Multiple press outlets are reporting this morning about the increasing use of YouTube's messaging and basic video hosting features for spam. There's nothing that many people hate more than spam, apparently feeling obligated to read every email that lands in their inbox. Why the new world of social networking and social media hasn't taken the most basic steps to stop spam and pre-empt this criticism I don't know. Perhaps like MySpace's awful but page-load intensive site design, YouTube doesn't stop spam because it serves their interests in driving traffic and selling ads.
Google's video sharing site still hasn't instituted as much as a captcha requirement in order to send a message through its service, something that even MySpace did only last week. If the proliferation of spam blogs on Google's Blogspot is any indication it may be a long time before YouTube does anything about spam emails driving users back to their site.
Unfortunately even if the sitemail spam was brought under control there will always be content spam on any social media platform. Witness the once proud brand of Tivo and its reported use of the insipid service PayPerPost to amass video testimonies on YouTube. I'm a believer that commercial communication can have a place in social media conversations, so long as it's fully disclosed and is at least 80% focused on adding honest value of general interest even to audiences uninterested in the particular product. I don't think that's the case with most PayPerPost ink spilled in praising B-rate bed and breakfasts and online services with no scruples or genuinely compelling value.
Regardless of all that, unless increasingly high-profile social media outlets like YouTube take effective steps to stop both messaging and content spam we can expect not only more unsolicited email but also a pile of media coverage on the topic. I just thought I'd get in on the news cycle early and put it in context.
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From an ad-selling standpoint I don't see how it's in Google's best interest to make spamming its services so easy. Sure, it might generate more impressions as the spambots do their thing. But Google's past the point where the should have to worry about fluffing up their volume numbers. Plus advertisers increasingly care less about volume and more about performance anyway. Not to mention it cheapens the perception of the property. YouTube doesn't have to worry about that problem right now as it still has fantastic brand recognition. But if they let it get out of hand, it could eventually snowball on them.
Posted by: RS | October 5, 2007 9:02 AM
Spam is a problem that keep programmers employed. I said that once, but truthfully, Spam is annoying. YouTube (Google) needs to get on top of this in short order.
Ahh.. the truth comes out now, you treat my e-mails as Spam! hahah.. :)
Rex
Posted by: Rex Dixon | October 5, 2007 9:10 AM
Rusty - I think you're probably right, but what other explanation can you think of? Just being slow to act? Perhaps they should hire some more folks around there ;)
Rex, thanks for your thoughts. It's only your direct messages in Twitter than I treat as spam. Kidding.
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick | October 5, 2007 9:22 AM
This is a problem that OpenID and OAuth are primed to solve.
Imagine you are able to use the same OpenID to sign on to all your favorite sites like google, youtube, facebook etc. and OAuth to transfer a bit that has some information about your reputation tied to that OpenID. You could include your reputation score on posts you make and select to only view posts that meet your requirements for reputation, degrees of separation, etc.
What your threshold is, how your rep is verified would be up to you but its fun to think about the possibilities...
Posted by: Kevin Fox | October 5, 2007 1:35 PM
They are obviously misinformed. YouTube does have spam control, but it currently only applies to bulk spam. So if you post 3 messages within 30 seconds of each other you will be shown capatcha. The spam on YouTube comes only in bulk format, with automatic programs spamming popular video comments. Also there's a report as spam button which is getting a lot of those spam comments.
These are already in effect, so how can you say it doesn't have spam control when it clearly does - you just came up with a sensationlist headline and wanted to use it. This story is completely BS or your sources are not credible.
Posted by: Psychotic Ape | October 5, 2007 6:38 PM
I mean if you can post a comment and with no CAPTCHA requirements, it is a big invitation for spam. And I really hate to remove those spam comments from my youtube videos. But to give Youtube credit, they do respond within a few days to remove the spammers account.
Posted by: Derrick | October 6, 2007 5:28 AM
spam is so bad on youtube, it has to stop!
Posted by: FD | October 6, 2007 9:20 PM
I dont think 80% of the people who use youtube or myspace even notice the spam. How can you see spam comments when they're on a myspace page with black text on a dark blue background and flashing pink animated gifs all over the place?
I would be worried about instituting a captcha system at youtube, as it significantly raises the bar to comment (have you never gotten one you couldn't read? or had the system reject it because it looked like a 1 instead of an l?). The 'mark as spam' seems to be pretty effective, for the few people who use the comments - but I'd be that the VAST majority of people don't even see the comments. They either watch the video embedded elsewhere, or just visually blank them out like google adsense ads.
Posted by: Adam | October 7, 2007 8:05 AM
The reason fo the spam war on you tube is incredibly simple: The (currently pointless) staff over there just doesnt give a flying f!@#$% about its community. That's why it has come down to getting spam in our private inboxes. If the spam starts to leak out of YT and onto other video sites, YT must be put down...
Posted by: Jon (Daxter717 on YT) | October 9, 2007 2:39 PM
CAPTCHA not very efective. See my article on that
Posted by: Niyaz PK | October 24, 2007 2:28 AM