” option, which could serve this purpose.

One interesting finding is that in 7 out of 10 sites (with the exception of Tudou, Vimeo and Yahoo Video) the user does not need to be logged in to flag a video. In Vimeo the flagging option isn’t even visible when the user isn’t logged in. And with 56.com the option will show itself after a video has played in the player screen.

Platform Text Text Description You need to login

56.com Denounce/Inform* (none) no
blip.tv Report Inappropriate (none) no
dailymotion.com this video may offend this video may offend no
last.fm Flag for review (none) yes
livevideo.com Report Content Report Inappropriate Content yes
youtube.com Flag Report video as inappropriate yes

video.google.com Report Problem Report Problem no
spike.com
(formerly iFilm) Flag this Content as (none) no
Inappropriate
tudou.com Denounce / Inform the (none) yes
Video*
veoh.com (none) Flag Video no
vimeo.com Flag this video (none) yes**
video.yahoo.com Flag Video (none) yes
youku.com Denounce* (unclear) no
–
*) freely translated from Chinese
**) flagging option only visible when logged in.

The necessity of being logged-in to be able to flag videos can be both defended as well as criticized. Defending it would be to say that a user needs to be part of the community to form it and have their say in what is and isn’t acceptable. This is comparable to the US voting system where citizens need to register in order to vote.

With Yahoo Video the ID (username) is included in the form that is filled in, when flagging a video. And the user cannot change this. With Tudou the flagger isn’t able to submit his/her complaint before filling in his/her address and telephone number. When the flagger sees his/her username or address and telephone number on the form, this takes away the false sense of anonimity that he/she might have taken for granted while flagging the video. Taking in consideration the possibility of filling in false information in the Tudou flagging procedure. Seeing the data appearing on screen is a way to confront the user that the action to flag someone is connected to his/her account.

Even though with Vimeo a user has to be logged in, it’s nowhere visible in the flagging procedure whether the complaint is linked to your account. Which could be called a false sense of anonymity. This is enforced by the fact that users are not reminded of this action later on. This goes for YouTube as well. The company doesn’t notify the flagger about actions that they’ve undertook with the flagged video. There are seem to be no consequences connected to flagging a video for the flagger.

I have compared the flagging procedure of the following video sharing sites: 56.com, Blip.tv, Dailymotion, Google Video, Spike (formerly iFilm), Tudou, Veoh, Vimeo, Yahoo Video and Youku, with the flagging system on YouTube. This in order to see what implications the small differences in software has.

6.1. Categories

The number of categories given ranges from 2 (Youku) up to 11 (Veoh). Spike and Vimeo are the only two that don’t limit the flagging options to categories and leave it up to the flagger to fill in the reason. Vimeo does make some suggestions: “Is this sexually explicit? Did the user not make it? Is it illegal or offensive for some other reason? Please explain below, and the Vimeo staff will consider deleting it.” This strategy of handling flagging takes away the possibility for both Spike and Vimeo to prioritize the incoming complaints and forces them to give them all equal attention and therefore time. Regardless whether they are complaints regarding hate speech or just spam. Leaving them almost no other option than handling them all in a chronological order. On the other hand perhaps there’ll be lot less flagging going on if people actually have to type in an explanation of why it’s being flagged and prove it violates a policy.

Veoh subcategorises the flagging options into ‘Video Playback Problems’ and ‘Video Content Issues’. The sites that include options similar to ‘Video Playback Problems’ are 56.com and Youku. By doing so, they take away the negativity surrounding flagging. Because a user will flag something because he/she doesn’t agree with the content, regardless whether the rest of the community feels the same way. By including these technical support options, the flagger is helping everyone without consequences for any specific user. Changing the act of flagging from an egocentric action (’I don’t want to watch this, please remove this user’s video.’) to a benevolent one (’No one like this, could you please change this.’). For no one likes a video that doesn’t play right, or when the sound isn’t working.

Another aspect of that division between ‘Video Playback Problems’ and ‘Video Content Issues’ is the difference between problems and issues. For every problem, there is a solution. While issues demand discussion and most of the time don’t have one solution.

