For whatever reason they started scouring youtube for “controversial” videos checking if they had ads (no matter how little views they had) then they would contact the advertisers for comment.
Advertisers would initiate damage control and pull their ads from youtube.
Youtube would explain that the numbers and views in question are insignificant and that this type of complex system can never be 100% error free but they reluctantly imposed restrictions.
After successfully manufacturing a story and gaining attention and traffic reporters continued scouring and contacting advertisers forcing youtube to enact tougher restrictions.
They then would extended the coverage to the anger in the youtube community and how it’s tough for them out there with all the latest policy changes.
Rinse, repeat; keep reporting on any video you find disagreeable no matter how little views it has.
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Be sure to remind youtube of their power and responsibility after tragedy strikes.
One possible way out of the trap is for regulation to acknowledge and classify these massive social media and content delivery platforms like YouTube and Facebook as the new version of the public square.
One of the big issues with the demonetization on YouTube is that it's a binary flag -- either "acceptable content for advertisers" or "unacceptable for advertisers." As if advertisers were a single block with a single set of values!
When YouTube is not under an obligation to act as the virtual-public-square (because "they're a private company"), then they are especially vulnerable to defining that "acceptability" either by internal ideological conformity, or by external ideological pressure. Part of the concept of "free speech" (as a doctrine, not just as 1A legal structure) is that it allows for a society where the distinction of "I don't agree with this but someone out there might and so it's OK for it to exist" is a distinction that is possible. Without that, we're left with a world in which expression has to be mediated by the approval/whims of external forces for it to be present.
Whatever strange, fringe things this person was having as YouTube videos, I'd be willing to guess there's some fringe company out there who wouldn't care if they were advertised on those videos. Think of the kinds of advertisers 4chan, Infowars, or adult websites get. Their standards don't fit into a generic mold of "acceptability." But if someone was a video creator who wanted to court such advertisers, what kind of audience would they even be able to build without access to the de-facto public-square that YouTube is?
I don't know how to get there from here. But I think a more healthy ad-revenue model would somehow have YouTube saying "OK, these mainstream videos are able to be monetized by mainstream ads from companies A B and C, while these fringe/controversial videos can be monetized by whatever companies X Y and Z want to."
> Be sure to remind youtube of their power and responsibility after tragedy strikes.
To be clear - they aren't actually responsible for an active shooter showing up on campus. It sounds like you're saying they could have some responsibility in someone coming to their office with a gun.
This is absolutely a "no-win" situation in my mind. Everyone is acting in their best interests, and in many cases are acting benevolently, but the outcome is still awful.
Obviously YouTube is going to cave to advertiser pressure and start to restrict what videos can have ads, their whole existence depends on it, and if I worked at YouTube i'd see demonetizing some videos as a welcome alternative to closing the whole thing down.
I don't blame the advertisers one bit from wanting to remove their ads from many videos. Once the media starts playing the game that "an ad on the video == the advertiser agrees with the message" I too would want to do everything I can to ensure that I'm not associated with bad things.
Media outlets are (in many cases) just trying to report on things. They are (correctly) pointing out how many users and creators are upset with YouTube's moves in this case, and how many advertisers are upset about being associated with "bad" videos.
Obviously there are things that each group can do better (YouTube could stand up to the Advertisers a bit more, Advertisers could push back on the notion that "an ad == approval", and the media could stop trying to "stir up" controversy), but in each case the thing that is better for society is worse for that group (at least in the short term). I can absolutely see an alternate universe where people are boycotting Coke because they allow their ads to run on gun videos, or where YouTube ends up losing out to even more money because they won't enact more strict rules about which videos can have ads.
I don't know the answer here, but it's obvious that the current "solutions" aren't working.
I'm not an American. The fact that a targeted online advertisement shown before the video is associated with the video and not with the platform, and requires damage control is perplexing and unexplainable to me... "There is no direct relationship between the video and the ad - It's matched by the machinery to the viewer, not to the video." should be the official answer and the end of the story.
Is an ad exposure before a "controversial" video any different in its effect compared to "acceptable" video exposure? It shouldn't be. I presume ad-to-video strong association is some kind of established US norm, where you pressure companies to "pull ads" when something offends you. Not being able to pull ads in a targeted manner is unacceptable I suppose, and that great American institution of pulling ads is "ought to be preserved".
Also I don't understand why Youtube went with advertisers' demands -- they have near-monopoly, big coffers and can impose their own rules. Like "You can't dictate at the start of which particular video your ads are shown, only the demographics and some keywords". The current set of rules is giving advertizers the power they shouldn't really have. It's as if the ogranization is willing to implement what equals to advertizers moralistic/political policing of content.
The irony is that reporters themselves are driven by advertising pressure. I'm fond of saying that "any premise that can attract eyeballs will eventually appear as an article on an ad-revenue-driven website".
I get how that gets some channel into trouble: politics, guns. Than channel was apparently a Iranian-American vegan animal rights activist.
I’m not a vegan, but I don’t see the point in opposing them. Other than the banter about how in-your-face they can be, do people violently oppose vegans, or animal rights activists? She was upset over a workout video being age-gated: who would oppose that video?
At the end of the day it is still a private company and if it wants to censor or otherwise supress certain types of content it is free to do so. Everyone is also free of course to criticize it for bias and/or use another video sharing site.
Also I don't see the last part about their responsibility in the shooting. Had this been a gun (2nd Amendment) fanatic whose gun demo videos were banned, like many on Reddit prematurely guessed, I don't think anyone would be saying " youtube is responsible for this". Now that it is a woman and she was pro-animal rights suddenly the blame is starting to shift towards YouTube, gun laws, society in general.
