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YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

nytimes.com

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Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#231

Post by [deleted] »

runarberg wrote: post #154
SmarsJerry wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not even an allegation, it’s a news story. It’s pretty crazy that they would do this because of a story, not even criminal charges being brought. Apparently you don’t even have to get formally accused anymore. People say “it’s bad for advertising” but these acts of extreme abuse of moderation on YouTube have hugely contributed to other websites springing up. I have no doubt their market share overall is slipping…

Your post was already outdated. Abuse charges have to be reported to the police, and the police is investigating, as is his employer at the time the BBC. Your spinning this as “just a story” is disingenuous. This “story” was investigated by top journalists for over a year, and published in a prestige news journal. Both the journalists working on the story and the paper that published it have their journalistic integr…

[deleted]

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#232

Post by HenryBemis »

wilg wrote: post #163
c7DJTLrn wrote: post #143

Putting aside recent allegations, it's disappointing what has happened to Russell Brand's YouTube channel. I watched some of his videos a few years ago and they were interesting discussions of the news with a particular emphasis on questioning everything which I see as a healthy habit. Inevitably though, the algorithm steered the videos to become more clickbaity, divisive, and frankly crazy. He probably saw that outr…

Is it even "the algorithm" or is it simply just how people prefer to click crazy shit? We see it with news and pretty much anything else where clicks equal money.

"The algorithm" and/or the people behind it noticed that if User1 watches VideoA and then we show him B-C-D, he stays on the platform for 10 minutes.

BUT when we showed a User2 the videos X-Y-Z (after videoA), then User2 stayed "engaged" for 3 hours. And the new sequence was just established.

The 'machine' is constantly doing A/B and other tests, and it learns, adapts, and continues. The machine just learns what people like and feeds it to them. We can't blame the machine for giving the users what they want.. can we? :)

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#233

Post by c420 »

bennyschmidt wrote: post #220
c420 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are incorrect: "“He is most likely making £2,000 to £4,000 per video, not taking into account any affiliate deals and brand sponsorships that might be running in the background,” she said. Based on five videos a week, this could easily produce the best part of a £1m a year." https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/how-russell-...

[flagged]

"A tiny %" to me would be 1, maybe 2%. Do you really believe he's earning $100 mil a year? I read that his estimated worth is in the low 20 millions but I can't recall where I saw that.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#234

Post by obviouslynotme »

lesuorac wrote: post #137
jtbayly wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Twitter Files were precisely what Taibbi said. The USG telling social media companies which people should have their speech censored.

Uh, I guess one could phrase it that way but it's rather dishonest. It'd be akin to saying a police officer testifying that they saw X person shoot Y person as attempting to deplatform X person. -- Honestly the only thing questionable in the twitter files was the USG telling twiter which accounts were their cy-ops accounts so they wouldn't get banned. Twitter having a policy of you can't do Y on the platform and the…

All governmental prosecution should be before a court with the protection of rights. Even in your contrived example, the defendant has the right to face his accuser, cross-examine, attorneys, judges, juries, and the many things we throw in the government's way of harming people, justified or not.

When the USG tells anyone to do something, chances are they will comply, legal or not, just because it isn't worth the pain and suffering of fighting, especially for someone you don't even know. We have relearning what it is like to have your personal life ruled by people you have never met in places you have never been. The USG has stepped too far and the overreaction to public/private partnerships is coming.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#235

Post by costigan »

prometheus76 wrote: post #195
lesuorac wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, I guess one could phrase it that way but it's rather dishonest. It'd be akin to saying a police officer testifying that they saw X person shoot Y person as attempting to deplatform X person. -- Honestly the only thing questionable in the twitter files was the USG telling twiter which accounts were their cy-ops accounts so they wouldn't get banned. Twitter having a policy of you can't do Y on the platform and the…

Is government censorship via a third party not a problem for you?

Was it Twitter's policy or not? (Of course it was, as we see by how easily it was changed by the new owner.)

