This seems a bit like a misrepresentation to me.
What is meant with “auto-generated video” is that when you release a song, it appears on different platforms such as Spotify and Amazon music as well as iTunes, but also ofc YouTube. And YouTube makes a little video, because everything on YouTube is a video. But the contribution to the content from YouTube is zero. And of course there is no AI or creative input from YouTube involved in any way.
The actual problem here is that YouTube either doesn’t have guidelines on hatespeech or similar in songs (YouTube Music - it’s a separate part of the platform basically), or they don’t enforce it.
Of course this doesn’t change the fact that YouTube probably shouldn’t release any songs that would be against their regular content policies on their platform. But I really wanted to make it clear that YouTube’s contribution to the content itself is zero. It’s only taking song from the distributor and putting it on the platform.
“What we have here, is a failure to moderate.”
Exactly.
Updated:
The bot missed the context, added it below
And YouTube, one of the top music streaming platforms in the country, has helped this music expand its reach among young audiences. YouTube not only hosts such songs; it also generates videos for them.
Both the songs in the above examples violate YouTube’s policy against promoting violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on religion. Yet the videos are credited as “Auto-generated by YouTube” in the description.
The platform uses the term “Auto-generated” since the videos are not uploaded directly by users. “YouTube auto-generates videos at scale [which it terms Art Tracks] for audio tracks delivered by record labels and distributors. Artists have to submit the recording, artwork and metadata to create Art Tracks,” a YouTube spokesperson wrote in an email statement to Bellingcat.
Bellingcat identified 114 videos across 54 channels generated for songs that promote discrimination — and in some cases outright violence — against Muslims in India, posted from May 2019 to September 2023. YouTube is also running advertisements on these videos, which have a combined view count of over 5.4 million. Seven of these songs were unavailable at the time of publication, one channel was terminated and another channel was blocked in India due to a legal complaint from the government. We collected the songs using YouTube’s Data API, scraping autoplay and manual search.
The songs have been categorised into “Hate”, those carrying speech in direct violation of YouTube’s policy, and “Fear”, which researchers at Indian Institute of Technology and Rutgers University define as speech that attempts to incite fear about a target community. Our dataset is not exhaustive due to the limitations of the API and restricting our search to only Hindi-language content. Many of the YouTube-generated tracks are in the Bhojpuri language
This is the best summary I could come up with:
As author and activist Harsh Mander wrote for Scroll, “remaking his gentle image from a symbol of righteousness, duty, compassion and devotion, into a wrathful combative warrior raging against the politically constructed “enemy within”.
Yogi Adityanath, the man the song says will come to power, is a BJP leader and Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, an Indian state which has made headlines for violent crimes against Muslims.
Last month, a mob of Hindu men climbed atop a mosque’s walls in the state of Karnataka, dancing to the song and singing the lyrics, “We will not rest till your (Ram’s) temple is built.
Hate music has been used by Hindu nationalists since the early 1990s, the journalist and Narendra Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay told the Associated Press last year, noting cassette tapes featuring adapted versions of popular Bollywood songs were distributed to appeal to young people at the time.
Over 20 people were injured in different parts after groups of Hindus marched through Muslim neighbourhoods waving saffron flags and swords as they danced and shouted along to anti-Muslim songs blasting from loudspeakers.
“The priority should be to make sure that the technology is not misused in environments where politics and personal relations and other aspects of society are actually more volatile.”In the opposition statement to the shareholder’s proposal, Alphabet said that it believes the company provides sufficient disclosures about YouTube’s policies and procedures and that it completes “extensive regulatory compliance work.”
The original article contains 2,271 words, the summary contains 240 words. Saved 89%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