YouTube is not transparent about it's algorithm, this produces a lot of frustration because of uncertainty.
The algorithm also seems very poor implemented, like it should give the benefit of the doubt, like if I have 10 wrongly flagged videos that a human decided it is advertising friendly then mark my channel as "trusted" and don't allow the AI to de-monitize the video , flag it and have a human check it.
In the present the algorithm is favorable to YouTube and advertisers and creators suffer.
It’s not the media’s fault. If you’re going to blame anyone - blame the advertisers. They are the ones with the money everyone (YouTube and YouTubers alike) is trying to get their hands on. Unfortunately they are the ones who hold the cards at the end of the day when it comes to their money.
That's a very good analysis. You could apply that to just about anything in the news these days. What would you say are the worst organizations at manufacturing news?
Anyone that’s been paying attention knows the reason. If you can’t attack free speech, make that speech too expensive. All of the recent controversial issues have one side scrambling to publicly list advertisers - see the March Against Guns tweets about who has deals with NRA or advertises on Fox News.
It’s a horrible tactic that’s very much mob censorship.
Sure the media played some part but really it seems to fall more on youtube to me. Youtube used to be a steady source of basically reliable income if you had 'made it.' So people flock to the platform, start producing tons of content and basically link their lives not just to the platform of youtube but to the job of video maker. This works out great for youtube, no real competition ever rises up because it can't buy away the big hitters, then once youtube has true, lasting dominance they begin to squeeze the people that got them there, they pay less, they start restricting content and worse as a content creator you can see other big channels getting away with what is prohibited to you. Youtube basically becomes the worst, most arbitrary boss at a piece work, gig economy crap job. And the creators have nowhere to go because all the competition was crushed long ago.
That type of systematic degradation always pushes some people beyond the edge but because internet companies are disconnected from their users/workers they've mostly been able to ignore these side effects. This woman's act is horrific but it's also illustrative of the effects these companies actually have on people's lives.
I don't sympathize with shooting up a company's headquarters at all, but I feel that this could have been avoided by forcing Youtube (and, for that matter, all other social networks!) to have a way to reach an actual human support.
In the end, this is one of the "externalities" that get forced upon society when the big companies decide to cut corners on support. Some will... take matters into their own hands. Be it by spraying racist tweets as graffiti in front of the Hamburg Twitter office or by running amok, when they feel desperate enough. Desperation, especially perceived desperation, drives people to really horrible decisions - and demonetizing all videos of someone who depends on YT income for life is certainly enough to seriously mess with people.
The monetization of YouTube has created a perverse set of incentives which have in turn driven noise up and signal down.
A few years ago videos were generally interesting, or at least authentic, ads were mostly uncommon for non-commercial content, and comments were a cesspool.
Today the comments are marginally better, the content is worse, and there are ads everywhere.
The focus of many creators isn't creating useful content, but tricking people into watching or playing on the notoriety of making money itself.
This unfortunate event probably wouldn't have happened if the system wasn't designed to incentivise controversial posts in the first place.
If monopolies are allowed, the bigger a company is, the increased responsibility it should have. Many of large IT companies deliver free products and services, yet they still make the rules because they are in a monopoly nobody can compete with, because they give it for free.
Since it's not their data, they should have tougher restrictions the more data they handle.
It's weird because those online platform are thriving thanks to the ideal of free speech, but they are not public entities so free speech doesn't apply to them. It is very frustrating to see private interests seize the tools people use to express themselves.
As long as online data rests on private servers which are tied to lucrative interests, the internet will not be a platform where you can freely express yourself.
I have always thought that the whole online advertisement model is unhealthy and not a good system to make the internet cheaper for consumers. Ad blockers are a proof of this. If tomorrow firefox or any browser decide to not display ads and consumers go along with it, it would create a big mess.
I'm really surprised at how many of these HN comments are so sympathetic to this murderer's cause. To me, this illustrates how dangerous this type of reporting is, this media obsession with the perpetrators of mass shooting. This is the problem that I feel utterly powerless against. You can make more mental health programs, pass more gun control legislation, pay more for security, but what can you do when the culture around you lionizes these sorts of people?
I’ve been getting increasingly more annoyed by the entitlement some YouTube creators have shown towards Adsense dollars. And I’m perplexed at some of the comments on this story (“YouTube was her main source of income”). Yeah, she hedged her bet and put all her content on a platform she didn’t own or control, then thought it’d be a good idea to be financially dependent on them facilitating ad deals for her. Many of ya favorite youtubers complain about demonetization - I get it sucks and cuts out cashflow they were expecting but they’re not entitled to money from advertisers. This is like me demanding Facebook pay me for allowing me to put up a profile and running ads in my friends’ newsfeeds. That’s not how the real world works, kiddo. I think way back when YouTube opened up their “partner” program - that was their big mistake. It allowed far too many people to start viewing Adsense $ as earned income.
No sane person would argue that what she did was okay.
With that disclaimer, I can't help but feel sorry for her. In the unregulated gig/"creator" economy, someone's entire career - not just their livelihood but their life's work - can be wiped out in an instant. In her case it doesn't even sound like it was intentional. An algorithmic blip. That kind of hopeless, pointless loss would make anybody's mental health take a nosedive.
It's time the government stops treating the tech giants as neutral, private platforms, and acknowledges how big the pieces of society are which they underpin.
I can't help but think of of the Tunisian guy who was trying to eke out a living, faced his own Arbitrary Machine (the state in this case) and lost, getting de-monetized. Then set himself on fire, more or less starting the "Arab Spring."
