
YouTube Drops Online Star Logan Paul from Premium Advertising - ucaetano
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/technology/logan-paul-youtube.html
======
Tehnix
For people that don’t follow the YouTube community, YT has a terrible track
record of not treating creators equally, and demonetizing a ton of creators
for little to no reason, while some of their other creators, namely Jake and
Logan Paul could violate these same guidelines that the rest were slapped over
the wrist with.

This has been a long time under way, and while I don’t particularly think they
should drop shows like they stupidly did with Pewdiepie, there definitely had
to be some backlash for posting a video of a dead guy, when they were striking
against videoes talking about that video, for being in violation.

It’s also worth noting, that YouTube were _not_ the ones taking down the
video, Logan did this himself after the backlash, and that they waited so long
is rather indicative of them trying to see where the wind blows and if they
could get away with it.

Honestly, YT has been writing the book on “how to shit on your creators” for
2017 and more, but they might finally be setting back on a better track.

~~~
l33tbro
Downvote me to coach, but I've never understood why people assert that Youtube
owes their users advertising dollars, where other social media platforms are
exempt.

Youtube has for years run at a loss, providing free high-quality video
streaming with no bandwidth restrictions. These "creators", who are actually a
very tiny portion of users, pay zero overheads to have a worldwide
broadcasting platform where they're unrestricted to promote third-party
products and monetise their content in countless ways.

If people are going to complain about Youtube, then surely you've got to go
after other social networks first who aren't sharing revenue with users who
are bringing engagement to their platform (Reddit, Instagram, Snapchat, etc).

~~~
Joe-Z
The issue is not whether people can make money off of YT or not, but if they
have an equal chance to do so. As GP mentioned there have been blatant
inequalities regarding which rules are applied to whom in 2017 (for example
the popular channel 'h3h3productions' now barely publishes any videos
anymore).

~~~
Tehnix
Exactly! I can't remember if h3h3productions also takes Patreon, but either
that or moving over to Twitch seems the common response from the people hit
the hardest (while h3h3 don't upload many videos, they are quite active with
their podcast!).

------
mbrumlow
I don't know who's to blame. But somewhere along the line we let people's
outrage have more control than it probably should.

I don't know who Logan is but read what he did. It was disgusting. But the
market should have naturally handled it. The problem is had YouTube done
nothing it likely would not have affected his views. That should tell you
something about how loud and powerful we have let the offended become.

I think there is a second problem that actually might be bigger. Intolerance
for mistakes.

I did not see the video in question but I know that humans can often loose
judgment and make mistakes. I think it is going to make shitty society to live
in if you will be judged in perpetually for the worst moments of your public
life.

There are talks about him breaking YouTube rules. That is fine. He should be
punished within those guidelines. But it seems people want blood.

~~~
csydas
> But the market should have naturally handled it.

It did. Advertisers don't want to be associated with such content and made it
clear to Youtube they want a sanitized landscape to advertise on. Youtube in
response has cut Paul off from the Guaranteed Revenue Stream for now. The
business partners involved in this situation spoke a long time ago on what
they did and did not want, and Youtube made a business decision.

From the article, the viewers who think what Paul did was deplorable are
calling out for more punishment, which Youtube has not done, so they are in-
fact resisting the will of the masses here.

> I think there is a second problem that actually might be bigger. Intolerance
> for mistakes.

I do get what you're saying, but per the article and per Logan Paul's history
with his videos and audience, his fame comes from constantly pushing the
envelope with outlandish behavior. It's part of his character and also what
attracts people to him, but it should be expected that he also sets his own
limits and boundaries. There's not really a way in light of his popularity and
work with Youtube that he could have not known about the policy on such video
content, and even if he did, ignorance is not an excuse in this case.

Logan Paul is receiving a penalty for bad judgement and violating Youtube
rules; he's not the victim of mob mentality, he's the victim of Advertisers
wanting a sanitized advertising platform. If he made a mistake in earnest,
then I hope he learns well from it and grows as a video maker, using this as a
learning experience from which he recovers. Nothing Youtube has said so far
though has made it out to be that this is some irreparable situation, it's a
penalty for violating the Youtube Guidelines.

