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The Technological Downside of Algorithms: an 'Elsagate' Case Study

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Master´s Thesis TFG 8 – Changing Power relationships The technological downside of algorithms: an ‘ElsaGate’ case study Author: Mathijs Stals Student number: u1273312 Date of conclusion: August 2020 Supervisors Mr. Dr. Colette Cuijpers Sascha van Schendel Department: TILT Table of contents Chapter 1: The introduction to the ElsaGate Scandal P.1 1.1 Introduction p.1 1.1.1 YouTube Kids p.1 1.1.2 Violence & sexual misconduct on the YouTube Kids App p.2 1.1.3 The rationale behind the ElsaGate videos p.3 1.2 What is the legal/social problem associated with the ElsaGate? p.4 1.3 Existing Literature & Gap p.5 1.4 Research question p.8 1.5 Methodology p.8 1.6 Structure/Roadmap p.9 Chapter 2: What are the algorithms that YouTube currently uses, and in what way do they not function as intended? P.9 2.1 Which Algorithms are utilized by the YouTube platform? p.9 2.2 How does the recommendation algorithm work? p.10 2.2.1. The input data p.11 2.2.2. Related videos p.11 2.2.3. The selection of recommendation candidates p.12 2.2.4. Ranking p.12 2.2.5. User Interface p.13 2.2.6. System implementation p.13 2.2.7. Sub conclusion p.13 2.3. The challenges of the personalized recommendation system used by YouTube p.13 2.4. How does the algorithm not function as intended? p.14 Chapter 3: ‘What is the impact of COPPA and the GDPR in relation to YouTube and how are these legal instruments perceived in legal literature?’ P.15 3.1 US regulation on the privacy and data protection of minors p.16 3.1.1 The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act p.16 3.1.2 The required compliance for commercial websites and online services p.17 3.1.3 The relevance of the COPPA Rule for YouTube p.17 3.2 The case between the FTC and YouTube p.18 3.3 COPPA’s reception in legal literature p.20 3.4 The European situation p.21 3.4.1 The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) p.21 Chapter 4: How does YouTube implement the various international regulations onto their platform? p.25 4.1.1 Terms of Service YouTube p.25 4.1.2 Privacy policy p.26 4.1.3 YouTube Kids Privacy notice p.28 4.1.4 Sub conclusion p.29 4.2 The application of the COPPA Rule by YouTube p.30 4.3 The impact of the COPPA Rule on ElsaGate p.31 4.4 The relationship between COPPA and GDPR p.33 4.5 The difference in compliance between COPPA and the GDPR on YouTube p.34 4.6 Conclusion p.35 Chapter 5: Conclusion p.36 Bibliography p.40 Chapter 1 ‘The introduction of the ElsaGate scandal’ 1.1 Introduction 1.1.1. YouTube Kids On 23 February 2015, YouTube LLC developed an alternative to its widely popular video website YouTube, being specifically tailored for kids. This ‘YouTube Kids’ app, which can be downloaded on all devices via the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store, is a different product than the standard YouTube app. YouTube Kids features a children-friendly layout, which, according to YouTube, is designed to “make it safer for children to explore the world through online video”.1 The app has multiple integrated parental controls. Prior to using the YouTube Kids app for instance, a parent is required to unlock the app and verify their children’s age. Other parental controls include the possibility to turn the ‘search’ option on or off, with the latter meaning that the kid can only see video’s from video creators verified by YouTube itself, and a timer which limits the amount of time that a user can use the app. The YouTube Kids app therefore offers a ‘barebones’ version of the original YouTube app, by removing several features. It is not possible to leave a rating on videos in the YouTube Kids app, and there is no comment section below the videos where the viewers can leave their thoughts. This is purposefully designed in order to limit the unwanted exposure to some of the content that is available on YouTube, which was deemed inappropriate for younger audiences. In order to prevent exposure to inappropriate content, all videos on the YouTube Kids app are checked whether they are child friendly. The YouTube Kids app contains a ‘recommended’ tab under videos, which displays other videos that are related to the video that a user is currently watching. These videos are all videos from the YouTube Kids app only, subjected to the same age restrictions as other YouTube Kids videos. Advertisements are also displayed on the videos. These advertisements are extensively checked by YouTube to ensure that these are family-friendly.2 All the content submitted to the YouTube Kids app is subjected to a verification process by a machine algorithm.34 In the case that the algorithm approves a video for YouTube Kids, then every user can view this video. 1 This snippet is taken from the app description available on the Apple App Store. 