If you never read of the Tunisian man, from wiki:
> Twenty-six-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi had been the sole income earner in his extended family of eight. He operated a vegetable or apple cart (the contents of the cart are disputed) for seven years in Sidi Bouzid 190 miles (300 km) south of Tunis. On 17 December 2010, a female officer confiscated his cart and produce. Bouazizi, who had had such an event happen to him before, tried to pay the 10-dinar fine (a day's wages, equivalent to 7USD). In response the policewoman insulted his deceased father and slapped him. The officer, Faida Hamdi, stated that she was not even a policewoman, but a city employee who had been tasked that morning with confiscating produce from vendors without licenses. When she tried to do so with Bouazizi a scuffle ensued. Hamdi says she called the police who then beat Bouazizi.[35] A humiliated Bouazizi then went to the provincial headquarters in an attempt to complain to local municipality officials and to have his produce returned. He was refused an audience. Without alerting his family, at 11:30 am and within an hour of the initial confrontation, Bouazizi returned to the headquarters, doused himself with a flammable liquid and set himself on fire.
They are obviously not the same, and the Mohamed didn't attack other people, but as people earn a monetary (or just a social) living on more arbitrary platforms, they are conjoining their own fates to these platforms, for better or worse.
If you ask Fukuyama, Niall Ferguson, or many historians how to build a non-dysfunctional state, they will tell you that rule of law and property rights matter. Systems that can easily and arbitrarily take away one's living (monetary or social) are not good for society.
It's very interesting to me that the shooter was basically a disgruntled user who complained that the platform discriminated against her and filtered her content.
I think this and Cambridge Analytica means that we're finally entering an era in which the public is conscientious of the fact that the massive power wielded by "big data" platforms, combined with the lack of transparency, has tangible adverse effects.
Hopefully this paves the way for more transparent (and beneficent) visibility into how such data is consumed and used, possibly by using public utility-like regulation [1][2].
> "The night before Nasim Aghdam opened fire in a courtyard at YouTube's headquarters Tuesday afternoon, Mountain View police found the San Diego woman sleeping in her car.
She had been reported missing by her family in Southern California, and her father Ismail Aghdam told police she might be going to YouTube because she 'hated' the company. Police called the family at 2 a.m. Tuesday to say she'd been found and that everything was 'under control,' her father said."
The most noteworthy part of the article to me, granted that this excerpt is taken from a different San Jose news source.
Could this have been prevented? Should the father's comments have been enough reasonable suspicion to arrest her, or at least search her for firearms and confiscate them, given her threat level to society?
Edit: The replies do offer good points, so thank you! I'm personally a supporter of the Second Amendment as well; it's just heartbreaking, especially if any of the victims die, to know just how close we were to stopping it.
To be fair, it is bullshit that they demonetized peoples accounts without paying them out.
Most small YouTubers that monetized their accounts have no other revenue streams with adSense. So when YouTube cancelled their YouTube Partner Program these people wound up with stagnant adSense accounts that were probably below the payout threshold. I tried in vain to get YT to pay out my adSense account because there would be no way for me to ever hit the payout threshold. I tried to explain that there is no difference between holding my money in escrow forever and stealing my money, but the YT reps (who were very unhelpful when I asked for resources to cancel YT Red) largely blew me off and insisted that the money was mine without recognizing that they would never let it out of their possession.
It really was a sly trick and not at all in keeping with the "Don't be evil" mantra.
'De-Monetized' suggests that someone who produces a video has an automatic right to income. That's bonkers, it's already quite a service that Youtube allows you to upload your videos to reach an audience that you'd be hard pressed to serve from your own server. They do this for free. In the previous iteration of such platforms all the ad income would go to the owner of the website, not to the rights owners of the videos.
The company then decided to cut the producers of the content in on the advertising income. Some of those have apparently taken this to mean that they have an inalienable right to this income, to the point where they will take out their entitlement complexes on the employees of the company.
The terms of service are pretty clear about all this too.
If you want control over your content and you want to get all the advertising income associated with your content set up your own bloody server and leave youtube and it's employees alone.
On another note: I hate fanatics, no matter of what plumage.
I don't think this kind of reaction is about philosophical "right" to an income from a particular company, more about sudden changes. It's similar to being fired: you previously got an income from this company, then they decided not to give you an income. Some people get angry at that, and sometimes feel desperate, worried about ending up homeless etc. depending on how much they relied on this income and what kinds of safety nets they have access to. Which is all true even if the company was within its rights to fire you. Of course most people who get angry about being laid off don't shoot anyone, but it's unfortunately not really a new story in the US (Google for something like, [laid off employee shooting], and there's dozens of hits).
I'm not going to defend shooting anyone, obviously. But YouTube has captured the entire market, practically, for streaming video, and encouraged people to look at it as a way of making money (even a full-time time job, for many). Why would you be surprised that someone would be upset about a capricious decision, which cannot be appealed, suddenly taking away the money?
It is not the right place to discuss this issue in the context of this shooting, and I accept if I am downvoted for it, but since you answered in general, I'd like to point out that I generally disagree.
In my point of view, it can be reasonable and morally justified to subject companies that manage to obtain a quasi-monopoly on some form of information distribution to rules that go beyond of what is required for a company merely by law, or even to adjust the law in order to better protect those companies' users.
I would consider it fair and reasonable, for instance, to demand of Facebook, Youtube, and similar platforms (incl. app stores with quasi-monopoly status on a given platform) to be fair, to not manipulate content in favour of the company's political ambitions, in favour of obviously immoral or of decidedly anti-democratic agendas. I also think it is fair and reasonable to expect these companies to remove dangerous, illegal, or decidedly anti-democratic content, to remove radical propaganda, and so on, within reasonable limits. And it is also reasonable and fair to expect or even regulate these companies to adequately compensate content-providers, since they de facto act as their publishers, make money of this content, and have besaid quasi-monopoly. I also think that companies that hold some quasi-monopoly over some information channel should be held to higher standards than those for which there are many viable alternatives, since the former are closer to being utilities. (What constitutes a quasi-monopoly or enough of a monopoly is, of course, another, quite debatable question.)