If Logan Paul is contrite, he will recover.

~~~
ghostcluster
> Logan Paul is receiving a penalty for bad judgement and violating Youtube
> rules; he's not the victim of mob mentality,

He's receiving punishment _because_ of the mob mentality. The platform had the
video in question on their highly curated Trending page before he pulled it.

Whether some accountability was necessary is secondary to the fact that he is
now in the sights of a huge morally righteous outrage mob. And I'm with the OP
that it seems like society runs in a mode now where mob retribution is not
satisfied until it the retribution is absolute.

~~~
csydas
> He's receiving punishment because of the mob mentality.

I'm afraid history doesn't really agree with you - the entire "Adpocalypse"
was advertiser driven, not user driven. Users had been complaining about
horrible videos on Youtube for years and the videos continued to be monetized
and Youtube didn't care. Ad revenue and results were not trending down,
Advertisers just wanted more control, and Youtube gave it to them.

And I take issue with the idea of the Trending Page being highly curated
because it's clearly algorithmic, not manually managed. The countless videos
on the subject, as well as Quora discussions strongly suggest that it's
decided by algorithm, not by individuals.

I get that you're frustrated with how people respond to certain topics in
modern society, but the action from Youtube is pretty even handed by any
metric. Logan Paul is _not_ banned from Youtube, he's not banned from
monetizing, he's simply been removed from a specific level of partnership in
Youtube for violating a rule that Youtube has had for a long time and for
going against Advertiser wishes. Again, he should know better - he's made a
mistake, he's receiving a punishment. If he is contrite, he will recover; he
seems to have what it takes to be successful on Youtube. This time he just
went too far.

~~~
Freestyler_3
> the entire "Adpocalypse" was advertiser driven, not user driven.

You really think add companies cared that much? They only started caring
because there were users going after them for advertising on such videos.

In some cases I understand, like the videos that are aimed at kids but they
are pretty bad. And the scammers.

~~~
supreme_sublime
What I find strange is, there isn't any evidence for long term association of
an ad with the content of the video. If you see a coca cola commercial before
an ISIS beheading video, do you really think "Huh, coca cola is sponsoring
ISIS now"? It is a ridiculous jump to leap to. The research also doesn't back
it up, there seems to be a short term association, but definitely nothing long
term.

The problem is YouTube doesn't want to operate at a loss, they are trying to
get more advertisers to the platform so they can make more money. To bring
more advertisers to the platform, they are attempting to get advertisers to
pick and choose what kind of content their ads show around. Instead of just
allowing them to target the user and whatever demographics/interests they may
have based on their viewing history.

I find it really strange for a company hemorrhaging money to actively be
showing fewer ads, considering they make money on those ads as well.

The users causing a fuss were simply leverage for the ad companies to remind
YouTube who is boss. For some reason YouTube thinks they don't have any kind
of leverage of their own. Of course they aren't profitable, but they also have
a massive user base. It seems like a strategic mistake to me.

They are pushing content creators off the platform, which will push down their
user count and push down the amount of people they can advertise to. I'm not a
business or marketing guy, but I would have simply said "We try to remove
videos that violate our TOS as quickly as possible, all other videos the
creators want to make money from, we show ads on. Our ads are targeted to
users, not based on the specific video they happen to be watching."

~~~
Freestyler_3
That makes sense. Apparently there are videos that they just can't take down
with their TOS, but that they want advertisers to have the option not to
advertise there. Its a service that sells less advertisements and makes
creators shift away from youtube. A lose lose lose situation in the long run.

Also seeing youtube as the future of tv... I don't think so.

~~~
supreme_sublime
Yes, they have a "demonetized" status for videos that don't violate their TOS
but aren't "advertiser friendly". Their general lack of transparency about it
is also quite annoying. There also does seem to be some kind of manual process
going on which is very strange. I have a small anecdote about it,
unfortunately the creator took down the video talking about it after the
problem was resolved or I'd just link that. I'll try to summarize as best I
can.

There is a channel I watch, called "Counter Arguments", it is pretty much
exactly what it sounds like. He made a video a while back called "Punch a
Nazi"[0]. Some weeks after it being up, he got it taken down as violating the
TOS for promoting violence. I don't believe he actually attempted to get it
reviewed and put back up. The funny thing about the video is it is a video
that is ultimately against political violence and he puts clips from a couple
other videos in it that actually do promote violence. Those videos were never
taken down. He posted a video about what happened to the video because people
were asking him about it. A few days after posting the video about it, the
video was put back up. I believe it may be demonetized, but I'm not sure. He
seems to have scrubbed the videos discussing it from his channel.

