Personalized Censorship in Social Media
Or, Customizing Your Experience on Twitter, YouTube, and Social Networks

Last night an interesting thing happened, and it got me thinking about a number of different topics. I intend to cover them all in enough detail to explain the various problems with modern technology, and expose a number of facets of our media that I take issue with, especially while drunk in the middle of the night.
My wife and I enjoy watching YouTube on our smart TV. With the Roku they display a lot of information about each channel, for example we can tell what channel posted the video. If we’re using any other device, it doesn’t display the publisher so it’s like rolling the dice. This really wasn’t a problem until we started watching channels like Feminist Frequency, Laci Green, and H. Bomberguy. Once we subscribed, ‘related channel’ content started appearing, it wasn’t good content either. It wasn’t until we watched How to fix your recommendations that we realized why.
The Problem With YouTube’s Related Channels On Set-Top Boxes
Because there was no way to say ‘not interested’ on my television, I would then have to get out my mobile phone and try to do it there. I have also found that selecting ‘not interested’ does anything to diminish the amount of content I see from a given channel, at least on my TV. And even on my Roku. There’s no Chrome extension for YouTube on a set-top box. It’s pretty inconvenient and I’m not sure why they have to mingle all this content together. Especially given the way the cottage ‘Feminist Frequency hater’ channels have appeared and are thriving on recommendations and the attention of bigots who want to feel normalized and reassured. You’d think YouTube would want to aggregate the number of ‘not today, Satan’ choices that viewers make as a whole and not recommend clickbait content. Maybe they need to add a ‘really not interested’ option and start tracking that.
Hiding Is Not The Answer
One option for YouTube is to hide channels. I haven’t found that to be entirely effective on my TV though. Also, sometimes I’ll watch a video and it’ll be about one of the channels that I’ve hidden. Then I’m left wondering whether I should go un-hide them so I can watch the original content that’s being critiqued or whatever. Then I’ve got to go back on my mobile phone or a computer to figure out how to undo it.
Why Are We Watching This?
We decided to watch a YouTube video because it had a thumbnail with a couple of YouTubers that I subscribe to on the cover. This is another problem with YouTube and probably a lot of other media as well. Video thumbnails are supposed to provide a quick snapshot of videos to folks browsing content on YouTube. There are even Thumbnail policies though they only suggest following community guidelines and not display “sexually suggestive, violent, or graphic” images. When we search for fail or funny videos we often see sexually suggestive thumbnails. In the related or recommended what is annoying is how thumbnails are abused because the creator has taken stills of other content creators or channels, and added them to the thumbnail as clickbait (spam, misleading metadata, and scams). When I try to report the particularly egregious channels using my TV I’m told that I need to do it from a mobile phone or computer. Convenient.
Last night’s video was noteworthy for a couple of reasons: first, we thought it was going to be about Laci Green, Kevin Logan, and some other people we enjoy on YouTube. Instead, it was a drawing of a bear sitting crosslegged on a couch with a voice over it, cutting back and forth between people talking about Laci Green. One of the YouTubers used early in this clip kept talking about humanity. This led to a fun conversation with my wife about the argument to moderation or golden mean fallacy (something I was reminded of by ContraPoints recently).
There Is No Argument To Moderation For Bigotry
Next, a shit-talking liberal appeared saying things that I generally agree with, though not making the points I would have which is that bigotry is not negotiable. The notion that you should tolerate it and attempt to find some compromise with bigots is a fallacy. Some of the clips were so over the top that the drawing of the bear’s eyes widened. My wife remarked that after seeing this, Logical Llama took on a whole new dimension. I wanted to make sure I was following this shit-talking liberal on Twitter so I looked him up on my mobile phone and discovered he had blocked me.
My #FollowBack Fam
In the past my account was a “#followback” account. What this means is that I was using Twitter to try to amass as many followers as possible, like a game, using apps that turned my account into a game. I didn’t intend to post real content to this account until the election happened. It transformed into a place where I could follow and post my opinions in relative peace. However, I found that I was following a lot of accounts that were tweeting spam, misleading metadata, and scams. I had to figure out how to deal with thousands of accounts. And I did this in a few ways using the tools available on Twitter.