Obviously, none of this justifies any kind of violence, and the shooter was deranged and most likely wrong about her perceptions of her supposedly unfair treatment. But I couldn't let your statement stand on its own, since I believe it to be wrong in general. This is a debatable standpoint, of course, but there should be a debate. To give another example, I really don't think that Google should be allowed to skew their search results as they see fit, e.g. to influence elections in various countries, just because they are a private company and using Google search is free.
Are you seriously framing the discussion as "people who think ill of Youtube's monetization scheme are shooter apologists"? I didn't think so reading this comment but you seem to imply than in all your replies in this thread. That's such a ridiculous strawman that I don't even know where to begin.
That being said I agree with your non-crazy point about how video uploaders shouldn't feel entitled to a share of the cake in the first place. If your business model is entirely based on some multinational corporation giving you scraps of their ad revenue then you better have a backup plan ready. Unfortunately the people who do that seem to be very young and probably don't plan that far ahead.
A big problem with automatic demonetization is that what frequently happens is that (let's assume that you are a popular Youtuber):
You spend a lot of time and money to make a video.
You upload it to youtube.
It trips some random check and is flagged and de-monetized, you appeal.
People come and watch your video, with this type of content the vast majority of views is in the few first days since publishing.
Your appeal finally gets through, you can now monetize the video. However it is too late because 80% of the views the video will ever have have been without ads.
You are not entitled to revenue, however if you make your living off Youtube, you may expect that it will not randomly shoot you in the foot for no reason.
'De-Monetized' suggests that someone who produces a video has an automatic right to income. That's bonkers, it's already quite a service that Youtube allows you to upload your videos to reach an audience that you'd be hard pressed to serve from your own server. They do this for free. In the previous iteration of such platforms all the ad income would go to the owner of the website, not to the rights owners of the videos.
I tend to agree with you, especially since they could put ads directly in the videos. However, they changed their policy fairly recently. If it was money producers were relying on to live, then they are definitely going to be upset.
It's like when Apple pulls something from the AppStore because they want to release something similar. They shouldn't have tried to build a business on someone else's platform, but it's still shitty.
On another note: I hate fanatics, no matter of what plumage.
Without prejudice to the fact that it's not ok to shoot people:
Youtube set out to "own video", and they've been very successful at it. There are a few alleged alternatives out there like vimeo, but come on, how many smart TV's do you know that have a vimeo app pre-installed? Google favors youtube content over other video sites in its search results, and youtube is on-again-off-again zero rated with ISP's all around the globe. Youtube is dominant.
As a result, cutting someone off from youtube is actually a pretty big deal. It's a critical platform for all modern charities, and most modern companies. It's very hard for a marketing department to compete with other companies if they can't use youtube to distribute tutorials, promo content, key announcements and other errata. In most countries, youtube could swing an election by cutting off one party without warning mid-campaign.
And yeah, it's a platform for people to make independent income. Youtube channels are modern busking. I personally would consider income from youtube too tenuous to be willing to commit to a rent contract on the back of that income, but some people are more adventurous.
Youtube wanted a near-total monopoly on internet video, and now they have it. Good for them, but it's not consequence free in my opinion. If they could legitimately tell this person "go use one of our competitors, we don't care", then I'd consider them in the clear. But youtube has successfully suppressed any serious competition, and as a result I consider them to have the same responsibilities as a public utility. They're the USPS of video now. If they're going to have no competitors, they also shouldn't be allowed to arbitrarily cut anyone off from their service.
I feel like there are a lot of parallels between these "private" web services that are extremely dominant, and the "company towns" of previous decades/centuries. Workers didn't have a right to dictate what the town could and couldn't do, and if they were fired or felt they weren't getting enough pay they could always pack up and move to a new town or found their own city with their own money like a good bootstrappy entrepreneur... right?
For some people in the new gig economy of attention/viewfarming, they've found themselves dependent on a particular 'company town' online service. I'm not so much of an anarcho-capitalist that I find this situation hunky-dory.
Sometimes I wonder if YouTube should cut their losses regarding this whole revenue sharing thing. It's so far caused so much grief and losses for them and it doesn't seem to be able to sustain high quality content like it was intended to. Perhaps they should just leave YouTube to go back to its roots where people were just video sharing for sharing's sake and perhaps focus the money on YouTube Red where they can just buy high quality shows outright
"Demonetized" is exactly the term used both by Youtube creators and by Youtube representatives for this phenomenon for as long as it has been
around.
Youtube first made the pitch that you could "monetize" your videos. Then they had to deny that offer to certain cases. This naturally led to "demonetized" (as opposed to some awkward phrase like "ineligible for monetization").
The word is reasonable in context, and the usage ship has sailed — all market participants use it. I think it's a big stretch to see any presumption of a right in the use of this word.
If you were silly enough to go "all in" on being a "pro YouTuber" and it failed, do what other businesses do: stop crying, move on.
Nobody cares about your need for a platform - nobody owes you a platform for your videos. Can't make a living at it? Get a real job. I can't believe how ridiculous and entitled a lot of these comments are.
Man, I wanted to have a go at making a YouTube competitor, I think there's room for one, but SESTA makes me wary to have any platform that hosts user-generated content
Funny how a very complex situation can be synthesized into a single perspective. Is this heading what will become the lasting impression of this tragedy?
