For some time now, there has been a prevailing fear that
advancing technology (read: the “robots”) will eventually outsmart humans and dominate
the labor market, rendering people useless and out of work. And yet, YouTube’s
latest decision to assign human workers to watch every second of video in its curated lineup of top content, Google
Preferred, is demonstrating the strong necessity for human intervention to manage
online marketing.
Google Preferred aggregates YouTube's most popular channels
among 18- to 34- year-olds, giving brands massive reach. The idea to involve
human reviewers is designed to protect advertisers by attempting to control viral YouTube content. In my opinion, it’s a sensible decision, if not overdue.
Facebook and Twitter have taken similar steps recently, and brands are paying YouTube
top dollar for premium ad positioning, so naturally they want to ensure that
their logos don’t appear next to offensive content, which there appears to be a
growing amount of each day. YouTube and its advertisers have experienced a
number of scandals related to this issue over the last few years, putting YouTube
on its back foot. But more than anything, it has further illustrated the
immense challenge (and responsibility) major companies like Google have of regulating
the internet.
All of that being said, according to YouTube, users upload
400 hours of video to the site each
minute. So the idea that an army of employees and contractors can review
and approve/reject the content in any kind of timely fashion is a Herculean, if
not impossible, task.
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