FILED UNDER: GOOGLE TECH YOUTUBE YouTube took down more videos than ever last quarter as it relied more on non-human moderators In-office staffing reductions due to the coronavirus meant it reiled more on its auto filters By Kim Lyons Aug 25, 2020, 5:17pm EDT Share this story Share this on Facebook (opens in new window) Share this on Twitter (opens in new window) SHARE All sharing options Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As it predicted would likely happen, YouTube removed more videos in the second quarter of 2020 than it ever has, as the company leaned more on its algorithm in place of most of its human content moderators. That’s according to the Community Guidelines Enforcement report the company released Tuesday (via Protocol), which shows it took down more than 11.4 million videos between April and June. In the same period last year, YouTube removed just under 9 million videos. “When reckoning with greatly reduced human review capacity due to COVID-19, we were forced to make a choice between potential under-enforcement or potential over-enforcement,” the company wrote in a blog post. “Because responsibility is our top priority, we chose the latter — using technology to help with some of the work normally done by reviewers.” YouTube parent company Google told employees in March it was extending its work-from-home policy until the end of 2020 due to the coronavirus. The company warned that the measures meant it would rely more on technology than human reviewers and that videos that would normally be fine on the platform may end up being removed in error. Its human moderators work from offices specifically set up for reviews; to allow such work to be done outside of a controlled environment would risk having user data — and sensitive videos — inadvertently exposed. The company knew that removing more videos that didn’t violate its rules would also mean more appeals from content creators as a result. So it added more staff to its appeals process to handle requests as quickly as possible. The number of appeals for content takedowns went from 166,000 in the first quarter of 2020 to more than 325,000 in the second. It also meant YouTube reversed itself and reinstated more videos in the second quarter: more than 160,000, compared to just over 41,000 in the first quarter (although YouTube noted in its blog post that some of the reinstatements may have been appealed in an earlier quarter). YouTube said in its blog post that for sensitive policy areas such as child safety and violent extremism, it saw more than triple the number of removals as usual during the second quarter, but it viewed the temporary inconvenience for creators as worth the end result. “We accepted a lower level of accuracy to make sure that we were removing as many pieces of violative content as possible.” CONTENT BY THE VERGE NEXT UP IN TECH

Nanotechnology — the manipulation of matter on a molecular level — to shape the future of a wide variety of industries. Consumer electronics, silicon, and health care are a few major areas where nanotechnology could provide major advances in the future, but those aren't the only places where it can make an impact — researchers at UCLA recently used nanotechnology to create a "booze pill" that lowers the intoxication level of lab rats. While it may take years for the nanotech findings to make their way into consumer-facing products, this research may lend a clue as to what kind of technology we have to look forward to.

DESIGN THESE 'SIGNS FROM THE NEAR FUTURE' MAY BE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR By Jacob Kastrenakes@jake_k May 19, 2014, 4:07pm EDT Share this story Share this on Facebook (opens in new window) Share this on Twitter (opens in new window) SHARE All sharing options Futuristic technologies have never sounded more like they're right on the horizon. From lab-grown meat to virtual reality to fleets of drones that can transport goods almost anywhere, scientists and major technology companies are promising incredible changes that could shift what the world looks like just years from now. Designer Fernando Barbella is both entranced by and concerned with what all of these changes could mean, and he's created a series of images that depict what a not-so-distant year might look like with all of these advancements. Titled "Signs from the Near Future," Barbella's new project takes the form of a Tumblr filled with photographs that present what's coming down the road in a manner that often seems as though it could turn out to be eerily accurate. "I've been reading lots of articles and news lately related with innovation in science and technology," Barbella, who's based in Barcelona, tells The Verge by email. "New materials, mashups between living organisms and nanotechnologies, improved capabilities for formerly 'dumb' and inanimate things... there a zillion things going on around us!" Barbella wants his signs to not just depict that momentum and progress, but to reflect the potentially disturbing aspects of those advances as well. "The fact is all these things are going to cease being just 'projects' to became part of our reality at any time soon," he says. "I feel that as we increasingly depend on technology, we will probably have less space for individual judgment to make decisions." Beyond that, Barbella sees an interesting dynamic in the public's push and pull against what new technology allows us to do. Though the technology grants people access to information and other cultures, it also poses issues of privacy and ethics that hold that back. "I think we're going to get use to it," Barbella says. His images offer a look at why those issues are certain to keep coming — and at the same time, why many will ultimately fall aside. Rich McCormick contributed to this report. GRID VIEW 1 of 10 All images reprinted with permission of Fernando Barbella. CONTENT BY THE VERGE Verizon spent $1.9 billion to catch up on 5G spectrum ENTERTAINMENT Mulan will be available to all Disney Plus subscribers for no extra fee on December 4th APPLE How to transfer your Google Authenticator 2FA to a new phone SPONSORED CONTENT