Using Twitter Lists
For awhile I would add people to a private list. This meant having to navigate to the list in order to see the accounts that interested me (more navigation action on my part is bad, I am lazy). This left my home timeline (where everyone I follow goes) off limits. I thought about publishing my lists and then I saw that I had been added to a number of lists without my consent. That’s when I decided that lists were not for me, and deleted it.
Blocking Twitter Accounts
Some of the stuff I was seeing was offensive. And, because I was engaged in following people back for awhile after I started to post real content to my account, I decided I would try blocking those accounts so that I didn’t accidentally end up following them again during a ‘follow binge.’ After awhile I realized that this wasn’t going to work either because it felt like for every gross ad posting account I blocked, I would follow two or three more. Then, I noticed there were coordinated ads across multiple accounts, and that I would have to block all of them. And, I learned that when you are blocked you cannot access that person’s content while you are signed into Twitter. I didn’t want to stop anyone from seeing my stuff. Ultimately, I decided to stop following back entirely. Once my behavior changed it was easier to simply unfollow the offending accounts, eliminating them from my timeline.
Muting Twitter Accounts
I later discovered I could have muted the accounts whose content I did not want to see. This would have a couple of benefits: they could still follow me and not know that they were muted, which feels deceitful. And, they would still be in my ‘follow count,’ which again, feels wrong. But, what’s also cool about that is that since they’re on that muted list I can still visit their account and access their content, even re-tweeting the things that I enjoy about their account, while not having to see all the #followback nonsense, or strange scripted advertisements.
But What About That One Dude?
I thought that maybe I had sent a message directly to this guy on Twitter and he had blocked me without a response or investigating my account. Or, that I had been retweeted into his timeline and he took offense to something I wrote that was not directly about him (people are sensitive). In my drunken confused state I searched Twitter and found a number of people had posted about this guy and his blocking habits. There were comments about how they had come upon his account and discovered that they were blocked, never having had any contact with him. This made me feel better in a way because it felt like I wasn’t blocked for two of the three reasons that I thought I had been blocked. That is when I remembered that there are shared block lists circulating Twitter; one person even wrote that if this dude shared his block list then half of the people on Twitter would be blocked.
I’m not a fan of block lists for a few reasons. The people on the list did not consent to being put there; there’s no way to petition or asked to be removed. For everyone but the person who curates and publishes the list, they don’t know the people on the list or why they were put there. When you are blocked you cannot access that person’s content while you are signed into Twitter, from what I’ve read these lists are often private so you can’t really find out if you’re on the list. It’s a mess.
Where Is The Conclusion?
“OH! You’re talking to some rando I autoblocked without ever having to know who the fuck they were. Never mind!”
— A shit-talking liberal that blocked me on Twitter
Links and stuff
If you have a minute you should really check out Michael Rowlands.
H. Bomberguy
https://youtube.com/user/hbomberguy
Feminist Frequency
https://youtube.com/user/feministfrequency
Laci Green
https://youtube.com/user/lacigreen
How to fix your recommendations
https://youtu.be/jN0REjUCGlE
YouTube Community settings
https://www.youtube.com/comment_management
Add video thumbnails — YouTube Help — Thumbnail policies
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/72431
Community Guidelines — YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/yt/policyandsafety/communityguidelines.html
Kevin Logan (was taken down, might not be restored, see below)
https://www.youtube.com/user/ploppy111
Kevin Francis Logan (new channel, the one above might not be restored)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYbGeTvLoXoBaTP-i96UtZw
ContraPoints
https://www.youtube.com/user/ContraPoints
Logical Llama and Skeptical Squirrel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2iFPW6iPe1eCtlMSm5-2MA
Using Twitter Lists | Twitter
https://support.twitter.com/articles/76460
Advanced options for using block | Twitter
https://support.twitter.com/articles/20172663