We have no way of knowing if it was a manual or automated action that caused
the video to go down, nor if it was a manual or automated action to get it put
back up. The timing of it, sounds to me like it may have been flagged, a
YouTube employee looked at it and didn't like what it said, so took it down.
Potentially another YouTube employee saw the other video about it being taken
down and put it back up. We have no way of knowing. I think if he would have
never made another video about it being taken down, it likely would still be
down today.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XtQ1BVhcOk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XtQ1BVhcOk)

------
swang
should i be surprised that the first few comments are somehow defending logan
paul in some way?

are we so desensitized that we just kinda shrug our shoulders when someone
posts a video of a dead guy? what about if a large portion of his audience is
kids?

"but wow his viewcount!" i mean what about that warlord that murdered and
maimed a whole bunch of innocent people. he was bad but the efficiency in
which he did it took my breath away!

logan paul posts a lot of dumb, sometimes racist, mostly shit videos that
manipulates kids into buying their "merch" and while i'm sure someone like
this has existed for every single generation, the fact that no one is there to
ask him whether doing this kind of shit is beneficial besides "for the views!"
i mean it wouldn't be so bad if logan or his brother were actually mentally
sound enough to make just the baseline level of common decency.

maybe i am just too old, but the ability to influence so many kids at once
scares me.

~~~
martin_bech
You are aware that death is a part of life right? I think is way overblown to
be so mad, at someone showing a part of life.

~~~
Rebelgecko
There's a difference between talking to children about death (e.g. Mr Hooper
on Sesame Street), and a video where a dude goes looking for people that
committed suicide, succeeds in finding a corpse, and jokes about it in front
of someone's body.

~~~
martin_bech
People commit suicide.. thats a part of life (People in my imediate family
have committed suicide). Its horrible, but its a part of life. Joking about
it, is a copeing mechanism, perhaps not the very best one.

I havent watched the video in question, Im sure its propably in bad taste, but
you dont have to watch it. Nobody HAS to watch it.

~~~
Rebelgecko
No one has to watch it, but when the primary audience of the channel is
children there's something not right about treating a recently deceased corpse
like a sideshow exhibit. Suicides can come in clusters and behave almost like
an infectious disease (I'm sorry if you've experienced this firsthand). It's
perhaps not that surprising to see that people are more likely to commit
suicide after a relative or friend does. Even media coverage of a stranger's
suicide can cause an uptick in suicide rates. While Logan Paul may not have
any obligation to handle the subject in a respectful way, Youtube also doesn't
have any obligation to give preferential treatment to his shitty videos.

------
mc32
Well, now that YT is all grown up, they are learning the value of having
producers, or generally people who can nix something before it hits the
"airwaves" -as well as take the "heat".

So, yeah, maybe for your premier channels, you don't have live streamers
without a net.

On the other hand, it's a bit ridiculous to crucify this guy or that Swedish
guy when they have thousands of worse , much worse offenders around the globe.
But hey, outrage of the day. I mean, I'm shocked, shocked they want to run
lean as possible (on oversight, etc.) and cut loose the "ta[l|r]ento[1]" at
first sign of trouble.

And, if you head down to Lawson's konbini, you can buy the "101 ways to kill
yourself without leaving a mess for your family" polite suicide book.

[1] And by ta[l|r]ento I mean that in the most Japanese way because YT see
their creators only as cheap conduits to monetization and only care about them
insofar as they create revenue for them.

~~~
viraptor
> it's a bit ridiculous to crucify this guy or that Swedish guy when they have
> thousands of worse

Do they have to be bad in comparison? I'm happy both were affected. YT can
_also_ take care of worse offenders, not instead.

~~~
Tehnix
If you ever look into the reason Pewdiepie got affected, it’s a massively
disgusting play of how massive media outlets can twist a narrative by editing
videos out of context together and put pressure on a platform to respond to a
blatantly (at least it’s a 20 sec google away) false narrative.

------
gitgud
I'm not a fan of Logan Paul or his content.