It is of no surprise that a subject such as homosexuality causes these types of negative reaction, because traditionally this is a type of group that has not gotten much representation in the mass media. Over the past several decades the traditional groups, such as corporate gatekeepers, educational authorities and church leaders, have lost their power to define cultural norms. A process that Grant McCracken calls the ‘withering of the witherers’;

Ideas and practices that were once hidden from public view – say, the Wiccan beliefs that fundamentalist critics claim are shaping the Harry Potter books – are now entering the mainstream, and these groups are struggling to police the culture that comes into their homes and communities. (Jenkins, 2006, p.208)

This results in today’s environment as one of cultural ‘plenitude’, also a concept of McCracken. He argues that because of cultural conditions and new media technologies we have a wide range of diverse cultural production;

Each new technology spawns a range of different uses, inspires a diversity of aesthetic responses, as it gets taken up and deployed by different communities of users. Such transformations broaden the means of self and collective expression.

You would say that in such a culture there would be no need for strategies to be heard or to even stay on the platform. These different personal expressions could develop a greater understanding from other perspectives on life. Users don’t need to agree with it, but they can at least accept them as being part of the community.

The LGBT part of the YouTube community seems especially vulnerable to flags, because of the visibility of the flags. Firstly, the ‘confirm birtdate’ message saying that the user is about to watch a flagged video. Secondly, the ‘not suited for minors’ message saying “you are now watching a flagged video”. This is often placed on videos with LGBT content, informing the community that these videos have been flagged. This could form an incentive for flaggers to flag more LGBT videos, because they have seen that it ‘works’. At the same time, this visible sign of being flagged also feeds the LGBT community to address the issue. Which leads to the conclusion that if all the flags set on videos would be made visible to the community this would lead to greater participation and foster debate. YouTube already makes use of a variety of banners, why not insert a banner stating why a video was flagged:

And inserting the option to either confirm or remove the flag, available for a selection of users. I will address this as well in my proposal.

Similar like Internet pioneer John Gilmore puts it (“The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” ) the LGBT community has come up with their own ways to deal with their seemingly unwanted presence at YouTube. There are different ways in which the LGBT community and affiliates react to ‘fagging’. One way is creating awareness by posting videos and writing articles and blogposts about the subject. But other interesting approaches deal with it by using the system.

a. re-posting videos
The paradox in starting a new account is that it’s not only done by the so-called ‘haters’, but also by the users whom account has been ‘fagged’. They do this in a way so that their audience can trace them back. For example, keeping the same name and adding something. So has the user ‘cha970’ turned into ‘cha9701’ and is currently available under ‘cha9704’. Her whole account exists of posting and re-posting episodes of ‘The L-Word’, a TV-series with lesbians in the lead roles. And as soon as her account is about to be deleted, she warns her subscribers by the means of a video. In which she tells that her account will be deleted and what her new account name will be. ‘Luvcats4’s account has been suspended, while ‘luvcats4again’ contains solely lesbian themed video clips. Amongst which a video called ” This Video May Not Be Suitable for Minors” YT Protest.” with this text on the side:

Every time you look around you see the words, “This video may not be suitable for minors” at the top of the screen. What bothers me is that a majority of these videos are either gay or lesbian and are quite tame in their content. To all you flaggers out there, come into the 21st Century. Don’t let homophobia rule YouTube.

Sometimes it isn’t the account that has been deleted, but just videos. Also in these cases this strategy is applied as well. For example, ‘ChrisCrocker’ reposts all his deleted videos under ‘ChrisCrockerDeleted’. Renaming accounts can also be done in advance of deletion in order that not all videos are gone when the account has been deleted. The user ‘mightyatomant’ also has an account under the name ‘mightyatomantagain’. Although she refers to the other on both sites and it’s quite clearly a way of categorizing her own content, it’s striking to see the different use in naming and tags.
b. hiding / controlling
Mightyatomant’s account is used to post clips from ‘The L Word’ (written full out in the title) and ‘Queer as Folk’ (abbreviated as ‘QAF’). While the ‘mightyatomantagain’ account is used to post lesbian themed movies, from which the titles are all abbreviated except for every first clip of a movie . This could be laziness of the user, seen the fact she had to make an average of ten posting per movie. But the specific use of tags stands out, for she tags a lot of movies with just the tag ‘movie’, while her first account has an average seven tags per videoclip. A tag like that in combination with an abbreviated title makes it hard for gay haters (also called ‘gay bashers’) to find the movie in order to flag it. Mightyatomantagain doesn’t do this consistently enough for it to be a strategy. She also sometimes uses just the tag ‘lesbian’, which is also notoriously used to attract users to porn videos. But the activity of specific tagging is seen more. Previously mentioned user ‘cha9704’ avoids using the tag ‘lesbian’ and with her history of multiple suspensions, being suspended at least four times and re-posting at least 74 videoclips every time, it seems she knows what “aggravates” gay haters and/or allows the YouTube staff to suspend her.

