The themes this week were privacy and policy. With the US Independence Day holiday in the middle of the week, it’s not too surprising that there weren’t many updates from Google and other US companies. But what we do have are some news and discussions of content removal stats, potential privacy issues, and an update on the EU copyright policy reform proposal.
- Google’s Transparency Report for the first quarter of 2018, with stats for videos removed for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines. Most videos were removed by automated systems. And it turns out the vast majority of human-flagged content was actually not removed, and individual Trusted Flaggers were responsible for most of the successful removals.
- YouTube also made it easier to moderate comments on your videos and channel. Instead of having to choose between holding all comments for review, or allowing all comments, you can now have YouTube hold potentially inappropriate comments for review. YouTube says that the system should improve over time, as channel owners choose to either report, hide or restore the held comments.
- What is “inappropriate” often depends on context. Facebook’s content review systems sometimes miss that, as one newspaper discovered when one of their posts sharing the text of the US Declaration of Independence was removed for “hate speech”. The post was restored, and Facebook apologized, but the sheer volume of content (and trickiness in determining context) means that we’ll likely be hearing about more cases like this one. Especially as Facebook and other big platforms like Google, YouTube, and Twitter are pressured to remove hateful content as rapidly as possible.
- The European Parliament voted to send a controversial copyright reform bill “back to the drawing board”. There will be a new vote in September. Of particular concern were the requirement for internet platforms to implement content filters (like YouTube’s Content ID, but for all kinds of content), and a so-called “link tax” targeting news aggregators like Google News.
- The Wall Street Journal reported that some companies that offer Gmail apps sometimes use humans to read email messages. This has only happened when users grant an app permission to view your mail, and it doesn’t appear to be a breach of Google’s terms. In response to user consternation, Google explained their developer review process, and reminded everyone to make sure that only desired apps have access to your account.
- AdSense turned 15 years old this month. In addition to adding animated balloons to every account (which hopefully will be removed at the end of the month), AdSense celebrated by adding Telugu as a supported language.
Image: I hope you stay as cool as this goose this weekend. Photo by me.
Upcoming:
- 9 July: YouTube Private Messages removed
- 10 July: Google Marketing Live Keynote
- 11 July: AdSense on Air: Traffic & Deliver your first DFP orders
YouTube and Video Creation
- YouTube now lets you hold potentially inappropriate comments for review
- Content removal on YouTube for Community Guidelines violations - human review, automated systems and Trusted Flaggers (Google)
- Gooaalll!! YouTube has custom GIFs to cheer your favorite World Cup team
- What kind of music do you want from YouTube's Audio Library? (Creator Insider)
- Vimeo's video review tools are free for the month of July (Vimeo)
Go Live
- Three ways to make money live streaming (Video Creators with Tim Schmoyer and Barbara E Mac)
- Popular Twitch streamers receive lengthy bans for using homophobic languages, offensive jokes (Polygon)
Google+
- Google+ tips for sparking conversations and connections (Nina Trankova in the Google+ Collections Community)
- Google+ Tip: How to create a hashtag theme (Margaret Tompkins in Google+ Collections Community)
Other social media
- Invisible asymptotes (Eugene Wei @ Remains of the Day)
- An Open Letter to Facebook: You have No Excuse (Noteworthy)
- Facebook shuts down tbh and other apps over 'low usage' (Engadget)
- Hello. tbh, We’re Moving On (Facebook Newsroom)
- Instagram introduces “You’re All Caught Up” in Feed (Instagram)
- Twitter reportedly suspended 70 million accounts in past two months in crackdown (The Verge)
- Reddit - one of the world’s most popular websites - is trying to cash in through advertising (CNBC)
- LinkedIn adds new translation tools and QR codes for profiles (SocialMediaToday)
- In 2018, Tumblr is a joyless black hole (Kotaku)
Google Photos and Mobile Photography
- 500px Removes Marketplace, Takes Away Licensing Under Creative Commons (FStoppers)
- Microsoft’s facial recognition service now less bad for nonwhites (Ars Technica)
Google for businesses
- Google My Business adds search queries to your business's Insights (Tim Capper)
- Google says no, Duplex AI won’t take over human call centers (c|net)
AdSense and advertising
- AdSense now understands Telugu - AdSense ఇప్à°ªుà°¡ు à°¤ెà°²ుà°—ుà°¨ి à°…à°°్à°¥ం à°šేà°¸ుà°•ుంà°Ÿుంà°¦ి (AdSense)
- AdSense turned 15 this month (AdSense)
Hangouts and Messaging
- Android Messages, RCS, "Chat" and Google (9to5Google)
Made by Google, Android, Project Fi
- Android P Beta 3 is now available (Android Developers Blog)
- What's new for text in Android P (Android Developers Blog)
- Android P Preview 4 tweaks gesture navigation, revamps system icons (Ars Technica)
Productivity
- Google launches AI-powered content recommendations for G Suite customers (Venture Beat)
- A customer complaint about Google Cloud went viral last week and now Google is doing damage control to “ensure this does not happen again” (Business Insider)
- Lights, camera, cloud: new tools for our media and entertainment customers (Google Cloud Blog)
Privacy and Security
- Run a Security Checkup to manage which 3rd party apps have access to your Gmail and other Google services (Google)
- The "Stylish" browser extension is recording your entire internet browsing history (Robert Heaton)
- “Stylish” extension with 2M downloads banned by Google Chrome, Mozilla and Opera for tracking every site visit (Ars Technica)
EU Copyright Reform
- European Parliament balks at copyright law reform vote (The Register)
- EU sends controversial internet copyright reforms back to the drawing board (The Verge)
- EU Parliament Votes To Step Back From The Abyss On Copyright For Now (TechDirt)
More around the web
- NASA astronaut Ellison Onizuka's soccer ball that survived the Challenger explosion (ESPN)
- Check out what Americans are cooking in the July 4th Google Doodle (Google)
- Wikipedia goes dark in Spanish, Italian ahead of key EU vote on copyright (TechCrunch).
- Humans aren't obsolete yet; or, AI is hard and expensive (The rise of “pseudo-AI”) (The Guardian)
- Our brains are insane (Twitter threads by @foone and @analogist_net)
- Dictionary.com: Noun. Oakland company, master of trolling Trump et al. (The Mercury News)
- Two strangers met on a plane - and the internet ruined it (The Atlantic)
- Netflix is killing off user reviews (Ars Technica)
- I Bullshitted My Way to the Top of Paris Fashion Week (Vice)
- 38 essential ‘80s songs about nuclear anxiety (Stereogum)
Updated March 2019 to remove Google+ links
Due to network security concerns, Youtube removed various links that does not meet it's security policy requirements. Thank you.
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