
YouTube stops monitization on controversial subjects and political conflicts - pdkl95
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6162278
======
privateersman
Google's the puritans of the web. If you have an association with them then
you must live under their strict rules.

That said, I think something has changed. I'm not sure why it is, but they
have become more prudish in recent years. Is it a generation thing? A change
sent down from their corporate clients? Pressure groups? Perhaps more
government influence? All of the above?

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
A programmer we hired had a banned personal android dev account. He used
multi-login to login to corporate account and personal account.

Google tied both together and brought our startup down wiping out adsense,
youtube, docs and play account. They kept adwords alive billing for $200 a
month for almost an year.

I emailed them and the silence was deafening.

Too cold Google. Too cold.

~~~
flukus
I've been thinking lately that SAAS may have been a spectacularly bad idea. If
google banned my account they could do a tremendous amount of damage.

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CM30
This is a really, really bad idea. Heck, the 'inappropriate language' one
alone is ridiculous, since that basically means (if enforced) that the likes
of the Angry Video Game Nerd, Channel Awesome, the Yogscast, Angry Joe and
even Pewdiepie couldn't monetise their videos...

In other words, it'd basically drive every 'caustic critic' off of YouTube for
good, and with it, probably a very large chunk of the site's traffic.

The political conflicts one basically means amateur journalism and
investigative reporting is unsustainable on the platform, since by definition
most journalism deals with political subjects that often involve things like
war, crimes, terrorism, etc.

The stuff about violence and sexual content could easily be applied to media
like video games, and end up driving off whatever gaming channels aren't
already annoyed by the swearing prohibitions.

And then there's talk of 'harassment', which can be applied so vaguely it's
almost meaningless. Especially in today's age where 'harassment' has basically
come to mean 'anything that makes anyone feel uncomfortable or criticises them
or their ideas'.

So yeah, they'd better get rid of these guidelines soon, otherwise they could
well kill a large percentage of the site's traffic in one foul swoop. They're
trying to turn a video platform in network television (well, very watered down
network television) and it won't work.

~~~
pdkl95
> (if enforced)

The enforcement already started with Philip DeFranco's videos[1], and quickly
spread to various other youtubers. The targets seem to be the usual
"controversial" topics and political content in general. Videos about
depression seem to be one of the targets[2]? Maybe?

There also seems to be inconsistency between hitting certain popular youtubers
that produce some form of "news"[3], while allowing blatant clickbait,
bullying, and propaganda[4] about the same topics.

> so vaguely it's almost meaningless

That's vague enough, but their cornerstone of selective enforcement will be
the "...but is not limited to..." clause.

> otherwise they could well kill a large percentage of the site's traffic

I fear that may be the goal. If YouTube isn't profitable for Google, they may
want to cut their expenses by encouraging some of their heavier users off the
site.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/PhillyD/status/771026030442090496](https://twitter.com/PhillyD/status/771026030442090496)
[https://twitter.com/PhillyD/status/771054150733803521](https://twitter.com/PhillyD/status/771054150733803521)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/LukeIsNotSexy/status/771124768280043521](https://twitter.com/LukeIsNotSexy/status/771124768280043521)

[3] I'm being _very_ generous in what might be called "news". I may not like a
lot of it, but even shallow clickbait can contain at least _some_ journalism.

[4]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKEUR7xsAtA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKEUR7xsAtA)

~~~
CM30
Yeah, the fact they've already started enforcing it for people like Philip
DeFranco (whose videos are news content) is worrying.

As for trying to lower expenses by doing this... well, perhaps, but if your
popular users leave, then your ad revenue will drop far more than the money
you'll save. It's like a news station firing all their journalists and
presenters to save costs and then thinking 'oh crap, we have no way to get
people to use our site/newspaper now'.

------
mdonahoe
So if I don't want ads to appear on my videos, should I put a bunch of
inappropriate content at the end of them?

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
Start every video with

"I pledge my allegiance to one and only true Lord, our Savior , Maker of
walls, The first of his name, Sire Donald Trump"

------
pvdebbe
Nice. My Firefox with a very old custom set of AdB rules actually breaks
youtube videos with ads. The video just restarts a couple times until it
starts showing cute static noise.

------
demarq
Isn't this somehow discouraging youtubers from covering important news and
developments from around the world?

------
arprocter
"Inappropriate", "controversial" or "sensitive" in who's opinion?

~~~
forgottenpass
Like any other content policy from the Valley, the opinions that matter will
be:

    
    
        Embarrassing news stories
        Busybody Googlers
        Internet tabloids that Googlers read over lunch
        Complaining advertisers
        Complaining friends of Googlers
    

Everyone else will be politly told to fuck off using a vague statement about
letting uploaders express themselves.

