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

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

#131

Post by pitaj »

jokoon wrote: post #112

If monopolies are allowed, the bigger a company is, the increased responsibility it should have. Many of large IT companies deliver free products and services, yet they still make the rules because they are in a monopoly nobody can compete with, because they give it for free. Since it's not their data, they should have tougher restrictions the more data they handle. It's weird because those online platform are thrivi…

I am off the opinion that it is precisely because of the backwards copyright policies, namely the DMCA, that YouTube ever became a monopolistic force on the internet.

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

#132

Post by Kylekramer »

leshow wrote: post #104
Klathmon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Why do we do that on youtube when we don't do that on TV? Do we assume that if you're ad runs during you agree with the jokes in it…

Happens on TV relatively often. Bill O'Reilly got the boot because advertisers pulled their ads after he got caught up in sexual harassment claims.

TV just has also built up years of trust with advertisers and have legal departments reviewing all their content while YouTube was throwing up ads in front of ISIS recruitment videos.

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

#133

Post by dspillett »

Klathmon wrote: post #15
sqdbps wrote: 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…

> Media outlets are (in many cases) just trying to report on things.

I would be more guarded and say in some cases. The previous comment's accusation that "mainstream" media, televisual, radio, & written, is stoking the anti-youtube sentiment has legs to stand on. Self publishing and social media are their competition and as they are getting desperate they are playing dirty. This is true of both the big players and some collectives of small players (which like those in the Sinclair Broadcast Group are effectively one big player as the individual outles have to tow the corporate line). The hope that moving bits of advertising budgets away from online outlets will mean that some of it comes back their way.

Of course this doesn't in any way make them culpable for the events at youtube's offices this week.

Similarly while youtube's terrible user support (which I'm told is very much in keeping with Google's apparent policy of "like we give a fuck about individuals"), while it may have increased her ire, can't be considered even partly responsible either.

The woman obviously had issues, and they were going to blow up in someone's face sooner or later if not treated. I can't pretend I have an answer, as it is a very complex issue, but a key part of the problem is the lack of support available for those with mental problems, and the lack of ways to protect the rest of society from the fallout when something pushes people over the edge.

Lack of gun control is also part of the problem too IMO (sure she could have attacked with a knife instead, but knife attacks are generally less deadly).

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

#134

Post by MikkoFinell »

mschuster91 wrote: post #6

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…

Yeah you're right, and those people who got shot probably deserved it because they were probably racists or something.

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

#135

Post by ben_jones »

jacquesm wrote: post #82

'De-Monetized' suggests that someone who produces a video has an automatic right to income. That's bonkers, it's already quite a service that Youtube allows you to upload your videos to reach an audience that you'd be hard pressed to serve from your own server. They do this for free. In the previous iteration of such platforms all the ad income would go to the owner of the website, not to the rights owners of the vid…

Don't companies like Google and Facebook paint an altruistic picture of themselves which creates the expectation of "rights" from its users? You can't gob up all that juicy PR and political correctness then whack people with a reality hammer and expect them not to be surprised.

This was a terrible tragedy and as with all tragedies I fear it will cause parties to double down rather then be introspective of themselves and find a way to grow from it, be it monetization policies, gun rights, office security, etc.

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

#136

Post by _bxg1 »

No sane person would argue that what she did was okay.

With that disclaimer, I can't help but feel sorry for her. In the unregulated gig/"creator" economy, someone's entire career - not just their livelihood but their life's work - can be wiped out in an instant. In her case it doesn't even sound like it was intentional. An algorithmic blip. That kind of hopeless, pointless loss would make anybody's mental health take a nosedive.

It's time the government stops treating the tech giants as neutral, private platforms, and acknowledges how big the pieces of society are which they underpin.

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

#137

Post by creaghpatr »

leshow wrote: post #104
Klathmon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Why do we do that on youtube when we don't do that on TV? Do we assume that if you're ad runs during you agree with the jokes in it…

This happens pretty often, currently other media outlets are pressuring advertisers to pull support from Laura Ingraham and effectively de-monetize the show. That's just the latest example though.

