YouTube censorship of comments - screenshots and analysis
What I have found about YouTube - filtering, shadow-banning, and deletion of comments. Manipulating public opinion and perceptions. Without telling anyone.
How does YouTube algorithm censor comments? - go figure:
Hidden from Channel OWNERS:
The reply AUTHOR can’t see, edit or delete their OWN replies if they are hidden, in ‘Top’ view!
Which comments does YouTube hide, which does it prioritise? Compare ‘Top’ and ‘Newest’ views:
Here's a side-by-side screenshot of what comments YouTube is censoring.
To view full detail, right click the image and open it in a new tab, then expand the size.
It says 25 comments.
Sort by "Top" shows 9, mostly inane 1-2 liners, generally emphasising Wagner or Putin's power.
Sort by "Newest" shows 9 more, including 5 1-2 liners mostly belittling Wagner/Putin.
6 comments are not shown in either "sort".
This is what YouTube is doing to comments posted in good faith.
It's a vicious circle - YT is promoting garbage comments which get likes and replies.
No amount of replies make longer comments show.
(This may be set by Times Radio? This page, if you would like to compare notes with YT NZ "What Wagner did next: The rebranding of Putin’s secret weapon"
Feel free to share or comment
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Replies to YT comments are censored too. even the number of replies is changed
Even 1 line replies are selectively censored
This is shadow banning (different from hiding in the “top sort” filter) - your comment can be seen only by you, but nobody else:
It’s been around a while. The difference is now AI seems to detect innuendos as well as word combinations; and, it’s not aimed at spam or hate speech - which actually appear to be prioritised. It’s aimed at manipulating opinion.
This is eerily reflective of comment censorship on Elon Musk’s twitter posts.
This censorship method is very similar to what I observed on Elon Musk’s Twitter posts, even before Musk took over.
I have screenshots of my comments deleted from his Ukraine poll pages.
There were exclusively garbage comments left, obviously designed to prevent rational discussion and make pro-Ukraine commenters appear as irrational abusive warmongers - on a par with the pro-Russian troll comments.
Thus creating the impression that there are no rational srguments against what Musk was saying.
Discouraging viewers of his posts from even bothering to look at comments on Twitter - which of course often rebut or add context to posts.
Almost certainly those comments were deleted by Musk, not Twitter.
And here’s a screenshot for Jonathan - what is done to a private channel where we know the creator hasn’t deleted ot filtered comments (As opposed to a major media channel, Times Radio, above)
Sadly posting to X blurred it and the original got lost in a crash- here were my preliminary observstions though
RE YT COMMENTS: Here's your stats for just now on Ukraine War Update NEWS (20240319c)
Your comments stats as at 2024-03-20 09_28_48
"116 Comments" statement at top of the list
55 comments shown in Default "Sort by" ("Top comments"),
89 shown in Sort by "Newest first",
= 27 not shown anywhere.
As to filtered comment features:
DELETED comments and replies to comments (don't show anywhere including the poster's own browser): - my detailed comments about the UN, and Poland have almost invariably been deleted - I sent you 1 screenshot a while back which you read out.
- length is not the issue, often there are other longer comments which do show. Usually pretty garbled disinformation ones.
(I haven't counted the longest but one was 2800 characters including spaces)
SHADOWBANNED comments AND REPLIES TO COMMENTS (show in the poster's default sort comments but hidden in default view for everyone else, also hidden in the notifications dropdown from the bell at the top, Looks like they are hidden from wherever creators check your comments as well:
- Both long and 1-liners.
- you can judge for yourself from the screenshots I sent above, and this one, comparing the hidden ones with the ones shown under "Top". I haven't looked at yours but see my comments on the one I sent earlier.