
YouTube lets biggest stars off the hook for breaking rules, moderators say - el_duderino
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/youtube-lets-biggest-stars-off-the-hook-for-breaking-rules-moderators-say/
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reggieband
My impression on this is a bit cynical. I often notice a retributive justice
motivation from critics of particular youtube and twitch content creators.
People see Logan Paul, or Alinity do something marginal and they allow their
dislike of that person to blow their response completely out of proportion.
They don't just want to see a platform evolve into a more wholesome direction
- they really want the person they dislike to get _hurt_. They then hide
behind some false morality or virtue signaling about protecting animals or
children. To me their motivation seems quite clear. They are not motivated to
protect or even motivated by a sense of fairness, they are motivated to attack
a particular individual (or a representative of a class of individual they
dislike).

The fact that the stars of YouTube/Twitch get more careful moderation as well
as the benefit of the doubt in marginal cases makes complete sense to me. 99%
of the time YouTube won't have the time to apply careful judgement to a report
and they will likely err on the side of caution. For top creators and high-
income potential channels they will bring more resources into their decision.

And if you find yourself calling for someones head on a platter, I urge you to
consider your motive. Are you really aiming for a more wholesome platform or
do you want to see that smirk wiped off of Alinity's face?

~~~
thinkingemote
There's a third alternative where they seek consistency or a kind of flat
equality rather than a better place. They don't seem a more wholesome place
they seek the past.

------
vfc1
Unpopular opinion, given the sheer amount of content that gets uploaded to
YouTube everyday, I think that in general, YouTube does an awesome job on
moderating all that content and keeping the platform clean.

I don't remember at any time seeing in my home screen anything that was
blatantly NSFW.

The combination of user flagging, manual human reviews and especially the
content filtering algorithm works great, but of course, there will always be a
small number of false negatives that will get highly publicized and used to
trash the public image of YouTube in the mainstream media.

YouTube is maybe the best thing that has happened on the Internet since it's
creation. You have a place to host videos for free on all topics, where people
can freely share and exchange ideas at scale in a captivating format.

Most of the ads you get to see are much more relevant than what you get on TV,
which thanks mostly to YouTube I have hardly watched in over a decade.

I think that judging YouTube just because Logan Paul has decided to taser a
dead rat and only got a 15 days suspension is excessive.

~~~
ciupicri
Couldn't care less about NFSW. YouTube is full of spam and click bait, but
they don't seem to do anything about it. The top search results still include
a lot of crap.

~~~
colejohnson66
As for clickbait: while bad, it’s not against the TOS

~~~
ciupicri
From
[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2801973?hl=en](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2801973?hl=en)

> Spam, scams, and other _deceptive practices_ that take advantage of the
> YouTube community aren’t allowed on YouTube.

Some click bait is in the deceptive practices category. For example if I see
"Logan Paul Tases A Dead Rat"
[https://youtu.be/GsxYu8vHzBM](https://youtu.be/GsxYu8vHzBM) I'm expecting to
see Paul tasing a rat, not a Power Point presentation on the subject.

------
makomk
“Our responsibility was never to the creators or to the users. It was to the
advertisers.”

I'm shocked - absolutely shocked! - that after years of activists and a large
chunk of the press using advertisers as a tool to lean on YouTube to ban
specific videos, their moderation policies are now largely aimed at keeping
advertisers happy. Whoever could've seen that one coming.

------
post_break
Twitch and YouTube are platforms where you can literally upload videos of
yourself abusing your pets and not get banned because you bring the platform
money.

~~~
MrMember
A popular Twitch streamer filmed himself in a public bathroom where children
were present. He got a one week ban.

~~~
JetSpiegel
A similar thing happened to a local "celebrity" (guy in their 30's films
himself on the bathroom with underage girls, wiping their asses; or kissing
underage kids in the mouth), and YouTube does absolutely nothing, even after
he was criminally investigated for possible sexual harassment (aggravated for
commercial purposes).

EDIT: It seems YouTube did close their channel, after the criminal
investigation. This should really be the opposite.

------
personjerry
Same thing happens on Twitch, especially for some female streamers known for
streaming in revealing clothing. As an example, this popular female streamer
was recently seen feeding vodka to her cat (mouth to mouth) and throwing her
cat over her head (intentionally because the cat was blocking her screen while
she was in a fight in-game, unclear if cat was hurt) but got off scot-free.
[0]

Meanwhile, last year a less popular male streamer was showing off his catfish
and accidentally dropped the catfish and got banned/suspended [1] [2]

[0] [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/alinity-
gamer...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/alinity-gamer-cat-
twitch-animals-sexism)

[1]
[https://livestreamfails.com/post/15889](https://livestreamfails.com/post/15889)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/alecludford/status/968697869032189953?la...](https://twitter.com/alecludford/status/968697869032189953?lang=en)

~~~
qtplatypus
The whole aggression towards women who wear revealing clothing while streaming
concerns me. There seems to be an element of puritanical anti sexuality in it.

~~~
BubRoss
It's mostly kids watching

~~~
qtplatypus
Are these teenagers seeing something more then someone could see someone
wearing at the beach?

------
akersten
Same issue with Twitter - their golden goose sometimes lays rotten eggs. But
people flock to the platform to see the spectacle.

Balancing moderation with profitability seems to be a real challenge for a lot
of companies.

~~~
tantalor
> a real challenge for a lot of companies

You imply that the problem can be "solved", but how can it be if users and
advertisers have competing interests?

~~~
DanBC
Both users and advertisers want clarity.

Will this video contain a someone posing with, and mocking, a corpse?

Will this video contain a someone "cementing" his head inside a microwave?

Will this video of a popular children's game including people yelling words
like nigger or faggot?

That bit isn't complicated.

The complicated bit is what you do to cater for the religious bigot advertiser
/ viewers: do you let them say "I don't want to place ads against LGBT
friendly material"?

~~~
wolco
Why not? I would think lgbtqt material would be more valuable and able to
bring increased revenue.

Besides people reverse ad buy to avoid certain groups. For example advertising
in a church bulletin will excludd many lgbtqt factions.

------
haunter
Same thing happens on Twitch with the titty streamers, "just chatting"

And now they are introducing a sub-only stream option, literally turning
Twitch into a private cam site

[https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/subscriber-
streams](https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/subscriber-streams)

~~~
LegitShady
I completely stopped using Twitch after it became clear they wouldn't apply
rules equally and that the people making the decisions there aren't people I'd
trust to order lunch.

------
sarcasmatwork
Money talks! This is why twitter has no idea how to handle people when they
have created a protected class of people. Some people they ban, others they
protect. Its fubar.

~~~
dplgk
Like if I threatened to shoot someone, I'm guessing I'd be banned. Threatening
nuclear war though... Not a problem for some people.

~~~
JetSpiegel
A million is a statistic...

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michaelbuckbee
One aspect of this not touched is that that YT’s primary response is
demonetizing videos or channels- but most get their money from brand deals
outside of that.

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lunias
Does it really matter what youtube does so long as the community holds these
content creators accountable? Stop giving them your attention (and youtube ad
revenue) and they will have to make amends or do something else.

Don't pretend that youtube cares about anything other than how many hours
users spent watching ads; and if you don't like it then create your own index
where you store everyone's videos for free.

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TwoNineA
Let's all pretend to be shocked.

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onetimemanytime
same as everywhere. Big clients always get away with stuff smaller ones are
screwed.

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povertyworld
Imagine living in a world were Logan Paul is too big too fail.

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sixothree
What we need is for this administration to get involved. /s