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#236

Post by lukev »

grecy wrote: post #229
0xfae wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what your saying, but your examples don't quite work. A reporter telling lies would presumable be called into their managers office and told to shape up or be fired. A painter doing rush jobs would get bad reviews and no referrals, and eventually stop getting jobs. Those behaviors are not incentivized. A youtube creator milking the algorithm is rewarded for this behavior, with more views, more ad money, etc. Ar…

I think my examples do actually work well, in that the painter and the TV reporter ARE incentivized, short term to do those clickbait things, in exactly the same way YouTube creators are. In all cases, reality will catch up to them, and in the long term they will be punished for what they did in the name of short term gains.

What's the long-term reality catch-up mechanism in the social media space?

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#237

Post by gottorf »

cma wrote: post #140
jtbayly wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Twitter Files were precisely what Taibbi said. The USG telling social media companies which people should have their speech censored.

Didn't he read an acronym wrong and it was a nongovernmental agency in one of the most prominent examples he used? And Biden wasn't in office for the laptop stuff but Trump was for the stuff they requested get removed?

> it was a nongovernmental agency

Several "non-governmental" agencies (like the Election Integrity Partnership or the Stanford Internet Observatory[0]) were involved in making recommendations to censor. I say "non-governmental" in quotes because entities like SIO receive a lot of federal funding, and key players shuttle back and forth between private and government functions.

> Biden wasn't in office for the laptop stuff but Trump was

I'm not sure what "laptop stuff" you're referring to, but whether Biden, Trump, or whoever else was in office has no bearing on the illegality of the executive actions in question.

[0]: https://stanfordreview.org/stanfords-dark-hand-in-twitter-ce...

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#238

Post by lotsofpulp »

mrtksn wrote: post #180
nimos wrote: post #30

The Monetization Window is the new Overton Window. I think people underestimate how much Youtube's monetization policy influences what popular creators put in videos. Because it's not just the money - it also effects how videos are promoted by the algorithm.

I wonder if YouTube takes into consideration local values when doing this. For example, nudity and other controversial stuff can have much different standards on what's acceptable and what's not. If this is not baked into the formula, then it's likely that YouTube is pushing cultures to align with SV or some managers in Google. I'm not going to defend Russel Brand, just making a point about YT's impact. This time aro…

> but we need to go to the dumb wire days of the telephone companies who couldn't control what people say on the phone and if their services were used to do bad things it was the law enforcements job to deal with it.

That is today. You do not get to control Google’s computers.

Buy your own server(s), buy your own bandwidth, and do what you please.

Lobby your representatives to make symmetric fiber internet a utility to each home, and implement ipv6 so you can serve content from your house and not have to depend on bigger companies to get around CGNAT.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#239

Post by Manuel_D »

cma wrote: post #140
jtbayly wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Twitter Files were precisely what Taibbi said. The USG telling social media companies which people should have their speech censored.

Didn't he read an acronym wrong and it was a nongovernmental agency in one of the most prominent examples he used? And Biden wasn't in office for the laptop stuff but Trump was for the stuff they requested get removed?

https://www.leefang.com/p/house-democrat-threatens-twitter

> Taibbi has admitted mistaking CIS for CISA in a single tweet in one of his many threads, but his testimony to Congress was entirely different. Hasan deceptively conflated this quickly corrected tweet with Taibbi’s testimony.

> But the evidence shows that Taibbi’s congressional remarks were correct. CIS and CISA collaborated with EIP on moderation requests, with both organizations directly appealing to Twitter for censorship, making Taibbi’s overall point and particular argument completely accurate.

He swapped them in one particular tweet, quickly corrected, but it was nowhere near "one of the most prominent examples".

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#240

Post by freediver »

zapdrive wrote: post #222

I wish there was a viable alternative to everything Google (search, youtube, android, maps to name a few). I can't wait for Elon to buy Google and end this BS.

I think there is (for search at least, I may be biased), the question is are we ready to pay for it, or we expect the same business model as Google's (ad-tech) to somehow produce a better product for its users?
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