{"id":9092,"date":"2020-09-17T17:38:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-17T17:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aviancetechnologies.com\/blog\/mozillas-regretsreporter-browser-extension-will-try-to-learn-why-youtube-is-awful\/"},"modified":"2020-09-17T17:38:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T17:38:00","slug":"mozillas-regretsreporter-browser-extension-will-try-to-learn-why-youtube-is-awful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aviancetechnologies.com\/blog\/mozillas-regretsreporter-browser-extension-will-try-to-learn-why-youtube-is-awful\/","title":{"rendered":"Mozilla’s RegretsReporter browser extension will try to learn why YouTube is awful"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mozilla’s RegretsReporter browser extension will try to learn why YouTube is awful<\/h2>\n

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You\u2019re casually browsing through YouTube, video after video. Suddenly, you jolt upright. Some content creator you\u2019ve never heard of is trying to tell you the moon landing was faked…or worse. A\u00a0lot<\/em> worse. And like you, Mozilla\u2019s RegretsReporter browser plugin wants to know how in the world that happened.<\/p>\n

In a way, Mozilla\u2019s new RegretsReporter plugin\u2014available for Mozilla Firefox and Chrome\u2014takes a look back at the \u201dElsagate\u201d scandal of 2017<\/a>: when videos supposedly depicting child-friendly characters were put into bizarre, disturbing situations by creators hoping to game YouTube\u2019s recommendation algorithm. YouTube said later that it had demonetized those types of videos and prevented them from appearing on YouTube Kids.<\/p>\n

Still, the problems haven\u2019t gone away, as innocuous searches for \u201cscience\u201d videos<\/a> can lead down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories that YouTube\u2019s recommendation algorithm blindly suggests. In a scenario like that, you might click and \u201creport\u201d the video to YouTube, but what happens then? RegretsReporter essentially allows you to file a separate, anonymized complaint that researchers can use to parse how and why YouTube is showing you something.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how it works: After you download the browser extension, RegretsReporter quietly watches in the background, anonymously keeping track of how long you\u2019ve been surfing YouTube. If you end up with a video that you find reportable (Mozilla encourages you to act in good faith) RegretsReporter notes the URL of the video and asks you for the reason you find it reportable.<\/p>\n

The extension then supplies a list of the videos you watched beforehand\u2014keeping your identity anonymous\u2014in order to establish an X to Y to Z chain of the videos that slowly led you down Google\u2019s rabbit hole. What it\u2019s trying to establish is what types of videos lead to racist, violent, or conspiratorial content, and if there\u2019s a pattern of videos that eventually lead to those types of results.\u00a0Mozilla said that it plans to share its research publicly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Mozilla<\/a> Mozilla<\/small>
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Mozilla\u2019s RegretsReporter browser extension for Firefox and Chrome allows you to report \u201cregrettable\u201d videos to researchers, who will try to crack YouTube\u2019s \u201cblack box\u201d algorithm and determine why a video was shown.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Why does YouTube show what it does?<\/h2>\n

Mozilla\u2019s efforts to examine the AI algorithms of sites like YouTube began in late 2019, when Mozilla\u2019s vice president for advocacy Ashley Boyd said<\/a> she noticed that her YouTube recommendations began surfacing Korean videos after voluntarily selecting a Korean romantic comedy to watch. Seventy percent of all time spent on YouTube is spent viewing YouTube-recommended content, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we think about how our data is collected, offered without our full understanding, and then used to target us with ads and other content\u2014this is actually trying to flip the script a little bit and have people use their own information for part of a collective research project,\u201d Boyd said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\"mozilla<\/a> Mark Hachman \/ IDG<\/small>
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An example of how a video is reported using Mozilla\u2019s RegretsReporter video. (PCWorld did not report the video, nor did we find it objectionable.)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

RegretsReporter’s data will be subject to the same frailties as its human users. Mozilla acknowledged that the concept of \u201cregrettable\u201d varies by person. The tool doesn\u2019t track metadata, so it\u2019s up to researchers to intuit what in the video led YouTube to recommend the next in the chain. Users may decide whether to opt in to allowing RegretsReporter to supply the causal chain of one video to the next, though the data is less useful if users opt out. Still, YouTube\u2019s algorithm is essentially a black box, and Mozilla\u2019s goal is to shed some light on what\u2019s inside, Boyd said.<\/p>\n