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Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

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11–20 of 439 posts

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#11

I don't sympathize with shooting up a company's headquarters at all, but I feel that this could have been avoided by forcing Youtube (and, for that matter, all other social networks!) to have a way to reach an actual human support. In the end, this is one of the "externalities" that get forced upon society when the big companies decide to cut corners on support. Some will... take matters into their own hands. Be it b…

The problem is not Youtube support ...

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#12
post #9

I don't sympathize with shooting up a company's headquarters at all, but I feel that this could have been avoided by forcing Youtube (and, for that matter, all other social networks!) to have a way to reach an actual human support. In the end, this is one of the "externalities" that get forced upon society when the big companies decide to cut corners on support. Some will... take matters into their own hands. Be it b…

But she said she talked to the support team...

She was crazy. I don't think attempts to walk through her thought processes will bear fruit

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#13
post #9

I don't sympathize with shooting up a company's headquarters at all, but I feel that this could have been avoided by forcing Youtube (and, for that matter, all other social networks!) to have a way to reach an actual human support. In the end, this is one of the "externalities" that get forced upon society when the big companies decide to cut corners on support. Some will... take matters into their own hands. Be it b…

But she said she talked to the support team...

I mean a support team that has actual freedoms to help the customer and is not forced to operate on a script that has only one option to tell the customer: You're screwed.

Or, even better: as here the case seems to be that the shooter depended on Youtube as income, why shouldn't she have the right to have her effective "firing" appealed in a proper court of law, like in Germany?

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#15
post #2

The media’s part in this: For whatever reason they started scouring youtube for “controversial” videos checking if they had ads (no matter how little views they had) then they would contact the advertisers for comment. Advertisers would initiate damage control and pull their ads from youtube. Youtube would explain that the numbers and views in question are insignificant and that this type of complex system can never…

This is absolutely a "no-win" situation in my mind. Everyone is acting in their best interests, and in many cases are acting benevolently, but the outcome is still awful.

Obviously YouTube is going to cave to advertiser pressure and start to restrict what videos can have ads, their whole existence depends on it, and if I worked at YouTube i'd see demonetizing some videos as a welcome alternative to closing the whole thing down.

I don't blame the advertisers one bit from wanting to remove their ads from many videos. Once the media starts playing the game that "an ad on the video == the advertiser agrees with the message" I too would want to do everything I can to ensure that I'm not associated with bad things.

Media outlets are (in many cases) just trying to report on things. They are (correctly) pointing out how many users and creators are upset with YouTube's moves in this case, and how many advertisers are upset about being associated with "bad" videos.

Obviously there are things that each group can do better (YouTube could stand up to the Advertisers a bit more, Advertisers could push back on the notion that "an ad == approval", and the media could stop trying to "stir up" controversy), but in each case the thing that is better for society is worse for that group (at least in the short term). I can absolutely see an alternate universe where people are boycotting Coke because they allow their ads to run on gun videos, or where YouTube ends up losing out to even more money because they won't enact more strict rules about which videos can have ads.

I don't know the answer here, but it's obvious that the current "solutions" aren't working.

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#16
post #2

The media’s part in this: For whatever reason they started scouring youtube for “controversial” videos checking if they had ads (no matter how little views they had) then they would contact the advertisers for comment. Advertisers would initiate damage control and pull their ads from youtube. Youtube would explain that the numbers and views in question are insignificant and that this type of complex system can never…

>For whatever reason

Anyone that’s been paying attention knows the reason. If you can’t attack free speech, make that speech too expensive. All of the recent controversial issues have one side scrambling to publicly list advertisers - see the March Against Guns tweets about who has deals with NRA or advertises on Fox News.

It’s a horrible tactic that’s very much mob censorship.

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#18
post #2

The media’s part in this: For whatever reason they started scouring youtube for “controversial” videos checking if they had ads (no matter how little views they had) then they would contact the advertisers for comment. Advertisers would initiate damage control and pull their ads from youtube. Youtube would explain that the numbers and views in question are insignificant and that this type of complex system can never…

This is absolutely a "no-win" situation in my mind. Everyone is acting in their best interests, and in many cases are acting benevolently, but the outcome is still awful. Obviously YouTube is going to cave to advertiser pressure and start to restrict what videos can have ads, their whole existence depends on it, and if I worked at YouTube i'd see demonetizing some videos as a welcome alternative to closing the whole…

Scott Alexander's essay "Meditations on Moloch" is relevant here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

The no-win situation you describe is a prime example of "Moloch."

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#19

Man, I wanted to have a go at making a YouTube competitor, I think there's room for one, but SESTA makes me wary to have any platform that hosts user-generated content EDIT weary -> wary. Thanks wccrawford

Yeh, how hard could it be? Pesky regulation.

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#20
post #2

The media’s part in this: For whatever reason they started scouring youtube for “controversial” videos checking if they had ads (no matter how little views they had) then they would contact the advertisers for comment. Advertisers would initiate damage control and pull their ads from youtube. Youtube would explain that the numbers and views in question are insignificant and that this type of complex system can never…

This is absolutely a "no-win" situation in my mind. Everyone is acting in their best interests, and in many cases are acting benevolently, but the outcome is still awful. Obviously YouTube is going to cave to advertiser pressure and start to restrict what videos can have ads, their whole existence depends on it, and if I worked at YouTube i'd see demonetizing some videos as a welcome alternative to closing the whole…

Everyone is acting in their best interest, except youtube. Youtube has a product team, its their job to come up with solutions to problems like these. If they haven't found a solution, they haven't done their job. Full stop.
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