Youtube Censorship

[Clint Love]

I haven't been on in a while, so forgive me if this has already been discussed. We all make videos, so I thought this would be the place to discuss it.

Seems like all of YouTube is losing its collective shit over the latest crackdown over TOS. I looked at my vids this morning. Out of 117 videos, 4 were de-monetized. It must have had to do with "controversial subject matter" and I appealed it as I don't believe the stuff I was vlogging about would be harmful to anyone.

Here's what I know for sure. The policy has been around since 2011 or so, but just wasn't strictly enforced. Advertisers and channels could more or less decide for themselves whose ads belonged on whose videos. Now YouTube stepped in and decided that they would use the TOS to decide whether a video could even be monetized at all.

It is a method to bowdlerize YouTube. I'm assuming their rationale is they will get more sponsors placing ads if they feel their product won't be displayed alongside an "offensive" video. you can still be as offensive as you want as long as you don't expect to make any money.

YouTube has the right to do this, because it is their site and they are a private entity, but lots of guys who make ad revenue their job are pooping their pants, quite naturally, as soon as they go into their video manager and see a bunch of their vids de-monetized. There are calls for boycotts etc, just like when Google came in and ruined everything a while back. Likewise these boycotts won't work.

The only actual problem with the whole thing that I see is that the TOS are painted with such a broad brush that damn near ANYTHING could be considered a violation and like everything else YouTube does, it hits people arbitrarily without any actual research into what the video is actually about. They just look at tags, titles and words identified in the video, for instance Suicide, Rape, ISIS, Riot etc and *boop* you're dicked.

As for me, I'm just going to roll with it like I did all their other nonsense and watch my tags, titles, pics etc and try not to say fuck every other word, like I tend to do.

What do you guys and girls know about it and plan to do?

 

[BbqRider]

I make no money from youtube and never will, so I will continue to say what I want and swear as much as I want while still monetising my videos. If they want to demonetise, they can go ahead. It really makes about $0.000000001 difference to me .

It sucks for other people who do make money though, but it's YT's game, and if you want to play along you have to accept their rules. We know from experience with YT, Google and FB that they will NEVER go back on something once they've decided on it, no matter how much we complain.

 

[Arctic Pride]

You Tube wants to be the next version of Cable TV, can't have people running around sharing their opinions and what not...

 

[Clint Love]

We know from experience with YT, Google and FB that they will NEVER go back on something once they've decided on it, no matter how much we complain.

Hit it on the head, right there.

 

[Clint Love]

You Tube wants to be the next version of Cable TV, can't have people running around sharing their opinions and what not...

Not a bad analogy

Cable started out as 100% viewer supported, so no commercials. Then they saw $$$ and started putting commercials in between the shows, then they saw $$$$$$ and became just like network TV except we still have to pay for it.

YouTube started out all ad-supported, now they are adding viewer support (YouTube Red). Pretty soon it will be both, just like cable.

 

[Meifesto]

Weird thing is that youtube self is not actively coming out with this stuff, like they did with their other big changes.

Kinda feels like they want to do it, without to many people knowing.
Bad marketing :O

 

[Arctic Pride]

I wonder just how many videos were demonetized, could add up to big $ as well...

 

[Clint Love]

Kinda feels like they want to do it, without to many people knowing.
Bad marketing :O

Their rationale is that since the TOS have been around since 2011, it shouldn't surprise people that they actually started enforcing it. I never got a notice that my vids were demonetized. I had to look in video manager. They put a little gold $ by the vids that they hit with a button that allows you to submit it to be reviewed again if you disagree. Word on the street is a lot of videos are being reinstated upon review.

 

[Meifesto]

Their rationale is that since the TOS have been around since 2011, it shouldn't surprise people that they actually started enforcing it. I never got a notice that my vids were demonetized. I had to look in video manager. They put a little gold $ by the vids that they hit with a button that allows you to submit it to be reviewed again if you disagree. Word on the street is a lot of videos are being reinstated upon review.

Only found 1 demonitized video in my list, but that is a very old one, that was put on private quite some time ago.

I wonder how many people know about this...

 

[Captain]

I only have one video that won't monetize. I made a comical outlook on my passing when I was questioned by my partner whether I wanted a burial or cremation. There is no foul language or copyright material within the video and I have never given it much thought.

As previously mentioned I will never make money on the advertising on YouTube and am considering opting out of the advertising as I feel it might be annoying the viewers by having to click to close the advert overlay down.

 

[Meifesto]

As previously mentioned I will never make money on the advertising on YouTube and am considering opting out of the advertising as I feel it might be annoying the viewers by having to click to close the advert overlay down.

Highly doubt it, i guess that 80% of the users use addblock or a similar program anyways

 

[F4celess]

Its not even Youtube's decision, its the advertisers who chose who they want to put ads on and not. Youtube merely made it easier to realize it happened.

 

[Marbro_za]

You have to remember,
If there aren't enough advertiser-friendly videos, advertisers will pull out.

Youtube ain't paying you shit. The advertisers are. Would you want your name associated with a guy that's smacking car mirrors and cursing the whole time? Not many companies do.

Have a look at GradeAunderA's latest video

 

[Lancey]

I presume YouTube only knows that you're swearing or discussing stuff that isn't 'family-friendly' if somebody reports you right? I guess it must be the advertisers complaining that they're unhappy with the videos their ads are appearing on?

 

[Clint Love]

I presume YouTube only knows that you're swearing or discussing stuff that isn't 'family-friendly' if somebody reports you right? I guess it must be the advertisers complaining that they're unhappy with the videos their ads are appearing on?

As I understand it they have bots that remotely look through titles, descriptions and tags to find mentions of certain words and arbitrarily demonetize the video without even a human putting eyes on it. They also can get sound clips of certain words the same way they find copyrighted material. The only way to get an actual person to look at it, is to appeal the findings. Appealing has worked in a lot of cases so far, but not all.

Here's an article that discusses the situation.

http://variety.com/2016/digital/new...ng-ads-from-inappropriate-content-1201850250/

 

[Meifesto]

As I understand it they have bots that remotely look through titles, descriptions and tags to find mentions of certain words and arbitrarily demonetize the video without even a human putting eyes on it. They also can get sound clips of certain words the same way they find copyrighted material. The only way to get an actual person to look at it, is to appeal the findings. Appealing has worked in a lot of cases so far, but not all.

Here's an article that discusses the situation.

http://variety.com/2016/digital/new...ng-ads-from-inappropriate-content-1201850250/

That is what i found as well.
All digitalized/bots. So multiple unnecessary demonetization taking place.

 

[Arctic Pride]

I'm fairly certain the bots can understand language as well thanks to google voice recognition technology.

I was at a social media summit for work recently and I'll tell you youtube was the bottom rung there with FB, at the top currently is Snap Chat. Oddly enough they didn't touch on Twitter's issues lately but did talk a lot about Periscope and other live streaming options.

 

[SighBored]

I don't really think it will effect the small guys like us that much compared to the big guys, but this is just disallowing monetization on the video, which you can appeal, like most cases the appeal will probably go through, just that it makes it troublesome to do the appeal process.

If you are not all about the money you could still post on YT and not care about their censorship-by-not-giving-you-ad-money policy, which in a way, the money you are getting is being paid for by the advertisers, so if they find your content not inline with their ads, I think they have the right to not run ads on the video.

If you know your content isn't appropriate why would you get bat-shit crazy if YT doesn't want to monetize it for ads? For those saying their videos are being demonetized unfairly there's no choice but to make your appeal, if there's really nothing wrong YT will remove the demonetization.. It's a hassle for both sides I guess, for us to appeal, and for them to review.