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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'

#161

'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…

A big problem with automatic demonetization is that what frequently happens is that (let's assume that you are a popular Youtuber):

You spend a lot of time and money to make a video.

You upload it to youtube.

It trips some random check and is flagged and de-monetized, you appeal.

People come and watch your video, with this type of content the vast majority of views is in the few first days since publishing.

Your appeal finally gets through, you can now monetize the video. However it is too late because 80% of the views the video will ever have have been without ads.

You are not entitled to revenue, however if you make your living off Youtube, you may expect that it will not randomly shoot you in the foot for no reason.

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

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this kind of reaction is about philosophical "right" to an income from a particular company, more about sudden changes. It's similar to being fired: you previously got an income from this company, then they decided not to give you an income. Some people get angry at that, and sometimes feel desperate, worried about ending up homeless etc. depending on how much they relied on this income and what kinds o…

The problem is - and this goes for all the apologists for this person in this thread - that having your stuff on Youtube isn't a thing you should count on. If you run a small business and you make that business entirely dependent on a third party you are inherently setting yourself up for failure. Whether it is Youtube, Facebook, Twitch, Medium or any other user generated content site you give up control the moment y…

I want to see what the reaction here would look like if instead AWS we dropping a bunch of customers with no warning.

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

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this kind of reaction is about philosophical "right" to an income from a particular company, more about sudden changes. It's similar to being fired: you previously got an income from this company, then they decided not to give you an income. Some people get angry at that, and sometimes feel desperate, worried about ending up homeless etc. depending on how much they relied on this income and what kinds o…

The problem is - and this goes for all the apologists for this person in this thread - that having your stuff on Youtube isn't a thing you should count on. If you run a small business and you make that business entirely dependent on a third party you are inherently setting yourself up for failure. Whether it is Youtube, Facebook, Twitch, Medium or any other user generated content site you give up control the moment y…

I don't think this woman went through a rational process of "deciding" that she was upset with YouTube because they are alleged to have cut off the income on her videos.

She snapped, identified the target of her rage, and took violent revenge.

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

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because youtube didn't employ her. She was never hired, and so can't be fired, in any sense of the word. If anyone thinks that they are working for Youtube, then they must be delusional. Edit: I meant if anyone thinks they should depend on youtube ads for income, they are delusional.

If they actually are receiving their income from Youtube why are they delusional?

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

#165

'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…

I'm not going to defend shooting anyone, obviously. But YouTube has captured the entire market, practically, for streaming video, and encouraged people to look at it as a way of making money (even a full-time time job, for many). Why would you be surprised that someone would be upset about a capricious decision, which cannot be appealed, suddenly taking away the money?

> I'm not going to defend shooting anyone, obviously.

And then you proceed to defend that anyway.

Any webserver will be happy to serve up .mp4 content. There are free players (JWPlayer for instance) and you are entirely free to serve up whatever you want from your own hosted service.

That capricious decision can be appealed, you can take Youtube to court if you feel they have wronged you.

> Why would you be surprised that someone would be upset about a capricious decision, which cannot be appealed, suddenly taking away the money?

Because it never was theirs in the first place. The contract which you engage in when you sign up with Youtube or any other user created content service is pretty clear in that respect: the service can be withheld at the discretion of the company. If you can't live with those terms don't host your content there.

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

#166
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…

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…

I agree with this view, platforms like Youtube (and Reddit) can't be allowed to hide behind this veil of being "private". As major platforms, they're important channels for speech. I think once a private company has amassed this level of the public attention their influence needs to be kept in check. The profits will stay private, but there needs to be limits on what they can "limit". I think it's a similar argument to why a diner can't choose to not serve a person only on their ethnicity.

I think all speech should be protected (the good, the bad, and the weird). Ideas should die on their own merits.

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

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'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…

>It's like when Apple pulls something from the AppStore because they want to release something similar. when did that happen?

AppGratis.

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

#168
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While they're not directly responsible, the problem was entirely of their making. They created a whole new profession (even my 8-year-old son wants to grow up to be a "professional youtubber") and then arbitrarily destroy careers. The created an environment where people could work hard to create their own destiny while giving themselves the ability to destroy those destinies without cause or recourse. It was only a m…

So basically every company who has ever laid off or fired an employee should expect at some point to fall victim to a mass shooting?

I'm not saying that they would deserve it.

If a company algorithmically fired portions of their workforce every day without even talking to those employees or giving them a chance to appeal, then I would expect something terrible to eventually happen. I would expect that eventually an employee would snap under the injustice of the situation and commit a mass shooting, just like eventually an employee would commit suicide.

Firings/layoffs are stressful and those edge cases happen already. When you add in a feeling of "injustice", then I postulate that those edge cases become a little bit more common.

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

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because youtube didn't employ her. She was never hired, and so can't be fired, in any sense of the word. If anyone thinks that they are working for Youtube, then they must be delusional. Edit: I meant if anyone thinks they should depend on youtube ads for income, they are delusional.

If they actually are receiving their income from Youtube why are they delusional?

Youtube specifically states they dictate how much you will earn, and you have no negotiating power.

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

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this kind of reaction is about philosophical "right" to an income from a particular company, more about sudden changes. It's similar to being fired: you previously got an income from this company, then they decided not to give you an income. Some people get angry at that, and sometimes feel desperate, worried about ending up homeless etc. depending on how much they relied on this income and what kinds o…

The problem is - and this goes for all the apologists for this person in this thread - that having your stuff on Youtube isn't a thing you should count on. If you run a small business and you make that business entirely dependent on a third party you are inherently setting yourself up for failure. Whether it is Youtube, Facebook, Twitch, Medium or any other user generated content site you give up control the moment y…

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