I can imagine a few other possible and maybe more valid interpretations, none of them exclusive though. (I don't have all the facts so this list should probably balloon, or have items removed as facts unfold):
An example of how some people are so triggered by advocacy groups (in this case PETA) that it just takes a slight economic misfortune to bring out the guns?
An example of how when the shooter is a woman she is not really demonized the way guys are (even when being an immigrant)?
An example of immigrants in the US being pushed over the edge in view of current anti-immigrant policies?
An example of how the mentally unstable have ready access to guns in the US?
An example of how the final solution to personal insignificance in the US is to shoot innocents? The media will oblige with full page analysis of you, your childhood, family and neighborhood and make sure you are granted long lasting and global fame.
There are surely many more that has to be part of the full narrative. That last one is often forgotten though.
My opinion is going to be unpopular, but...frankly I empathize with the woman. YouTube controls the entire streaming market and there are no legal controls in place to treat their streamers like employees - they're contractors so YouTube can skirt employment laws. Same way Silicon Valley has been making money for years with things like Task Rabbit and Uber - they're not being innovative they're breaking the social contract for profit.
And what's the alternative here, other than violence? SV has successfully shown that they can make products that find loopholes in laws faster than laws can be made, and frankly, our political system is broken. I'm not saying the woman was rational in what she did...probably she was acting out of sadness and despair. However, it's not like there exists a rational way of fixing the kinds of problems she has. Like, what is she going to do, sue for lost income? Appeal to the labor relations board? This is what happens when we don't look out for the despairing - they shoot up schools and workplaces.
People need to realize that YouTube and all social media are "person farms" that use the public to create their platform's attractiveness and value. The only purpose of you being on social media is to generate money for the platform, through any means the company can devise with the information you (un)knowingly give them for free.
Any platform claiming to pay you (real money or virtual currencies or "likes/points/karma") for activities on their site are creating dependent persons, and for those with less (less economic opportunity, less experience, and less experience with fraud) become unnaturally dependent upon these platforms. It is a shameful scam that moral persons should recognize on sight and shun. But our lack of critical thought today has people wholly unaware of these predators in our society, and the dependent persons they are collecting as economically disadvantaged and unaware slaves.
So what exactly is the difference between a disgruntled youtuber and a coal miner fighting Pinkertons trying to break their strike? While I'm being facetious, the attitude of 'Oh well, they took away your livelihood sucks to be you' in this thread is kind of how US labor rights have been eroded for the last 40 years.
This is a weird event, a tragedy even that perhaps could have been averted if someone had spoken to her and calmed her down.
But perhaps even then the outcome would have been the same. We can't know. And so must put this down to an individual failing and resist the temptation to seek answers in something larger.
No one can deny there is anger and frustration but the sheer scale and volume of content being uploaded hourly means it's simply not viable or even possible for humans to vet with proper support mechanisms, and automated systems are a big hammer that will inevitably leave people feeling helpless and dehumanized.
[+] [-] detaro|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sqdbps|8 years ago|reply
For whatever reason they started scouring youtube for “controversial” videos checking if they had ads (no matter how little views they had) then they would contact the advertisers for comment.
Advertisers would initiate damage control and pull their ads from youtube.
Youtube would explain that the numbers and views in question are insignificant and that this type of complex system can never be 100% error free but they reluctantly imposed restrictions.
After successfully manufacturing a story and gaining attention and traffic reporters continued scouring and contacting advertisers forcing youtube to enact tougher restrictions.
They then would extended the coverage to the anger in the youtube community and how it’s tough for them out there with all the latest policy changes.
Rinse, repeat; keep reporting on any video you find disagreeable no matter how little views it has.
. . .
Be sure to remind youtube of their power and responsibility after tragedy strikes.
[+] [-] DanAndersen|8 years ago|reply
One of the big issues with the demonetization on YouTube is that it's a binary flag -- either "acceptable content for advertisers" or "unacceptable for advertisers." As if advertisers were a single block with a single set of values!
When YouTube is not under an obligation to act as the virtual-public-square (because "they're a private company"), then they are especially vulnerable to defining that "acceptability" either by internal ideological conformity, or by external ideological pressure. Part of the concept of "free speech" (as a doctrine, not just as 1A legal structure) is that it allows for a society where the distinction of "I don't agree with this but someone out there might and so it's OK for it to exist" is a distinction that is possible. Without that, we're left with a world in which expression has to be mediated by the approval/whims of external forces for it to be present.
Whatever strange, fringe things this person was having as YouTube videos, I'd be willing to guess there's some fringe company out there who wouldn't care if they were advertised on those videos. Think of the kinds of advertisers 4chan, Infowars, or adult websites get. Their standards don't fit into a generic mold of "acceptability." But if someone was a video creator who wanted to court such advertisers, what kind of audience would they even be able to build without access to the de-facto public-square that YouTube is?
I don't know how to get there from here. But I think a more healthy ad-revenue model would somehow have YouTube saying "OK, these mainstream videos are able to be monetized by mainstream ads from companies A B and C, while these fringe/controversial videos can be monetized by whatever companies X Y and Z want to."
[+] [-] alexc05|8 years ago|reply
To be clear - they aren't actually responsible for an active shooter showing up on campus. It sounds like you're saying they could have some responsibility in someone coming to their office with a gun.
[+] [-] Klathmon|8 years ago|reply
Obviously YouTube is going to cave to advertiser pressure and start to restrict what videos can have ads, their whole existence depends on it, and if I worked at YouTube i'd see demonetizing some videos as a welcome alternative to closing the whole thing down.
