Skip to Content
Tech policy

Logan Paul’s Video Is a Cautionary Tale for Platforms That Hope AI Will Save Them from Offensive Content

January 3, 2018

YouTube star Logan Paul (if you’re not familiar, he has 15 million subscribers) uploaded a video on the platform over the weekend in which he appeared to make jokes in front of a body hanging from a tree during a visit to forest in Japan where people have been known to commit suicide. The footage amassed over six million views before Paul took it down.

Why it matters: Paul’s video was not caught by any of YouTube’s software or human filters, making it a prime example of content that should never have been allowed into wide distribution but that nonetheless eluded state-of-the-art artificial-intelligence systems. “What is obscene is having shown and been disrespectful about the body of a suicide victim,” Tarleton Gillespie, principal researcher at Microsoft Research, told Buzzfeed. “This is the kind of contextual and ethical subtlety that automated tools are likely never to be able to approximate.”

Going forward: The incident shows that despite efforts by Facebook and YouTube to use AI to fight objectionable content, the content moderation issue isn’t going to be solved by applying a bit of software.

Deep Dive

Tech policy

How the Supreme Court ruling on Section 230 could end Reddit as we know it

As tech companies scramble in anticipation of a major ruling, some experts say community moderation online could be on the chopping block.

The internet is about to get a lot safer

Europe's big tech bill is coming to fruition. Here's what you need to know.

Hyper-realistic beauty filters are here to stay

A new filter on TikTok has the internet up in arms. It's an important debate for anyone who cares about the future of social media.

When my dad was sick, I started Googling grief. Then I couldn’t escape it.

I’ve spent months trying to untrain the algorithms that were relentlessly serving me content on loss.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.