2 The statement regarding advertisements on the YouTube Kids app can be found here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6168681?hl=en 3 Kantrowitz, Alex. ‘YouTube Kids Is Going To Release A Whitelisted, Non-Algorithmic Version Of Its App’ (Buzzfeed News, April 6, 2018). Retrieved 2 April 2019 from https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/youtube-kids-is-going-to-release-a-whitelisted- non#.ftVwoX5dp 4 Wojcicki, Susan. ‘Protecting Our Community’ (YouTube Creator Blog, 2017). Accessed April 2 2019. https://youtube-creators.googleblog.com/2017/12/protecting-our-community.html 1 1.1.2. Violence and sexual misconduct on the YouTube Kids app A problem emerged for YouTube however, when it was discovered that the algorithm did not function as intended, and approved videos that contained content not suited for kids, such as violence and sexual misconduct. After the inappropriate videos were discovered by parents and other (older) users, multiple articles were written about this phenomenon.5 This period of controversial videos being widely spread on the website was later referred to as the ‘ElsaGate’6. These ElsaGate videos featured videos of reoccurring topics and characters, such as Spiderman, Elsa from Frozen and the Joker from Batman.7 These animated figures engaged in controversial and inappropriate behavior, such as decapitation, pornographic acts and criminal behavior including, but not limited to, murder, theft and sexual assault. Younger audiences were thus subjected to severely disturbing behavior, which is detrimental to their emotional development. Multiple studies have found that media has a vast impact on youth, with studies finding correlations between increased violent behavior when subjected to violent television programming8, and promoting sexual behavior.910These ElsaGate videos were exposed to millions of kids, whose behavior and emotional development has been impacted due to these videos. The ElsaGate videos were discovered by YouTubers and were later subjected to countless articles written by media outlets such as the BBC11, The Guardian12 and Der Standard13. The respective journalists documented fragments from the videos ranging from teeth being pulled out from the mouth of Peppa Pig, to animated figurines being buried alive while distressed music is being played in the background. This was everything but the content that should have been available on the kids app. Scientific research concerning deep learning architectures were published in response to the ElsaGate, bringing up further discussion alongside potential solutions to the problem14. 5 Maheshwari, Sapna. ‘On YouTube Kids, Startling videos slip past filters’. (New York Times, 2017). Accessed April 2, 2019, from <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/business/media/youtube-kids-paw-patrol.html?_r=0> 6 Brandom, Russell. "Inside Elsagate, The Conspiracy-Fueled War On Creepy Youtube Kids Videos". 2017. The Verge. Accessed May 1 2019. https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/8/16751206/elsagate-youtube-kids-creepy- conspiracy-theory. 7 Dornhoeschen, ‘What is ElsaGate?’ (Reddit, 2017). Retrieved April 2 from https://www.reddit.com/r/ElsaGate/comments/6o6baf/what_is_elsagate/ 8 Johnson, JG et. al. ‘Television viewing and aggressive behavior during adolescence and adulthood’ (2002). Accessed June 23 2019. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11923542 9 Strasburger, Victor C. ‘Adolescent Sexuality and the Media’ (1989). Accessed June 23 2019. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031395516366949 10 Brown, Jane D. ‘Mass media influences on sexuality’. Accessed June 23 2019. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224490209552118 11 Subedar, Anisa. "The Disturbing Youtube Videos That Are Tricking Children" (2019). Accessed April 2 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-39381889. 12 Dredge, Stuart. 2016. "Youtube's Latest Hit: Neon Superheroes, Giant Ducks And Plenty Of Lycra". The Guardian. Accessed April 2 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/29/youtube-superheroes- children-webs-tiaras. 13 "Youtube: Wie Gefälschte Disney-Cartoons Kinder Verstören - Derstandard.At". 2019. DER STANDARD. Accessed April 2 2019. https://derstandard.at/2000055049856/Youtube-Wie-gefaelschte-Disney-Cartoons- Kinder-verstoeren. 14 Ishikawa, Akari et. al. “Combating the ElsaGate Phenomenon: Deep Learning Architectures for Disturbing Cartoons”. 2019. Arxiv. Accessed July 3, 2020, from <https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Combating-the- Elsagate-Phenomenon%3A-Deep-Learning-Ishikawa-Bollis/938d3fd2cede997006cae88bdc26b2af92e4d384> 2 The disturbing content remained under the radar for a while. The reason why the disturbing content was not detected directly, is because the content were mainly short fragments embedded within videos of over 10 minutes long. Parents would therefore not immediately see what their kids were watching. Once a video has finished, the YouTube Kids app immediately opens a new video based on the viewing behavior of the user, where the algorithm recommends a video to the user.
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