Before people start making conspiracies theories, I want to mention a reasonable explanation that answers the following question: how could it be in Youtube’s financial interest to block views from small channels that go viral?
I think the answer must be related to an effort to reduce the amount of unauthorized copyrighted material or fraud on the platform. Currently the majority of such material/fraud on youtube is uploaded by small channels who can create another channel as necessary. Throttling small accounts is one possible way to combat this.
I think the answer is still related to censorship. Streamers with lots of history also got throttled.
So, ask yourself, why would YouTube need to throttle in the first place? Who is giving all these protest-streamers their first 300 viewers, making them rise in the live-streaming rankings and exposing millions to anti-mandate protests?
I think YouTube is under attack. I think they learned from live-streams during George Floyd protests, which, incidentally, I also was exposed to, even though not caring too much about that. I think throttling is an attempt to avoid the artificial boosting of divisive and polarizing content.
I really do not want to turn this into a conspiracy theory, though Mark Zuckerberg did offer for Facebook to make some changes, with the rest blacked out under "secret weapon" technology. After experiments done on Facebook on emotional contagion, surely, they must have ways to, instead of rile up an entire populace, calm them down. We are at an age where a single out-of-context video of alleged police brutality can shut down the economy.
Depends if the creator is a hot potato. Even if you can make a lot of ad revenue off them it may not be good for your overall image. Just look at what is happening at Spotify.
I imagine that there is a nontrivial amount of nobody channels with suddenly popular videos that are part of fraudulent ad revenue streams (if you can drive views at less $ per view than the ads earn you it's a net positive).
This is not to say that all suddenly popular channels are ad fraud. And it seems in character for YouTube to put a blanket constriction instead of doing the trickier job of dealing with separating genuine viral hits from fraudsters.
Or maybe they're working on something more nuanced but rolled out a rough measure to stem an aggressive wave of ad fraud. We'll never know because companies are tight lipped about that sort of thing.
I've occasionally wondered who is behind reclaimthenet.org, but unlike most legitimate advocacy sites it seems very hard to find out who or what is behind it. Someone asked about this a while back and it looks like I'm not the only one who could not find anything [1].
There's always a "reason" why an evil decree is actually quite logical and palatable - just look at Whoopie Goldberg's latest scandal. But that doesn't stop it from being evil. This is an outright attempt to close the net. An open web means that anyone can say anything, and that concept horrifies and terrifies FAANG. They want a total monopoly on thought, and any "excuse" they give for closing the web is just that - an excuse.
Ah, Web1 and the Internet. HTTP, SMTP, FTP, etc. How are they doing? Ah, right, in practice the protocols people really care about like HTTP and SMTP became oligopolies.
What exactly does Web3 add to prevent this <<social>> problem?
[+] [-] dfdz|4 years ago|reply
I think the answer must be related to an effort to reduce the amount of unauthorized copyrighted material or fraud on the platform. Currently the majority of such material/fraud on youtube is uploaded by small channels who can create another channel as necessary. Throttling small accounts is one possible way to combat this.
[+] [-] 33ultra|4 years ago|reply
So, ask yourself, why would YouTube need to throttle in the first place? Who is giving all these protest-streamers their first 300 viewers, making them rise in the live-streaming rankings and exposing millions to anti-mandate protests?
I think YouTube is under attack. I think they learned from live-streams during George Floyd protests, which, incidentally, I also was exposed to, even though not caring too much about that. I think throttling is an attempt to avoid the artificial boosting of divisive and polarizing content.
I really do not want to turn this into a conspiracy theory, though Mark Zuckerberg did offer for Facebook to make some changes, with the rest blacked out under "secret weapon" technology. After experiments done on Facebook on emotional contagion, surely, they must have ways to, instead of rile up an entire populace, calm them down. We are at an age where a single out-of-context video of alleged police brutality can shut down the economy.
[+] [-] sschueller|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gtm1260|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jffry|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 4gotunameagain|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jffry|4 years ago|reply
This is not to say that all suddenly popular channels are ad fraud. And it seems in character for YouTube to put a blanket constriction instead of doing the trickier job of dealing with separating genuine viral hits from fraudsters.
Or maybe they're working on something more nuanced but rolled out a rough measure to stem an aggressive wave of ad fraud. We'll never know because companies are tight lipped about that sort of thing.
[+] [-] bearjaws|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tzs|4 years ago|reply
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23276430
[+] [-] Proven|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] iqanq|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AHappyCamper|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WaxedChewbacca|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] toraway1234|4 years ago|reply
Web3 fixes this shit.
[+] [-] oblio|4 years ago|reply
Let's see, what do I know that's decentralized?
Ah, Web1 and the Internet. HTTP, SMTP, FTP, etc. How are they doing? Ah, right, in practice the protocols people really care about like HTTP and SMTP became oligopolies.
What exactly does Web3 add to prevent this <<social>> problem?
[+] [-] egberts1|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sofixa|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gsibble|4 years ago|reply