But I admire his hustle, he literally makes [1] millions of dollars off of
daily youtube videos.

[1]
[https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/ucg8rbf3g2amx70yod8v...](https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/ucg8rbf3g2amx70yod8vqizg)

~~~
Waterluvian
I thought he was just one of those examples of someone finding the shortest
path to tweens' dopamine receptors, particularly in the absence of any
broadcast standards of quality.

------
hugozap
Besides the forest video, he was incredibly disrespectful with Japanese people
in the other videos. That alone should be a reason to ban him.

[Edit: By disrespectful I mean actually harassing people (at least in the
Japan videos). That's a valid cause for banning in most communities]

~~~
ewjordan
Being disrespectful, while supremely offensive to me and a very good reason
not to watch Logan Paul (or let your kids watch him), does not meet my
personal bar of "should be banned". Mainstream media routinely gives the mic
to people acting far more offensively, and with actual malicious intent rather
than mere youthful stupidity.

Free speech is not something that private companies need to protect as far as
the law goes, but I think it's an ideal that they should try to hold dear
nonetheless, as much as possible. "Acted disrespectfully towards a group" is
way too wiggly and subjective as an offense to start banning people over.

Edit: just to be clear, I think the suicide video is clearly over the line.
I'm only talking about his general shithead-ness the rest of the time.

~~~
r00fus
> does not meet my personal bar of "should be banned"

Does demonetization mean "banned" to you?

~~~
x0x0
Yeah, there's a deliberate blurring of "not able to speak" with "people don't
want to be associated with _paying_ him to speak" going on here.

------
imhoguy
Why death is so much taboo in Western world today? Why teenagers should forget
about death and life risks? One climbing skyscrapers risks death, but rarely
there is material to show and visually warn young brains how that may end up.
Most bodies in that forrest had suits, possibly office workers, who knows
maybe pushed into karoshi - that is the problem and warning too.

I am not sure if Mr Paul was disrespectful in the material, that wasn't
covered by the article. But death is real, why to reject it? Why to not
discuss it openly?

~~~
awaythrowaway
The issue isn't that Jake is confronting the issue of death itself, the issue
is that he is effectively objectifying a physical, very recent suicide for his
fans to oogle and oggle over and deliver a payload of clicks, irrespective of
the identity of the victim or his family.

------
gigatexal
Eh, if I were Logan I'd (hopefully have enough of said millions I earned being
a hooligan) take my money and retire with the ability to do whatever I want.
He had a good run, maybe he can now go do something productive with his time
and money.

------
King-Aaron
I feel the outrage generation has had far too much say in how this has been
handled.

Videos of death appear all the time across various platforms. The fact that he
made a video featuring a corpse should not enough to warrant a ban I don't
feel - rather an immediate setting to 'age restricted content' perhaps - but
If we're banning youtubers over showing a corpse on the screen, then most news
media outlets would need to shut up shop. I know some people "don't like to
see death", but it is a part of life. Do we really need to make death a taboo
subject?

Now, I know that it's not simply because he video taped a corpse. His response
and handling of the situation is clearly the underlying factor, and to that I
ask - what happened to the idea that people can apologise, learn from
mistakes, rehabilitate their behaviour and improve as a result of it? He
apologised and removed his video, which seems like a reasonable response.

We all (i.e. the greater internet consuming population) seem to be going down
a path of extreme responses to events without offering any ability for fixing
mistakes. As soon as someone does something that's perceived to be wrong,
everyone flips out and makes outrageous statements in comments threads (and in
fact, it doesn't seem to require a majority voice - just loud and persistent
small groups). The media perpetuates these stories as people love to keep
getting more and more outraged. And people start posting more outlandish and
aggressive responses in order to garner their own 'likes' and responses which
feeds the snowball effect.

It seems like as time rolls on, there's less and less margin for error that
people are willing to accept. And if you anger the mob for any reason, your
life and career is over. It's a big risk for anyone in the public light I
feel, and I wonder if we'll reach a stage where content creators (actors,
writers, vloggers, streamers, or whoever) will change how they see any value
in their career if it could be immediately and permanently extinguished for
minor reasoning.

Edit: That wasn't supposed to sound as ranty as it did, apologies.

------
shangxiao
Philip DeFranco has analysed this well and covered this in several videos, the
latest being [1]. I agree with his analysis that the problem here is YT
itself, not the content creators. I personally believe this latest development
makes Logan Paul somewhat of a scapegoat, especially since his video apology
[2] was one of the most sincere public apologies I've seen.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-ePy-2WLfY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-ePy-2WLfY)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwZT7T-TXT0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwZT7T-TXT0)

~~~
mattmurdog
You mean the one where he attached an ad to so he made money off it? If he was
sincere he would have turned that off like most apology videos.