Also, the FCC regulates broadcast TV and commercials. you can't simply run an obscene advertisement just because the station and/or station's audience approves it.

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

#138

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

cal5k wrote: post #95
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I disagree. Obviously responsibility is shared and primarily owned by Nasim but some is also owned by youtube. Think of it like this - does youtube bear some responsibility when creators leave the platform because of demonetization? Of course. Does youtube bear some responsibility when creators make lots of angry videos because of demonetization? Of course. Does youtube bear some responsibility when demoneti…

Respectfully, that's bullshit. There is nothing that YouTube could have done that makes an active shooter their fault. "Maybe if they hadn't been so mean...". News flash: normal people don't go on a shooting spree when bad things happen in life. This is squarely the fault of a psychologically troubled woman. Discussions about YouTube's monetization policies shouldn't even be part of the story.

>Respectfully, that's bullshit. There is nothing that YouTube could have done that makes an active shooter their fault.

Why so black and white? I'm arguing for a shared responsibility. I even acknowledge that most of it lies with Nasim just that youtube also shares a piece, I don't think that's really an extreme viewpoint.

>News flash: normal people don't go on a shooting spree when bad things happen in life. This is squarely the fault of a psychologically troubled woman. Discussions about YouTube's monetization policies shouldn't even be part of the story.

Actually I do think some normal people go on shooting sprees when bad things happen in life. The idea that if you commit a shooting you must be mentally troubled seems wrong to me, it allows us as a society to remove our responsibility from these peoples lives. Besides it's not as if being 'psychologically troubled' just springs from the ether. Of course sometimes it can but it can also be caused by life stressors such as the ones youtube introduced to the life of this woman. Take this from Wikipedia:

In 1993, the United States Congress conducted a joint hearing to review the violence in the U.S. Postal Service. In the hearing, it was noted that despite the postal service accounting for less than 1% of the full-time civilian labor force, 13% of workplace homicides were committed at postal facilities by current or former employees.[19]

I'd say that there was something specifically and especially dehumanizing about working for the postal service and that the postal service had a shared responsibility in the fact that this happened. To say that youtube had no responsibility here and that the postal service had no responsibility with it's shootings demonstrates that we can see individual factors at play but are purposefully blinding ourselves to the systematic factors at play. I'm just saying that both play a role in actions like this and that implies a shared responsibility.

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

#139

Post by wwwdonohue »

speeder wrote: post #77
DanAndersen wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possible way out of the trap is for regulation to acknowledge and classify these massive social media and content delivery platforms like YouTube and Facebook as the new version of the public square. One of the big issues with the demonetization on YouTube is that it's a binary flag -- either "acceptable content for advertisers" or "unacceptable for advertisers." As if advertisers were a single block with a singl…

This person videos weren't even strange or fringe... The attacker videos seemly were mostly about exercising, vegan diet, and some lighthearted videos... AFTER demonetization, seemly some videos with criticism about Youtube and US, saying that Iran (her home country) had more free speech than US, showed up.

From saved screenshots of her YouTube channel, she'd put up/shared videos of really violent animal cruelty. Animals being skinned alive/boiled, etc. Somehow I don't think it was the workout videos that were the most offensive to YouTube.

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

#140

Post by psyc »

AlexC04 wrote: post #32
sqdbps wrote: 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…

> Be sure to remind youtube of their power and responsibility after tragedy strikes. To be clear - they aren't actually responsible for an active shooter showing up on campus. It sounds like you're saying they could have some responsibility in someone coming to their office with a gun.

Of course they are not responsible for the actions of the shooter, or anyone who decides to use violence to make their point. They are partly responsible for the mounting rage at their increasingly arbitrary treatment of users, and near-total lack of transparency about it, which has been festering for years, and is getting worse. They are quite responsible for those arbitrary decisions themselves. What's that bit about freedom not implying freedom from consequences? These things are related. 'Victim blaming' and other thought-stopping catch-phrases aside.
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