I don't blame the advertisers one bit from wanting to remove their ads from many videos. Once the media starts playing the game that "an ad on the video == the advertiser agrees with the message" I too would want to do everything I can to ensure that I'm not associated with bad things.
Media outlets are (in many cases) just trying to report on things. They are (correctly) pointing out how many users and creators are upset with YouTube's moves in this case, and how many advertisers are upset about being associated with "bad" videos.
Obviously there are things that each group can do better (YouTube could stand up to the Advertisers a bit more, Advertisers could push back on the notion that "an ad == approval", and the media could stop trying to "stir up" controversy), but in each case the thing that is better for society is worse for that group (at least in the short term). I can absolutely see an alternate universe where people are boycotting Coke because they allow their ads to run on gun videos, or where YouTube ends up losing out to even more money because they won't enact more strict rules about which videos can have ads.
I don't know the answer here, but it's obvious that the current "solutions" aren't working.
[+] [-] nullifidian|8 years ago|reply
Is an ad exposure before a "controversial" video any different in its effect compared to "acceptable" video exposure? It shouldn't be. I presume ad-to-video strong association is some kind of established US norm, where you pressure companies to "pull ads" when something offends you. Not being able to pull ads in a targeted manner is unacceptable I suppose, and that great American institution of pulling ads is "ought to be preserved".
Also I don't understand why Youtube went with advertisers' demands -- they have near-monopoly, big coffers and can impose their own rules. Like "You can't dictate at the start of which particular video your ads are shown, only the demographics and some keywords". The current set of rules is giving advertizers the power they shouldn't really have. It's as if the ogranization is willing to implement what equals to advertizers moralistic/political policing of content.
[+] [-] hliyan|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bertil|8 years ago|reply
I’m not a vegan, but I don’t see the point in opposing them. Other than the banter about how in-your-face they can be, do people violently oppose vegans, or animal rights activists? She was upset over a workout video being age-gated: who would oppose that video?
[+] [-] rdtsc|8 years ago|reply
Also I don't see the last part about their responsibility in the shooting. Had this been a gun (2nd Amendment) fanatic whose gun demo videos were banned, like many on Reddit prematurely guessed, I don't think anyone would be saying " youtube is responsible for this". Now that it is a woman and she was pro-animal rights suddenly the blame is starting to shift towards YouTube, gun laws, society in general.
[+] [-] simion314|8 years ago|reply
The algorithm also seems very poor implemented, like it should give the benefit of the doubt, like if I have 10 wrongly flagged videos that a human decided it is advertising friendly then mark my channel as "trusted" and don't allow the AI to de-monitize the video , flag it and have a human check it.
In the present the algorithm is favorable to YouTube and advertisers and creators suffer.
[+] [-] amelius|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ensignro2340|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] untog|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] watwut|8 years ago|reply
I don't think they have any responsibility for the shooting. None at all. Whether the videos were demonetized rightfully or not.
[+] [-] jacquesm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clairity|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orasis|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blarneystun|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Simulacra|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meddlepal|8 years ago|reply
The death of traditional media and "news" cannot happen soon enough.
[+] [-] SlowRobotAhead|8 years ago|reply
Anyone that’s been paying attention knows the reason. If you can’t attack free speech, make that speech too expensive. All of the recent controversial issues have one side scrambling to publicly list advertisers - see the March Against Guns tweets about who has deals with NRA or advertises on Fox News.
It’s a horrible tactic that’s very much mob censorship.
[+] [-] frgtpsswrdlame|8 years ago|reply
That type of systematic degradation always pushes some people beyond the edge but because internet companies are disconnected from their users/workers they've mostly been able to ignore these side effects. This woman's act is horrific but it's also illustrative of the effects these companies actually have on people's lives.
[+] [-] mschuster91|8 years ago|reply
In the end, this is one of the "externalities" that get forced upon society when the big companies decide to cut corners on support. Some will... take matters into their own hands. Be it by spraying racist tweets as graffiti in front of the Hamburg Twitter office or by running amok, when they feel desperate enough. Desperation, especially perceived desperation, drives people to really horrible decisions - and demonetizing all videos of someone who depends on YT income for life is certainly enough to seriously mess with people.
[+] [-] alex_young|8 years ago|reply
A few years ago videos were generally interesting, or at least authentic, ads were mostly uncommon for non-commercial content, and comments were a cesspool.
Today the comments are marginally better, the content is worse, and there are ads everywhere.
The focus of many creators isn't creating useful content, but tricking people into watching or playing on the notoriety of making money itself.
This unfortunate event probably wouldn't have happened if the system wasn't designed to incentivise controversial posts in the first place.
[+] [-] jokoon|8 years ago|reply
Since it's not their data, they should have tougher restrictions the more data they handle.
It's weird because those online platform are thriving thanks to the ideal of free speech, but they are not public entities so free speech doesn't apply to them. It is very frustrating to see private interests seize the tools people use to express themselves.
As long as online data rests on private servers which are tied to lucrative interests, the internet will not be a platform where you can freely express yourself.
I have always thought that the whole online advertisement model is unhealthy and not a good system to make the internet cheaper for consumers. Ad blockers are a proof of this. If tomorrow firefox or any browser decide to not display ads and consumers go along with it, it would create a big mess.
[+] [-] morley|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ensignro2340|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _bxg1|8 years ago|reply
With that disclaimer, I can't help but feel sorry for her. In the unregulated gig/"creator" economy, someone's entire career - not just their livelihood but their life's work - can be wiped out in an instant. In her case it doesn't even sound like it was intentional. An algorithmic blip. That kind of hopeless, pointless loss would make anybody's mental health take a nosedive.
It's time the government stops treating the tech giants as neutral, private platforms, and acknowledges how big the pieces of society are which they underpin.