There are different functions tags perform for bookmarks as identified by Golder and Huberman (Golder, 2006). This list is extended with an 8th function by Tisselli (Tisselli, 2008), which recognizes the strategic role tags can play as been described above;

I. Identifying What (or Who) it is About.
Overwhelmingly, tags identify the topics of bookmarked items. These items include common nouns of many levels of specificity, as well as many proper nouns, in the case of content discussing
people or organizations.

II. Identifying What it Is.
Tags can identify what kind of thing a bookmarked item is, in addition to what it is about. For
example, article, blog and book.

III. Identifying Who Owns It.
Some bookmarks are tagged according to who owns or created the bookmarked content. Given the apparent popularity of weblogs among Delicious users, identifying content ownership can be particularly important.

IV. Refining Categories.
Some tags do not seem to stand alone and, rather than establish categories themselves, refine or
qualify existing categories. Numbers, especially round numbers (e.g. 25, 100), can perform this function.

V. Identifying Qualities or Characteristics.
Adjectives such as scary, funny, stupid, inspirational tag bookmarks according to the tagger’s opinion of the content.

VI. Self Reference.
Tags beginning with “my,” like mystuff and mycomments identify content in terms of its relation
to the tagger.

VII. Task Organizing.
When collecting information related to performing a task, that information might be tagged according to that task, in order to group that information together. Examples include toread, jobsearch. Grouping task-related information can be an important part of organizing while performing a task.

VIII. Strategic.
A tag can be created and disseminated for strategic purposes

The best example of hiding is done by the user account ‘mgsg07’, for she only allows other users to see her playlists after they’ve become friends with her on YouTube. Consequently her channel contains a mere 40 lesbian themed videos for everyone to see, while her playlists contains 287 videos which can only be viewed by friends and don’t show up in search results.

She quite consistently tags her movies with just the tag ‘Movie’, with exception of music videos. She shows luvcats4again’s YT protest video on her channel, which indicates that she’s aware of (and active in) the ”fagging” discussion.

YouTube participants can broaden or limit physical access to their videos and thus create larger or smaller media circuits by using technical features such as limited “friends-only” viewing or strategic tagging. (…) For example, one video maker used his YouTube name as his only tag. Unless one were a close enough friend to know this tag, it would be difficult to find his videos using the tagging system. (Lange, 2007)

I first called this strategy just ‘hiding’, but having read the article by P.G. Lange I added ‘controlling’. Because as the excerpt above shows, strategic / limited tagging is not only a way of getting lost in the mass (hiding), but also a way to control how easily a user can be found or not. Tagging can also be used in other strategic ways as the use of the tag ‘thinkflickrthink’ on Flickr shows; which was part of the reactions of Flickr users who, in an uncoordinated way, responded to a change in its filtering policy in Germany (Tisselli, 2008). When Flickr announced on June 12th 2007 new restrictions for its German users, which would prevent them from viewing content marked (by Flickr users themselves) as inappropriate, or “unsafe”. (see 4.1.1 SafeSearch)

c. reacting
Another strategy against ”fagging” is addressing the issue directly, like previously mentioned user Grimace has done. Or posting videos about ‘Gay Hate’ on YouTube in general, without talking about the flagging system. As did the previously mentioned ChrisCrocker with “Chris Crocker – Gay HATE on Youtube!” , in which he talks about hate speech, safety and the lack of media attention to this subject. With the exception of an article in the Advocate called “Homophobosphere” , of which he posted the URL next to the video. More users address the issue of ”fagging” and gay hate on YouTube in their videopostings . But, as many of them claim, the issue should get more media attention and to be taken more seriously. By joining the discussion, starting a platform and/or openly blogging about the subject matter. Just as YouTube does with other subjects like terrorism , American politics and wars (a.o. Iraq, Myanmar and Dafur).

In the previous chapter I mentioned that often the practice of flagging is not necessarily directed towards one particular video, but it is often to be found used against a certain group and/ or opinion. With this case study I will look at the side of the flagged instead of the flagger, as an addition to the previous chapter, to get a more complete insight in the community’s view on flagging.