Also let's not forget his history of racism towards Asians.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Why would he turn ads off if he was sincere? I don't really understand the
relation.

I'd understand if you suggested that he donate the profits from the video to a
suicide prevention charity or something similar. If I fuck up at work, I don't
apologise and offer to work for free.

~~~
mattmurdog
It's an YT apology etiquette. But donating it is also a great idea. Too bad he
did neither like the dbag he is.

------
Rainymood
>Last year, YouTube dropped another one of its stars, Felix Kjellberg, better
known by his YouTube alias PewDiePie, from its top-tier advertising after
reports surfaced about anti-Semitic comments he made on video.

I generally really respect the NYT but to phrase the whole PewDiePie situation
like this is utterly disgusting and a misguided narrative.

------
debt
I think this was a way for Logan Paul to start his own streaming service.

I have to believe this was intentional so he could essentially force his
audience to go some paid network he owns. I don't think it was as accidental
as their making it seem.

Disney is trying to start their own streaming network as well.

I have to think these are all related.

------
the_common_man
He apologized for his actions -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwZT7T-TXT0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwZT7T-TXT0)
. Not sure why should be crucified more.

~~~
swang
because he was dumb enough to post it in the first place? and he didn't even
get punished for it until the huge wave of backlash youtube received. hell it
took them a week to bother making an announcement, like they were waiting and
hoping it would die down instead of having to actually enforce their own
rules.

~~~
prostoalex
I haven’t seen a single video by the guy, but the linked NYT article seems to
imply it displayed gory details of someone who committed suicide recently.
Would it be possible that such grisly scene would turn some teens (which were
his main audience, from my understanding) off the topic of suicide? In a way
that raw photos and videos of war atrocities horrify us but force us to
introspect on the value of life and peace?

~~~
ascorbic
Quite the opposite. Reporting details of suicides has been proven to lead to
an increase in attempts, and for attempts to be more successful. The
Samaritans in the UK has good media guidelines on reporting of suicide:
[https://www.samaritans.org/media-centre/media-guidelines-
rep...](https://www.samaritans.org/media-centre/media-guidelines-reporting-
suicide)

~~~
DanBC
I prefer the National Union of Journalist guidelines.

I frequently talk to reporters about the way they report suicide, and when I
was using the Samaritans guidance journos would almost always say "but fredom
of speech".

Giving them guidance written by other journalists (and then giving them the
Samaritans guidance) stopped them saying that.

[https://www.nuj.org.uk/documents/nuj-guidelines-for-
responsi...](https://www.nuj.org.uk/documents/nuj-guidelines-for-responsible-
reporting-on-mental-health/nuj-guidelines-for-reporting-mental-health-and-
death-by-suicide.pdf)

[https://www.nuj.org.uk/news/guidelines-on-reporting-on-
menta...](https://www.nuj.org.uk/news/guidelines-on-reporting-on-mental-
health-suicide/)

------
hmokya
YouTube should be careful in how they approach this.

Treating top talent poorly is a great opportunity for an incumbent.

Logan is generating tremendous value.

As technology becomes more accessible in order for YouTube to maintain it’s
dominate position they need to realize that the creators have the power.

~~~
tirpen
_Is_ Logan generating value for Youtube though?

Guys like Logan and PewDiePie are scaring away advertisers, and the kids who
watch them would probably just switch and watch some other YouTuber instead if
they were to go away.

~~~
hmokya
Logan and prediepie won out on the YouTube platform for a reason.

They are the ones generating the value.

In the extreme case imagine that all YouTube videos were of paint drying.
Would people still watch?

There is real entertainment value.

Content is king.

Netflix agrees.

~~~
Rapzid
I watched 3 or 4 videos of paint drying just this evening. Well, it was
actually wood floor filler.. Close enough.

