RIP Youtube

[Hydra009]

Boo hoo hoo, I can't any advertisers to support my pro-prediphile/pro-hate-speach/pro-sheep-fucking youtube videos. No shit, really? Welcome to real world fuck nut.

This might come as a shock, but this is not actually my position.  If you notice, I explicitly said I don't have a problem with specific advertisers pulling the plug from specific videos (or channels) that they find disagreeable.  What I found objectionable was how a video can have all its monetization removed based on a set of guidelines vague and broad enough that the majority of the videos on the site could fall afoul of it.  I cited the "vulgar language" and "controversial" guidelines as particularly problematic.

I realize that without a good example of this stuff in action, you're liable to write this fear off as alarmist.  So here's the vlogbrothers' demonetization notice.



They run an educational, science-oriented channel that's about as PG as one could possibly get.  And even they're affected by this policy.

So no, it's not just the pro-sheepfuckers who should be worried about this stuff.

[Hydra009]

The advertisers themselves should be able to not advertise on channels they do not want to be associated with, and that in itself would be enough.  The 'heroes' stuff is different. Your 2nd video hits the problem where it is most relevant.  Heroes does seem to be quite an opportunity for censorship.

Yeah, well I had to post about the guidelines to give context since the Heroes program is ostensibly operating within that framework - flagging "negative content" believed to be in violation of the guidelines.  I didn't anticipate that some people here would focus entirely on that and ignore the rest so they can pretend that there's not a problem here.

Like you said, quite the opportunity for censorship.  YouTube has enough of a false flagging problem as it is.  Handing a bunch of YouTube users their very own mass-flagging tool would just exacerbate the problem.  It's hard to believe that someone pitched that idea and got approval for it.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

This might come as a shock, but this is not actually my position.  If you notice, I explicitly said I don't have a problem with specific advertisers pulling the plug from specific videos (or channels) that they find disagreeable.  What I found objectionable was how a video can have all its monetization removed based on a set of guidelines vague and broad enough that the majority of the videos on the site could fall afoul of it.  I cited the "vulgar language" and "controversial" guidelines as particularly problematic.

I realize that without a good example of this stuff in action, you're liable to write this fear off as alarmist.  So here's the vlogbrothers' demonetization notice.



They run an educational, science-oriented channel that's about as PG as one could possibly get.  And even they're affected by this policy.

So no, it's not just the pro-sheepfuckers who should be worried about this stuff.

To be fair, "Vegetables That Look Like Penises" is not a title I'd put my ads on.

[Hydra009]

To be fair, "Vegetables That Look Like Penises" is not a title I'd put my ads on.

I just watched it.  It's just a silly, bad music video.  Nothing that would shock the sensibilities of anyone except the most puritanical of puritans.  The ironic thing is that he thanks YouTube at the end for allowing him to be weird without having to feel weird about it.  It has since been age-restricted.  YouTube apparently thinks that you have to be 18 or over to view a zucchini vaguely in the shape of a penis.  The whole fiasco reminds me of that time an Islamic cleric got offended by fruit.

[Shiranu]

The biggest issue for me is Youtube is a career for so many people, and these rules can destroy their livelyhood in the name of catching someone else. I am not sure I am overly okay with that.

[chill98]

Yeah, well I had to post about the guidelines to give context since the Heroes program is ostensibly operating within that framework - flagging "negative content" believed to be in violation of the guidelines.  I didn't anticipate that some people here would focus entirely on that and ignore the rest so they can pretend that there's not a problem here.

For me, I cant really comment on the advert money as related to a channel.  None of my stuff is an attempt to make some money, just posting videos I have taken.  But I did not know there was a youtube review beforehand. I had always assumed they just placed ads on the sites wanting to cash in and only withdrew after complaints.

[Johan]

The biggest issue for me is Youtube is a career for so many people, and these rules can destroy their livelyhood in the name of catching someone else. I am not sure I am overly okay with that.

Youtube is a privately owned entity. It owes no one anything. And that some individuals have voluntarily chosen to put all of their livelihood eggs in that one privately owned basket should be neither their problem nor their concern.

[Nonsensei]

From what I understand, this only applies to monetized videos, not all videos in general. They're basically saying you can't set yourself up to make money by spewing racist shit or methamphetamine instructional videos. Advertisers like Kleenex and Coca Cola don't like it. Seems fair to me.

It's hardly "censorship."

Uh, thats the very essence of censorship. Leveling a financial penalty against someone because you find what they say objectionable. How is that not censorship? In the short term it may not seem to fit the exact definition, but in the long term when everyone who would say anything controversial has been forced off of youtube because they cant make money anymore, the effect will be the same. This new policy goes into effect, a year from now youtube is nothing but cat videos.

