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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'

#181
post #73

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…

Sorry but this is ridiculous. Someone decided that to respond to having video de-monetized on a website was justification for trying to kill people. How on earth is it reasonable to start down the path of 'well if she had talked to tech support...' Tier 1 support is now supposed to dissuade lunatics from murdering people? Are we supposed to construct our society around making sure that nothing, nowhere could possibly…

> at some decision that could inconvenience them?

Losing one's job is not just an "inconvenience". It is an inconvenience in a country with a social safety net. In a country like the US where job loss often enough means direct loss of health insurance and a place to live, losing a job can (and will) lead to homelessness and eventual death.

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

#182

'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 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…

It's not similar to being fired. [REDACTED: It's similar to a store owner allowing you to panhandle outside their business, and then later telling you you can't panhandle there anymore (but loiter all you want!).] It is not reasonable for adults to look at internet ad revenue as a reliable source of income. It's unfortunate if/when they fall on hard times because they made the mistake of relying on something so volatile. I really wish people this confused on the issue would google (heh) AdWords certification study guide and "Google Penguin"/"Google Panda"/"Google Hummingbird"/etc.

EDIT: many people are upset by the panhandling comparison. I just meant that as a juxtaposition to those saying "it's like being fired". It was meant as an analogy - no intent to insult anyone (YouTubers and beggars alike). A better analogy would be a musician who was paid to perform in a bar, and the bar owner tells them "you can still play here all you want, but we're no longer going to pay you." (mind you - they are not saying "you have to continue playing here and do it for free")

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

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You said the magic word: customers. People uploading videos to YouTube aren't customers and don't generally have a contract guaranteeing that they'll receive anything – ad revenue or even the ability to continue uploading.

Even AWS customers who don't have a contract (like reserved instances or an Enterprise Agreement) may not have any claim to receive ongoing service.

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

#184

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?

During the early days of the App Store the guidelines prohibited duplicating system functionality, but that hasn’t been the case in a long time, wasn’t retroactive, didn’t apply to non-system Apple software and I’m not sure how strictly it was enforced in the first place anyway.

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

#185
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Her site's still up.

http://nasimesabz.com/

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

#187
post #33

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?

It's been alleged that her videos were genuinely controversial (vegan screed, animal violence depictions). How is a support team going to fix that? And the right to sue for redress of grievances is covered in the first amendment, for goodness sake. She didn't exercise it.

> And the right to sue for redress of grievances is covered in the first amendment, for goodness sake. She didn't exercise it.

Good luck trying to sue one of the most powerful companies in history. I wouldn't dream of this.

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

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hopefully it would simply mean more customers for other hosting centers. If you feel that people should take up arms against AWS employees in that case then you have other problems.

Business disputes are as old as businesses and we have ways to resolve those disputes: the courts.

And be sure to read the fine print of any service or company that you are going to do business with if your business will be dependent on that other party. Avoid such dependencies as much as possible.

So yes, signing up with AWS is a calculated risk. You should know the possible downsides of that decision, and you should be aware of your position, rights and obligations as well as the terms of service.

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

#189
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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…

> 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 matter of time until one of those furious victims took up a gun to get revenge.

I strongly disagree that given YouTube's arbitrary policies murderous retaliation was inevitable.

However, your pointing to the economic context of Ms. Nasim's grievance with YouTube is very helpful.

Before continuing, I want to clarify that whatever may have motivated Ms. Nasim to take the actions she took, I believe her actions are ultimately unjustified and unbearably tragic and that no one is responsible for what Ms. Nasim did except Ms. Nasim herself.

Concerning the economic context, the arbitrary foreclosure of a career path where the contractor (YouTuber?) has little to no recourse over her livelihood highlights problems with the unequal power between platform and content generator.

I believe platform owners (like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc.) have the ability to make matters more equitable. Attempting to make platforms that rely on user-generated content more equitable undoubtedly will present new challenges, but such consideration for the people whose labor a platform depends for its existence is the moral and ethical thing to do.

Giving content generators more power over the monetization of their content is the right thing to do.

EDIT: add a "the"

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

#190

'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…

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