[+] [-] simonsarris|8 years ago|reply
If you never read of the Tunisian man, from wiki:
> Twenty-six-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi had been the sole income earner in his extended family of eight. He operated a vegetable or apple cart (the contents of the cart are disputed) for seven years in Sidi Bouzid 190 miles (300 km) south of Tunis. On 17 December 2010, a female officer confiscated his cart and produce. Bouazizi, who had had such an event happen to him before, tried to pay the 10-dinar fine (a day's wages, equivalent to 7USD). In response the policewoman insulted his deceased father and slapped him. The officer, Faida Hamdi, stated that she was not even a policewoman, but a city employee who had been tasked that morning with confiscating produce from vendors without licenses. When she tried to do so with Bouazizi a scuffle ensued. Hamdi says she called the police who then beat Bouazizi.[35] A humiliated Bouazizi then went to the provincial headquarters in an attempt to complain to local municipality officials and to have his produce returned. He was refused an audience. Without alerting his family, at 11:30 am and within an hour of the initial confrontation, Bouazizi returned to the headquarters, doused himself with a flammable liquid and set himself on fire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisian_Revolution#Mohamed_Bo...
They are obviously not the same, and the Mohamed didn't attack other people, but as people earn a monetary (or just a social) living on more arbitrary platforms, they are conjoining their own fates to these platforms, for better or worse.
If you ask Fukuyama, Niall Ferguson, or many historians how to build a non-dysfunctional state, they will tell you that rule of law and property rights matter. Systems that can easily and arbitrarily take away one's living (monetary or social) are not good for society.
[+] [-] elvinyung|8 years ago|reply
I think this and Cambridge Analytica means that we're finally entering an era in which the public is conscientious of the fact that the massive power wielded by "big data" platforms, combined with the lack of transparency, has tangible adverse effects.
Hopefully this paves the way for more transparent (and beneficent) visibility into how such data is consumed and used, possibly by using public utility-like regulation [1][2].
[1] https://datasociety.net/events/databite-no-105-k-sabeel-rahm...
[2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2986387
[+] [-] alehul|8 years ago|reply
The most noteworthy part of the article to me, granted that this excerpt is taken from a different San Jose news source.
Could this have been prevented? Should the father's comments have been enough reasonable suspicion to arrest her, or at least search her for firearms and confiscate them, given her threat level to society?
Edit: The replies do offer good points, so thank you! I'm personally a supporter of the Second Amendment as well; it's just heartbreaking, especially if any of the victims die, to know just how close we were to stopping it.
[+] [-] zelon88|8 years ago|reply
Most small YouTubers that monetized their accounts have no other revenue streams with adSense. So when YouTube cancelled their YouTube Partner Program these people wound up with stagnant adSense accounts that were probably below the payout threshold. I tried in vain to get YT to pay out my adSense account because there would be no way for me to ever hit the payout threshold. I tried to explain that there is no difference between holding my money in escrow forever and stealing my money, but the YT reps (who were very unhelpful when I asked for resources to cancel YT Red) largely blew me off and insisted that the money was mine without recognizing that they would never let it out of their possession.
It really was a sly trick and not at all in keeping with the "Don't be evil" mantra.
[+] [-] jacquesm|8 years ago|reply
The company then decided to cut the producers of the content in on the advertising income. Some of those have apparently taken this to mean that they have an inalienable right to this income, to the point where they will take out their entitlement complexes on the employees of the company.
The terms of service are pretty clear about all this too.
If you want control over your content and you want to get all the advertising income associated with your content set up your own bloody server and leave youtube and it's employees alone.
On another note: I hate fanatics, no matter of what plumage.
Edit: And I hate their apologists as well.
[+] [-] _delirium|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emodendroket|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonathanstrange|8 years ago|reply
In my point of view, it can be reasonable and morally justified to subject companies that manage to obtain a quasi-monopoly on some form of information distribution to rules that go beyond of what is required for a company merely by law, or even to adjust the law in order to better protect those companies' users.
I would consider it fair and reasonable, for instance, to demand of Facebook, Youtube, and similar platforms (incl. app stores with quasi-monopoly status on a given platform) to be fair, to not manipulate content in favour of the company's political ambitions, in favour of obviously immoral or of decidedly anti-democratic agendas. I also think it is fair and reasonable to expect these companies to remove dangerous, illegal, or decidedly anti-democratic content, to remove radical propaganda, and so on, within reasonable limits. And it is also reasonable and fair to expect or even regulate these companies to adequately compensate content-providers, since they de facto act as their publishers, make money of this content, and have besaid quasi-monopoly. I also think that companies that hold some quasi-monopoly over some information channel should be held to higher standards than those for which there are many viable alternatives, since the former are closer to being utilities. (What constitutes a quasi-monopoly or enough of a monopoly is, of course, another, quite debatable question.)
Obviously, none of this justifies any kind of violence, and the shooter was deranged and most likely wrong about her perceptions of her supposedly unfair treatment. But I couldn't let your statement stand on its own, since I believe it to be wrong in general. This is a debatable standpoint, of course, but there should be a debate. To give another example, I really don't think that Google should be allowed to skew their search results as they see fit, e.g. to influence elections in various countries, just because they are a private company and using Google search is free.
[+] [-] simias|8 years ago|reply
That being said I agree with your non-crazy point about how video uploaders shouldn't feel entitled to a share of the cake in the first place. If your business model is entirely based on some multinational corporation giving you scraps of their ad revenue then you better have a backup plan ready. Unfortunately the people who do that seem to be very young and probably don't plan that far ahead.
[+] [-] yoz-y|8 years ago|reply
You spend a lot of time and money to make a video.