I mean just look at that list of things that are considered potentially inappropriate and flagable.


Sexually suggestive content, including partial nudity and sexual humor

This one rule alone set up over 50% of all videos on youtube for demonetization. An offhand comment, a woman wearing a low cut v-neck shirt, a video literally for the purpose of sexual education, and nearly every music video on youtube. All eligible for demonetization. This rule resets the standard on youtube to the level of 1600's puritanism.


Violence, including display of serious injury and events related to violent extremism

There goes every rap video on youtube, every trailer for an action movie, and every political video or newscast discussing violence or violent world events.

Inappropriate language, including harassment, profanity and vulgar language.

This rule literally makes 99% of all videos on youtube eligible for demonetization.

Promotion of drugs and regulated substances, including selling, use and abuse of such items

Again, RIP rap videos as well as any video on youtube that simply talks about drugs. Thats right folks, someone can interpret just MENTIONING the topic of drugs as promotion of drugs.


Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown

Holy fuck, talk about a youtube lobotomy. Anything anyone finds controversial is now eligible for demonetization.

With this list of rules, is there anything left that is immune from demonetization? Further, what is the mechanism behind demonetizing a video? How many flags does it take to get a video demonetized? 5000? 1000? 100? Do they all have to take place within a period of time or do they just stay there, building up slowly until the video inevitably gets flagged enough to get demonetized, even if its been up for a decade?

You can kiss the youtube atheist community goodbye. They wont last 6 months under this new system. But, ridiculously, under these new rules which basically place no restrictions on what can be flagged, religious channels can also kiss their asses goodbye. Literally noone will be safe from getting demonetized.

What I don't understand is why in the fuck youtube would do this. They are retarding their own advertising revenue stream, and for the sake of what exactly? What do they gain from this?

[drunkenshoe]

Alternative media is great, but it has its drawbacks. As a former journalist, I can tell you that the pressure to keep up with the 24 hour news cycle and competition by "citizen journalists" with cellphone cameras drove a lot of good, balanced, fair, decent journalists and news organizations into bankruptcy, and no there's no such thing as fact checking anymore. Journalism used to be a wonderfully self-policed institution where you couldn't just publish whatever the fuck you wanted and mumble "sorry" later with zero repercussions if your story turned out to be bullshit. Reputation used to be everything, but not so much anymore. So thank you for that, alternative media.

This. This is probably one of the most important factors underlying certainattitudes in societies overall.

An unbelivebale power that can shape societies has evolved to check itself in hundreds of years and it got broke down so bad, it literally passed on to the dark side. Native advertising. It's everywhere from New York Times to local news 'paper'.

People are constantly sharing news piece that has nothing to do with a certain topic, but just was designed to promote something commercially. Most of them are obvious, some pass because people have no idea about or do not pay attention, but worst of all it will evolve up to a point where no longer we can tell the difference.

[drunkenshoe]

Highly likely they decided to do something like this because it is out of control. By that I mean probably there has been so many complaints, complications, conflicts or even may be a slight fall in general viewing and memberships. Overall these reaching a tipping point enough to give signals that in the long term Youtube would become an obscure advertising garbage pile while other smaller providers will get advantages and feed from this in time. If Youtube falls in that position it is almost impossible to get out, irreversible.

So they are providing themselves an easily managed frame and a certain line to follow. They are house cleaning. Which group of viewers are most profitable in long term? Which one causes more trouble than their worth and can damage the company in long term?

But then I don't get why people think Youtube -or any other company- gives a damn about censorship at all. Of course it is going to advertise itself as 'caring' about it.

I don't think they are retarding themselves at all. It's actually a good move for them. They are protecting themselves and interestingly enough, actually thinking right now, this even could have a good effect on the usual social media bullshit.

This could mean that we are -very slowly- started to get out of the social media madness "laissez-faire, laissez-passer" phase with this mass communication technology which is actually very new but treated as it existed forever and as if we can't survive without exploiting it. May be the new generation will born in to an era where/when people actually got over the idea of this fake but very effective power and started to use this more responsibly.

[Shiranu]

Youtube is a privately owned entity. It owes no one anything. And that some individuals have voluntarily chosen to put all of their livelihood eggs in that one privately owned basket should be neither their problem nor their concern.

Nevertheless, these are artists I admire and who do far more good for the world with their entertainment and charity work than the majority of average people. The changes YouTube make have been increasingly corporate for corporations sake, and it's just a shame to see such a great service put that over what it use to be.

