Are TV news shows in the UK spamming keywords?

The following 16 keywords are currently all among the top 50 most-frequently used keywords on IMDb:

pandemic (21837 titles)

virus (21833 titles)

covid-19 (21183 titles)

coronavirus (20929 titles)

deadly-virus (20741 titles)

health-crisis (20527 titles)

public-health-epidemic (20476 titles)

lockdown (20365 titles)

national-emergency (19994 titles)

police-state (19940 titles)

suspension-of-civil-liberties (19850 titles)

social-distancing (19062 titles)

face-mask (18555 titles)

contact-tracing (18199 titles)

covid-pandemic (16266 titles)

pandemic-2020 (16252 titles)

I looked into this. As it turns out, the sole reason why every single one of these keywords is in the top 50 is because somebody is mass-adding these keywords to numerous TV news episodes in the UK each day (as this keyword search shows).

There are multiple news programmes involved, on multiple networks, across the UK.

The keywords are added in advance, up to four days before each episode airs. Here is an example of an episode that will air in four days and already contains those keywords.

It seems unlikely to me that all of these keywords are relevant to every single show for which they have been added (and continue to be added, even before the news occurs and before each show airs).

I can accept that probably some of these keywords are relevant to 100% of the shows -- after all, "covid-19" has affected every aspect of our lives and is constantly covered on the news.

But what about "lockdown," "national-emergency," "police-state," "suspension-of-civil-liberties," "social-distancing," "face-mask," and "contact-tracing"? Does anybody really believe that each of these concepts is discussed in every single episode of every single show on all of these networks? And why is the keyword "pandemic-2020" still being used, now that we are well into 2021?

Much more likely is the possibility that somebody set up these keywords at the beginning of the pandemic and continues to mass-apply all of these keywords to every show, while neglecting or forgetting to think about whether the keywords are still relevant. (I do see that they have more recently added the keyword "vaccine," which as a newer keyword is currently at 11,391 titles -- enough to crack the top 100 keywords on IMDb, but not yet enough to be in the top 50.)

As a result of all of this, more than 1/3 of the top 50 keyword spots on IMDb are currently filled by COVID-related keywords.

But more importantly, several of these keywords (e.g., "police-state," "contact-tracing") are very likely not truly relevant to most of the episodes/titles to which they have been added, which makes them misleading. And given their numbers, that would make the use of these keywords as massive, systemic spam.

These keywords are being used on a such a scale and in such a context that they may have lost their meaning and value as keywords. For example, if somebody were interested in searching for TV episodes that actually discuss the "suspension-of-civil-liberties," it is now impossible to do that search.

In the grand scheme of things, this is truly not that big of a deal. But to the extent that IMDb staff are interested in rooting out keyword spam on TV episodes, these keywords would be a good place to start.

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Michelle

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322.9K Points

5 years ago

Hi keyword_expert -

As I understand the issue, while many of the titles that these keywords are being added to are news programs, you have identified instances where the keyword was incorrectly applied (ie. the news program didn't feature any content/context related to "pandemic" for example)?

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keyword_expert

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@Michelle

Yes, that perfectly describes the issue.

Here is a list of the keywords that are most likely being used for episodes where the subjects were not actually covered (making these keywords not relevant and therefore improper):

lockdown (20365 titles)

national-emergency (19994 titles)

police-state (19940 titles)

suspension-of-civil-liberties (19850 titles)

social-distancing (19062 titles)

face-mask (18555 titles)

contact-tracing (18199 titles)

pandemic-2020 (16252 titles)

As for the other keywords, although those keywords might be relevant, they are also numerous synonyms for the same thing (e.g., "health-crisis" and "public-health-epidemic" are basically the same). The programs should consider choosing just a small handful of keywords to apply to 100% of their shows, instead of using all 16 of these keywords for every episode. But that is just my personal take -- technically the guidelines do allow for them to repeatedly use the same synonymous keywords over and over if they are in fact relevant.

5 years ago

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Michelle

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18.4K Messages

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322.9K Points

Hi keyword_expert -

Thanks for confirming. To help our investigation further and identify the contributor, can you post some specific example title's where the keyword was incorrectly listed?

5 years ago

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keyword_expert

2.7K Messages

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47K Points

Michelle,

I did some closer looking at this keyword data. I did not realize this before, but it seems as if most of these shows stopped adding new episodes on IMDb about a week and a half ago, on July 18 or 19, 2021. And with no new episodes on IMDb, there are no new keywords. Thus, any problems with mass additions of irrelevant keywords for these shows has been largely resolved.

There are two exceptions. The shows "TV3 News at 5.30" and "Ireland: am" both have episodes listed up to the present date, and both are also still mass-adding these keywords to every single episode.

Here are a couple examples of recent episodes with all of the keywords in question:

"TV3 News at 5.30" Episode dated 31 July 2021 (TV Episode 2021) - Plot keywords - IMDb

"Ireland: am" Episode dated 31 July 2021 (TV Episode 2021) - Plot keywords - IMDb

Here is a keyword search that shows the complete list of episodes chronologically, with the most recent episodes listed first. That keyword search also shows that the problem appears to have largely been resolved starting on 20 July, 2021.

Interestingly, the most recent episode in that keyword search is dated 31 July, 2021. Previously, the keywords would be listed on episodes four days in advance. Maybe the contributor(s) have stopped adding episodes (and keywords) altogether for the two shows I mentioned. After a few more days or weeks passes, it will be possible to get a better sense of that.

Again, this was never a huge problem in the grand scheme of things, so this should not be a big priority, especially now that we know the problem has largely been resolved as of a week and a half ago, and may be completely resolved as of this weekend.

I don't see any need for further action at this time, but I will check the searches in a couple weeks and will let you know what I find.

(edited)

5 years ago

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keyword_expert

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47K Points

@Michelle

Now that a couple weeks have gone by, I just wanted to report that this problem appears to have been resolved. These keywords have not been used for any episodes since August 1, as this search shows.

In fact, it appears that no episodes for these shows have been uploaded at all for the past two weeks. And with no episodes, there are also no keywords.

I suspect this change was a complete coincidence, unrelated to my post. I just happened to post about it at almost exactly the same time that the contributor(s) stopped adding new episodes.

5 years ago

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Are TV news shows in the UK spamming keywords?

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