You upload it to youtube.
It trips some random check and is flagged and de-monetized, you appeal.
People come and watch your video, with this type of content the vast majority of views is in the few first days since publishing.
Your appeal finally gets through, you can now monetize the video. However it is too late because 80% of the views the video will ever have have been without ads.
You are not entitled to revenue, however if you make your living off Youtube, you may expect that it will not randomly shoot you in the foot for no reason.
[+] [-] dec0dedab0de|8 years ago|reply
I tend to agree with you, especially since they could put ads directly in the videos. However, they changed their policy fairly recently. If it was money producers were relying on to live, then they are definitely going to be upset.
It's like when Apple pulls something from the AppStore because they want to release something similar. They shouldn't have tried to build a business on someone else's platform, but it's still shitty.
On another note: I hate fanatics, no matter of what plumage.
100% agree, no "however"
[+] [-] Sir_Substance|8 years ago|reply
Youtube set out to "own video", and they've been very successful at it. There are a few alleged alternatives out there like vimeo, but come on, how many smart TV's do you know that have a vimeo app pre-installed? Google favors youtube content over other video sites in its search results, and youtube is on-again-off-again zero rated with ISP's all around the globe. Youtube is dominant.
As a result, cutting someone off from youtube is actually a pretty big deal. It's a critical platform for all modern charities, and most modern companies. It's very hard for a marketing department to compete with other companies if they can't use youtube to distribute tutorials, promo content, key announcements and other errata. In most countries, youtube could swing an election by cutting off one party without warning mid-campaign.
And yeah, it's a platform for people to make independent income. Youtube channels are modern busking. I personally would consider income from youtube too tenuous to be willing to commit to a rent contract on the back of that income, but some people are more adventurous.
Youtube wanted a near-total monopoly on internet video, and now they have it. Good for them, but it's not consequence free in my opinion. If they could legitimately tell this person "go use one of our competitors, we don't care", then I'd consider them in the clear. But youtube has successfully suppressed any serious competition, and as a result I consider them to have the same responsibilities as a public utility. They're the USPS of video now. If they're going to have no competitors, they also shouldn't be allowed to arbitrarily cut anyone off from their service.
[+] [-] DanAndersen|8 years ago|reply
For some people in the new gig economy of attention/viewfarming, they've found themselves dependent on a particular 'company town' online service. I'm not so much of an anarcho-capitalist that I find this situation hunky-dory.
[+] [-] majani|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _dps|8 years ago|reply
Youtube first made the pitch that you could "monetize" your videos. Then they had to deny that offer to certain cases. This naturally led to "demonetized" (as opposed to some awkward phrase like "ineligible for monetization").
The word is reasonable in context, and the usage ship has sailed — all market participants use it. I think it's a big stretch to see any presumption of a right in the use of this word.
[+] [-] analognoise|8 years ago|reply
Nobody cares about your need for a platform - nobody owes you a platform for your videos. Can't make a living at it? Get a real job. I can't believe how ridiculous and entitled a lot of these comments are.
[+] [-] arenaninja|8 years ago|reply
EDIT weary -> wary. Thanks wccrawford
[+] [-] stareatgoats|8 years ago|reply
I can imagine a few other possible and maybe more valid interpretations, none of them exclusive though. (I don't have all the facts so this list should probably balloon, or have items removed as facts unfold):
An example of how some people are so triggered by advocacy groups (in this case PETA) that it just takes a slight economic misfortune to bring out the guns?
An example of how when the shooter is a woman she is not really demonized the way guys are (even when being an immigrant)?
An example of immigrants in the US being pushed over the edge in view of current anti-immigrant policies?
An example of how the mentally unstable have ready access to guns in the US?
An example of how the final solution to personal insignificance in the US is to shoot innocents? The media will oblige with full page analysis of you, your childhood, family and neighborhood and make sure you are granted long lasting and global fame.
There are surely many more that has to be part of the full narrative. That last one is often forgotten though.
[+] [-] patientplatypus|8 years ago|reply
My opinion is going to be unpopular, but...frankly I empathize with the woman. YouTube controls the entire streaming market and there are no legal controls in place to treat their streamers like employees - they're contractors so YouTube can skirt employment laws. Same way Silicon Valley has been making money for years with things like Task Rabbit and Uber - they're not being innovative they're breaking the social contract for profit.
And what's the alternative here, other than violence? SV has successfully shown that they can make products that find loopholes in laws faster than laws can be made, and frankly, our political system is broken. I'm not saying the woman was rational in what she did...probably she was acting out of sadness and despair. However, it's not like there exists a rational way of fixing the kinds of problems she has. Like, what is she going to do, sue for lost income? Appeal to the labor relations board? This is what happens when we don't look out for the despairing - they shoot up schools and workplaces.
[+] [-] bsenftner|8 years ago|reply
Any platform claiming to pay you (real money or virtual currencies or "likes/points/karma") for activities on their site are creating dependent persons, and for those with less (less economic opportunity, less experience, and less experience with fraud) become unnaturally dependent upon these platforms. It is a shameful scam that moral persons should recognize on sight and shun. But our lack of critical thought today has people wholly unaware of these predators in our society, and the dependent persons they are collecting as economically disadvantaged and unaware slaves.
[+] [-] panzagl|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throw2016|8 years ago|reply
But perhaps even then the outcome would have been the same. We can't know. And so must put this down to an individual failing and resist the temptation to seek answers in something larger.
No one can deny there is anger and frustration but the sheer scale and volume of content being uploaded hourly means it's simply not viable or even possible for humans to vet with proper support mechanisms, and automated systems are a big hammer that will inevitably leave people feeling helpless and dehumanized.