from Hacker News

Sock puppet comment spam is (still) a problem on YouTube: screenshot [PNG]

by wesamco on 6/17/24, 4:47 PM with 1 comments

• by wesamco on 6/17/24, 4:47 PM

  I've been seeing this specific type of sock puppet spam on YouTube for years, the same exact modus operandi, my earliest distinct memory of seeing this specific kind of sock puppet spam comments promoting a financial scam is from early 2020, just before the breakout of COVID19.

  The screenshots shows how they are the top comment on the video, as a result of manipulating YouTube's comment ranking algorithm, with the sock puppet comments. (note: it's a big screenshot, you might need to zoom in)

  How is it that Google has not fixed this yet? How can spam email classification in Gmail be so good while this is allowed to go on?

  I believe a small finetuned LLM can easily identify this kind of sock puppeting spam.

  Google should do something about this specific kind of sock puppeting comment spam that promotes financial scams and shadow ban them.

  Can somebody who knows someone that works at Google ask them to raise this internally?

  It infuriates me and makes my blood boil how they specifically target old people. and they intentionally target YouTube videos that old people are more likely to watch.