[Hydra009]

Uh, thats the very essence of censorship. Leveling a financial penalty against someone because you find what they say objectionable. How is that not censorship? In the short term it may not seem to fit the exact definition, but in the long term when everyone who would say anything controversial has been forced off of youtube because they cant make money anymore, the effect will be the same.

I meant to bring that up but forgot about it.  When a creator's coming up with his/her next video, the possibility that a video on "controversial" subject matter will get hit with demonetization or worse almost certainly factors in.  The end result is a creator self-censoring for fear of jeopardizing his/her livelihood.

[SGOS]

I'm just getting up to speed.  I've followed his thread since it started and I'm still trying to sort this whole Utube thing out.  I've suspected for sometime that people that make videos are making money.  I guess I assumed they had started little internet companies, the results of which were just too good not to end up on Utube.  Never thought about it intentionally, and it never occurred to me that they were making a living off of Utube alone.  I guess this is fine.  It's just a new thing that's popped up out of technology.  But I still sort of, but not completely, am of the mind set that Utube is only about cats that do silly things.  But making a living selling ideas and other strange things (like ASMR)?  Well, why not?  I guess.  But who would have thought?

No one owes anyone a living.  In capitalism, if you produce something someone wants, then go for it, but I'm not sure Utube has an obligation to provide the machinery for it.  I guess if it gets big enough, the government will step in and have to regulate it, and I don't mind that too much, depending on what regulations are put in place.

I think my reaction to this is that the whole thing seems strange.  While I got into computers in the 1980s, I never hooked up to the net until late.  Then when I got hooked up, I was amazed.  Then I was amazed again when applications of the net that I had never imagined started popping up.  I was amazed when I would say, "You know, I wish they had a digital thing that would do... whatnot."  And someone would reply, "Well, they already do."  I was amazed that people were thinking up technology shit and putting it out there before I even envisioned such an application in the back of my brain.

Here, I'm still amazed at where this whole thing is going.  I was born into an era where things were happening, but the recent digital era is a time where things happen faster than I can think of them.  There are people latching to this new thing (actually they are too young to recognize it as a new thing) and coming up with amazing things, and they may be the next evolution of survivors.  Me?  I'm just an end user, nearing the end of my end user life.  The world is now open to the innovators and is divided between the innovators and the sclubs.  I'm a schlub.  I'm a dying breed, built to succeed in the environment of a different era.  I, and the rest of my kind, will quietly pass away leaving just remnants of DNA fragments that constitute nothing more than junk code in the human genome.

But I'm happy to say, "At least I was still alive at the beginning of it all."  But I'm still not impressed with smart phones.  $750 for a telephone?  What's with that, anyway?  These other people might be smart, but they seem crazy as Hell.  $750?  Well, fuck me!

[Hydra009]

I'm just getting up to speed.  I've followed his thread since it started and I'm still trying to sort this whole Utube thing out.  I've suspected for sometime that people that make videos are making money.  I guess I assumed they had started little internet companies, the results of which were just too good not to end up on Utube.  Never thought about it intentionally, and it never occurred to me that they were making a living off of Utube alone.  I guess this if fine.  It's just a new thing that's popped up out of technology.  But I still sort of, but not completely, am of the mind set that Utube is only about cats that do silly things.  But making a living selling ideas and other strange things (like ASMR)?  Well, why not?  I guess.  But who would have thought?

It still is mostly about cats and music videos.  Those can get views in the millions or tens of millions.  Meanwhile, most of the "big" youtubers I watch get maybe a couple hundred thousand views per video, if that.  That's still a lot, but it's nowhere near the cat stuff.

But yeah, if you put out videos that entertain an audience in the hundreds of thousands, I don't have a problem with them getting paid for it.  That's how things work in the meatspace.  I don't see The Young Turks as having all that different a business model than a cable news program.

Making a career out of talking into a camera isn't even the weirdest profession I've come across.  Over on Twitch, people pay other people to watch them eat.  The internet has really opened up some pretty wild careers that wouldn't have otherwise been possible.

[TomFoolery]

Uh, thats the very essence of censorship. Leveling a financial penalty against someone because you find what they say objectionable.

It isn't a financial penalty. YouTube never had to offer monetization, they just did, and a lot of enterprising folks tried to turn YouTube into a career and some even did with moderate success. People negatively affected by this are always welcome to get a real job. A penalty would be something like a fine.

YouTube is a private company, and so are the advertisers that are offering monetization. To say that they won't pay people money to post objectionable things is NOT censorship, anymore than it would be censorship if the local NBC station refused to show my 30 second commercial about sex toys.