Slashdot Mirror
YouTube Videos Could Get Demonetized If They Have 'Inappropriate Comments'
In response to a mother's inquiry into why her son's gymnastics videos were deemed not advertiser friendly, YouTube said on Twitter it has "taken a number of actions to better protect the YouTube community from content that endangers minors." The video-sharing website went on to say something very concerning for anyone who has ever uploaded a video to the site: "... even if your video is suitable for advertisers, inappropriate comments could result in your video receiving limited or no ads (yellow icon)."
Essentially, what YouTube is saying is that if someone leaves a "incendiary or demeaning" comment, or one with "inappropriate language," the video which features that comment could get demonetized and the content creator would not generate money from it. If you've ever read a comment thread on YouTube, it shouldn't take long for you to realize how big of an issue this could become. According to YouTube's "advertiser-friendly content guidelines," the following content may not be suitable for most advertisers: "controversial issues and sensitive events," "drugs and dangerous products or substances," "harmful or dangerous acts," "harmful or dangerous acts," "hateful content," "inappropriate language," "inappropriate use of family entertainment characters," "incendiary and demeaning [content]," "sexually suggestive content," and/or "violence."
The best advice for circumventing this issue is to disable comments entirely, but this would significantly reduce the interaction between the YouTuber and the viewer. "If this is our new reality we're going to need the ability to restrict comments from accounts under 1-4 weeks old," says news commentator and YouTube personality Philip DeFranco. "Sounds like this is prime for weaponization. Also it would probably be best to have an official blog post instead of my tweet as a reference for this change."
Essentially, what YouTube is saying is that if someone leaves a "incendiary or demeaning" comment, or one with "inappropriate language," the video which features that comment could get demonetized and the content creator would not generate money from it. If you've ever read a comment thread on YouTube, it shouldn't take long for you to realize how big of an issue this could become. According to YouTube's "advertiser-friendly content guidelines," the following content may not be suitable for most advertisers: "controversial issues and sensitive events," "drugs and dangerous products or substances," "harmful or dangerous acts," "harmful or dangerous acts," "hateful content," "inappropriate language," "inappropriate use of family entertainment characters," "incendiary and demeaning [content]," "sexually suggestive content," and/or "violence."
The best advice for circumventing this issue is to disable comments entirely, but this would significantly reduce the interaction between the YouTuber and the viewer. "If this is our new reality we're going to need the ability to restrict comments from accounts under 1-4 weeks old," says news commentator and YouTube personality Philip DeFranco. "Sounds like this is prime for weaponization. Also it would probably be best to have an official blog post instead of my tweet as a reference for this change."
...have no problem collecting 100% of the ad money. They will still run the ad and bill for it, it's just a new way to stiff you out of the money.
I hole-hardedly agree, but allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are wrong. In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. We often put our false morality on a petal stool like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you all seem to be taking something very valuable for granite. So I ask of you to mustard up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out there. Although there is some merit to what you are saying it seems like you have a huge ship on your shoulder. In your argument you seem to throw everything in but the kids Nsync, and even though you are having a feel day with this I am here to bring you back into reality. I have a sick sense when it comes to these types of things. It is almost spooky, because I cannot turn a blonde eye to these glaring flaws in your rhetoric. I have zero taller ants when it comes to people spouting out hate in the name of moral righteousness. You just need to remember what comes around is all around, and when supply and command fails you will be the first to go. Make my words, when you get down to brass stacks it doesn't take rocket appliances to get two birds stoned at once. It's clear who makes the pants in this relationship, and sometimes you just have to swallow your prize and accept the facts. You might have to come to this conclusion through denial and error but I swear on my mother's mating name that when you put the petal to the medal you will pass with flying carpets like it's a peach of cake.
Making a business or any sort of living as a content creator on YouTube seems to be coming rather quickly to an end if this rule takes hold.
Then again, maybe all that will be left on YouTube are those that do this as a passion project and not expect to make money from it... Those that are only in it for the money will quickly move on to something perhaps more profitable.
If they're so obsessed about "protecting the children", then just hide and disable comments across the entire site on the Youtube Kids interface. Then it's just up to the parents to ensure that Youtube is locked in the Kids mode on their devices.
That will work out well. Everybody on YouTube, no matter how nice or friendly, has enemies. There are a lot of dissatisfied, cruel, envious and stupid people around and also some outright psychos. If these people now get handed a Really Big Stick, they are going to use it.
On the plus-side, this extreme stupidity hopefully will hasten the demise of YouTube. It has vastly overstayed its welcome anyways.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
What'll happen is people who hate others speaking their minds will infest their comment sections and troll them, leaving inflammatory comments. This'll get them demonetized, which is about the same as being shut down. Appearing on Youtube is a full-time job if you do it right. It's not vapid internet celebrities either, there is some really incisive content by people like Jimmy Dore that is regularly reported and demonetized by these trolls.
Censorship isn't a school board banning Huckleberry Finn any more. In the corporatist system we have, corporate censorship isn't any different than government censorship. It doesn't make much difference whether the one silencing your dissent is Youtube or Andrew McCabe. The effect is the same.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
This'll doom channels that are specifically about audience participation, like "leave a comment about what you want me to do in my next video".
If only there was a way for viewers to send comments and suggestions directly to the content maker, like sending a letter in the mail. We could call it "electronic mail" People could have addresses where such "e-mail" could be sent.
All sarcasm aside, perhaps those youtube content creators overlooked how useful e-mail is in their haste to adopt social networking platforms.
"How to solve an important but complicated problem"
By: YouTube
1. Ignore problem
2. Keep ignoring problem
3. Once people bring light to problem, keep ignoring it
4. If it might lose you ad revenue, announce you're looking into it (but keep ignoring it)
5. If it has caused you to lose ad revenue, PANIC! ANNOUNCE YOU'RE TAKING MAJOR STEPS TO SOLVE IT!
6. Implement the worst possible solution to fixing the problem (Make sure the solution can be easily abused to shutdown small channels!)
7. Wonder why people hate YouTube
9. ???
10. No profit
If they can identify the comments and demonetize or restrict the video, surely they can give creators the option to instead opt for the comments to be deleted or blocked when they are detected. Some way that creators can choose to have the inappropriate comments removed to prevent demonetization.
A mother wants to make money off her son's gymnastics videos? This world is really going to hell...
That was my thought as well. If I don't like certain social or political commenters on YT, I can just post a few inappropriate comments on their videos and take away their ad revenue.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
why punish the video, while the commenter is the one who should be blamed.
wouldn't it be easier to set a time limited (or permanent) commect ban on that id?
basically you could build a bot right now that makes sure everything on youtube get demonetized.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Maybe don't put your children on YouTube.
Maybe don't try or expect to make money from your child being on YouTube.
Maybe we all know that social media isn't good for kids anyway.
Which would be great, except the people who run google are effectively friends with those in Patreon. So, the same policies are spreading over there. If you have content that they deem offensive, then Patreon is defunding you too. This famously occurred for Sargon of Akad last December, which is the reason some large content creators who champion free speech left patreon in protest.
You might feel your content is safe, and it is just those "bad" people who disagree with you get silenced. The problem is that when bad means disagree, you can find yourself suddenly on the wrong side very quickly.
Free speech is the hardest thing, because it means defending the right of someone to say something that is completely annoying to you. It goes against human nature, which makes it one of the great intellectual achievements of humans.
Ironically, you might not see this post because my karma is bad. My karma is bad because I said some very, very critical things about the slashdot community chasing politics over the quest for science. Even here, censorship happens.