5.1 F(l)agging gay content on YouTube

“Thousands of videos are flagged each day, and though we don’t break down specific metrics regarding what content is flagged, the assumption that ‘LGBT content is routinely subject to flagging by users, while similar content depicting straight characters/individuals does not get flagged,’ seems anecdotal and is not supported by what we observe on the site. YouTube is, and always has been, a forum for free
expression. To be clear, our community is made up of millions of people across the world and is diverse racially, ethnically, politically, religiously as well as in terms of sexual orientation.”

This written respond from YouTube’s marketing manager, Jenny Nielson, to AfterEllen.com shows that they actually downplay the issue of ‘fagging’. The term ‘fagging’ in this context, is used by the user ‘Grimace’ who posted a video called “Flagged or Fagged?” on January 25, 2007. In this video Grimace and CrazyStacey present a few videoclips from YouTube, while asking the question whether these videos were “fairly flagged or unfairly fagged.” Grimace himself explains the term ‘fagged’ as: “flagged on the basis of homosexual content.” This definition is used with the further use of the term ‘fagging’ in this article. An ironic sidenote is that ‘flagging’ has a whole other meaning within the LGBT community, where ‘flagging’ means carrying a colored handkerchief from the back pocket. And the different ways of doing this indicates that one is gay and the type of company he/ she is looking for.
After a video has been f(l)agged and the YouTube staff agrees with that, the video will get deleted or marked as “inappropriate” and/or the user account will be deleted . When a video has been marked “inappropriate” a user that wants to see that specific video has login first:

and to confirm the viewer’s birth date in order to verify the age of the viewer:

After doing so the following banner will remain in sight above the video:

“This video may not be suitable for minors.”

It’s quite debatable when a video is marked “inappropriate” based on gay content. And can there for be considered as ‘R’ rated . But as soon as a video or an account gets deleted because it has been unrightfully flagged for containing gay content without nudity or sexual content, flagging stops being a tool for moderating content and starts being a tool for censorship. And because it is the community that censors itself, in a way this is self-censorship. Even though it’s YouTube that has the last hand in the deletion process, it’s the flaggers that decide which videos are up for deletion. Although this case study only handles flagging on gay content, more types of content are being unrightfully flagged.

It seems that something really provoked the LGBT community in this year. For not only was 2007 the year Grimace posted his video about ‘fagging’, but many other articles and videos dealing with ‘fagging’ on YouTube were mostly written and posted in this year. The video, that caused a great upheaval about homophobia by the LGBT community on YouTube, was part of an ad campaign of Snickers (called “Snickers Satisfies”) that was aired during the Superbowl in 2007. The accompanied contest, using YouTube as a platform, asked people to vote for “the most satisfying ending”, posting the alternative endings on their own website . In the ad two guys accidentally kiss after which they try to prove how manly they are by ripping hair out of their chest. The website also displayed the reactions of five NFL players to the several versions of the ad. “The players’ reactions range from general amusement (…) to non-verbal disgust (…) to overt expressions of prejudice (…)” It was the endings together with the players’ reactions that provoked gay rights organizations (a.o. GLAAD) to take a stand. Although the original advertisement is still online on YouTube , the site has been taken down and the players’ reactions show up on YouTube under the message:

“This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Mars, Inc.”

The “Snickers”-outrage was followed up by a smaller discussion in August 2007 in response to the flagging of a videoposting of the first teenage gay kiss during American daytime television, between Luke and Noah from As The World Turns . It was claimed to be ‘fagged’ and later taken down in request by Viacom due to copyright infringement. The video has been mirrored (= copied and posted by other users, while the original video is still online) numerously since then. Although YouTube responded in its own way by improving their flagging system in November of 2007 , the main issue has not been resolved yet.

The main cause for the issues is invisibility of the flags and the flagger towards the community, which keeps them from responding in an accurate way. So they create their own strategies to deal with falsely flagged videos by appropriating the flagging system in many different ways. Both the unauthorized use of votebotting and flagging campaigns as well as the informal self-organized efforts of against these practices can be interpreted as a form of grassroots convergence. The reaction to this by YouTube can happen in two ways; either they respond to it by democratizing the system or they will accept the community’s efforts of pushing the boundaries of the existing flagging system.

“No sooner is a new technology – say, Google Maps – released to the public than diverse grassroots communities begin to tinker with it, expanding its functionality, hacking its code, and pushing it into a more participatory direction.” (Jenkins, 2006, p.255)

Similar to the case of ‘fakesters’ which , as explained by danah boyd, allowed people to play within the system. A phenomenon that is now widely practiced and accepted on sites like MySpace, Facebook etc.