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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

#312
post #225
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the algorithm steered the videos to become more clickbaity, divisive, and frankly crazy. He probably saw that outrage-bait videos were getting double the views. YouTube's algorithm plays a massive part in what goes into people's heads and they should be held more accountable. I'm a YouTuber, and I want to be very clear on the above. I know I would get way more views (and subscribers, and money) if I did more stupid…

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…

A reporter telling lies with plausible deniability, like a manipulative headline clarified in the middle of the article, is actually expected. Some Youtubers at least are scumbags for real money

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

#313

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…

> the algorithm steered He steered. We should not remove his agency for the content he wrote, said, recorded, and uploaded.

No, the algorithm (more accurately, the audience) did the steering. His agency did allow him to reject the direction.

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

#314
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Taibbi brought up a case of a guy who put up montages of Trump saying the 2020 election was rigged cut up with clips of liberal media figures saying the Russians stole 2016. Pure trolling, kind of funny, 100% clips of public figures with no commentary. Demonetized.

I'm honestly confused what people get upset about using a private platform. If you want better accountability argue for an open platform uncontrolled by capital. What is the point of complaining while suggesting nothing? This conversation is even more useless than the old "marketplace of ideas" bullshit.

> open platform uncontrolled by capital.

Like Wikipedia? Or like public Square? Or like a government inquest?

All are different. All are also influenced by capital

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

#315

> “If a creator’s off-platform behavior harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community,” the spokeswoman said. Putting aside the validity of the accusations—let's say he did everything he's accused of, for the sake of argument—is Youtube alleging that he assaulted Youtube employees, app developers who use the Youtube ecosystem, or Youtube users? I assume the latter. But the thing is,…

It's an interesting thought experiment, but ultimately boils down to one point. YT gets to do whatever they want. The terms of service are designed so they can be selective in their enforcement.

Is it bad policy? Yes. Does it allow for flexibility in a world that is never black and white? Also yes. Honestly, if there was a better solution, what would it be? The questions are endless once you start down this rabbit hole.

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

#316
post #288
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you don’t moderate at all you get deluged under piles of crap, hate speech, spam, and bot-created garbage. Might as well not even try. In any sort of forum context, zero moderation makes it useless at least for most.

Moderation against abuse of your own system is fine, that's given. Even electricity companies will go after you if you abuse their grid but they won't care what kind of videos you film using their electricity. However I don't think that YouTube should decide what's hate speech and ban it. If that speech is illegal, the law enforcement should find the person. Maybe it can be acceptable to let the law enforcement delet…

You’re just passing the problem off to someone else who won’t do anything about it. Unmoderated sites are cesspools in general. But I guess they’re at least unfiltered cesspools.

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

#317
post #285

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…

His decent into outrage-bait, alt-right friendly nonsense struck me as abrupt. One minute his channel was reasonable enough, the next it was totally nuts. Part of me wonders whether this was calculated once he knew that a major expose was circling. I have zero evidence for this, but you can see the logic. Court a following that is sceptical of everything, and that will see an investigation by the 'mainstream media' a…

Interesting idea. It's possible Andrew Tate played this card as well.

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

#318
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

YouTube had to appease its advertisers to make money. I can’t think of a utility that has this revenue model.

If that revenue model doesn't work YT should find a new one or seize to exists.

It's not god's given right to run a profitable business, businesses who harm the society and can't find ways to operate at profit without harming the society go out of business all the time.

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

#319
post #180
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…

Hasn't pushing cultural norms on others always been the case with American-centric media? Before silicon valley it was Hollywood. They've got all the big budgets to produce hyperviolent movies but lord help you, if there's an uncovered boob, then it's an R rating and a much tougher pitch to studios.

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

#320

Current events aside, kinda insane how a Youtube channel with 6.6 million subscribers can get less than 500k views on a month old video

Youtube turned subscription numbers into a gameable metric for some time, so they got heavily inflated, so then Youtube basically made them meaningless. Youtube rarely even shows your subscribers your new videos nowadays, and for many creators, subscribers are about 20% or less of their total views.
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