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Comment by tom_mellior | Hacker News Reader

I clicked around some videos on some random server I chose from the list, and in many cases a video's preview picture has nothing to do with the video. As in, it never visibly appears in the actual video. Or it's the very first frame and not representative of the rest of the video. That opens up all sorts of clickbait/abuse issues.

I don't know how YouTube deals with generating a representative preview image, but the result is certainly better.

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YouTube absolutely has not solved this issue. Personally, I feel like it has gotten worse in the recent past. Here's a small compilation of fake thumbnails which took me less than a minute to collect: https://imgur.com/a/mjlkM

Edit: It appears like searching for "life hacks" is a good way to find videos with misleading thumbnails: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=life+hacks

It is possible to report videos with misleading thumbnails on YouTube, but those reports seem to be ignored, proven by those videos having millions of views.

Searching for "oddly satisfying" is another good way to find videos with misleading thumbnails.

This was a big problem on YouTube too. Their solution wasn't to find a better thumbnail, but to change the incentives. Basically they now promote videos based on minutes watched instead of clicks (also factoring in subsequent videos watched). If the thumbnail is misleading many users will quickly stop watching, leading YouTube to stop suggesting the video.

YouTube now even allows uploaders to upload any preview image. The result are attention grabbing and sensationalising, but rarely outright misleading

They should have never done that, and instead worked on better video summarization.

> I don't know how YouTube deals with generating a representative preview image

After uploading a video, YouTube will present you with 3 choices for the thumbnail. These are single frames, chosen with some randomness from the video (to prevent people intentionally inserting click-bait frames at some fixed position).

However, some people are considered Trust Worthy by the Algorithm. Those can upload arbitrary click-baity images to be used as thumbnails for their videos.

It's not some poeple, it's all people. As a creator, you can upload a custom thumbnail for any video.

Definitely not all people. I have an 11 year old account with no copyright or community guidelines strikes. YouTube says "Your account isn't eligible at this time" under "Custom thumbnails". As far as I know, it was never eligible.

You need to have a "verified" account to be eligible. Verification is done via SMS code.

This was an issue at one point with YouTube as well. Heck, it's still an issue, with most thumbnails designed with emoting people, arrows, and words designed to increase click rates.

However, this kind of things _does_ increase click rates for these videos. For a platform designed to get views, is that really a bad thing?

It's still an issue.

It will not get views if users feel ripped off.

The users will feel ripped off after they have seen the video, in which case it is already too late.

The users will feel serially ripped off after they have seen three such videos, in which case it is already too late. Too late to convince them to ever come back to a platform with such an offering.

> Too late to convince them to ever come back to a platform with such an offering

It's the exact same problem on YouTube with clickbait thumbnails and titles. It doesn't frustrate people off the entire platform, just the channels that are repeat offenders.

Currently, when you upload a video on PeerTube, you upload a preview picture with it. So yeah, it can be abused.

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