Attitudes: Reporters, Reported, and Youtube
Real Accomplishments
Attitudes of people whose reports are heard can be more effective toward changing other problems. Not all attitudes from reporting will be negative. A lot of progress has already been made with reporting. YouTube and the audience of the site have both been trying to change their attitude to become more helpful towards reporting.
YouTube has a list of rules that one must abide by in order to not get his or her content reported. YouTube has many restrictions towards what videos can display especially regarding copyright or anything perceived as harassment toward other members or non members. YouTube has always done a pretty decent job of omitting any pornographic or discriminatory videos or comments off of their site. Of course, there are instances where certain content becomes unnoticed, but the YouTube algorithm for connecting videos that people have watched with similar, relevant videos is usually very good at avoiding the situation of something nasty and unexpected coming up. Often, the type of video one is watching attracts a certain type of audience that comments in certain patterns as well.
People that have the goal of keeping the internet a safe and enjoyable environment are helping to moderate the internet in ways which YouTube itself has not. However, there are many interactions that are difficult to consider as harassment or inappropriate behavior without trying to dictate too much, and a slippery slope with too much gray area could arise. Here is the list of reportable comments right now:
One problem I see specifically with YouTube’s list of reporting is that harassment or bullying is supposedly not tolerated, but there is constantly body shaming, racism, sexism, ageism, and disability shaming. If something is done in a humorous, ironic, or sarcastic way to make a point, it is different than a lot that should count as bullying. Yet, when someone gives a perfectly reasonable argument as to why something has offended them, and the original commenter still does not take this seriously, then there is a problem with empathy, and YouTube should be able to take this argument as something that makes the content reportable. Cyber bullying has not gone away, so obviously, the hosts of websites have not helped fix the problem well enough yet.
Putting importance on the right perspective for reporting has been a long process, but thankfully, there are many different qualifications for reportable content. Since we have the reporting system and it is actually used, YouTube has also given people the option to create a blacklist based on category, term, YouTube channel, or YouTube video. People such as parents and teachers will and have become more comfortable using YouTube to teach or entertain children since they know they can trust the site to use appropriate blacklisting techniques to report in a more complicated way. Relevant comments should also be looked at and censored more regarding blacklists that are made for specific videos.
Obviously it is very important to report something that is truly bullying, or puts someone’s life or self-image in danger. Parents should also be involved in their children's lives enough to notice if they are using a website that may not be appropriate for their age. However, YouTube has to do as much as they can to not censor their content, but instead put age restrictions on deserving content since no one can completely control what their child does when he or she is away from supervision.