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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

#321

Post by ShamelessC »

curiousllama wrote: post #204
arpowers wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While sexual assault is serious if true, it's also the only crime that can ruin someone's life and livelihood with no evidence or actual crime taking place. Additionally there is often large financial incentive for accusers (and their lawyers) via lawsuits and it serves as a fantastic method of hurting people politically even if they are exonerated.

> While sexual assault is serious if true, it's also the only crime that can ruin someone's life and livelihood with no evidence or actual crime taking place. This is true. Along with this, it's important to note that there is, in fact, a significant amount of high-quality evidence about this particular allegation (some of which is contemporaneous to the assault itself). I'd also note that failing to believe & punish…

Not that I’m curious to watch that evidence myself, and I trust you’re taking the truth but can you clarify what high quality evidence means here?

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

#322

Post by fallingknife »

0xfae wrote: post #225
grecy wrote: 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…

The painter example makes sense since his customers are his users, so the incentives are aligned.

The journalist is not like that. His users are the readers, but his customers are the advertisers. And if he is lying and gaining clicks and ad engagement, he is more likely to be called in by his boss for a promotion than a scolding.

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

#323

Post by ghaff »

mrtksn wrote: post #300
madeofpalk wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate speech is not illegal in the US. Youtube is not judging what speech is legal or not, they're just making a decision about which types of content they want to distribute.

Then that speech should remain on YouTube and those concern by the content of the speech should simply produce counterarguments and discredit that speech.

You realize the idea that YouTube videos of the sort being discussed here will result in thoughtful counter arguments is a completely naive notion?

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

#324

Post by madeofpalk »

mrtksn wrote: post #300
madeofpalk wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate speech is not illegal in the US. Youtube is not judging what speech is legal or not, they're just making a decision about which types of content they want to distribute.

Then that speech should remain on YouTube and those concern by the content of the speech should simply produce counterarguments and discredit that speech.

What is the counter argument to speech that calls a particular group of people "sub-human, and a stain on our planet"? What's to debate?

Lets be clear here - we're not talking about difference in opinion of fiscal policy that we can debate the pros and cons of.

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

#325

Post by cgio »

jmfldn wrote: post #285
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…

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…

I cannot see how the army would be of any use in the eventuality of the major expose. There was this other person with huge following among scepticals of everything (sorry I don't remember the name exactly) who got a huge fine recently. I don't believe justice would look the other way, if anything, it may be attracting scrutiny with attention.

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

#326

Post by pixelat3d »

somenameforme wrote: post #20

So has the internet completely done away with innocent until proven guilty? The primary benefit of things like MeToo was supposed to be people being able to take action against individuals who otherwise would have been expected to squash things due to undue influence on law enforcement, the media, and politics - like Harvey Weinstein. But in cases like this, it seems quite dystopic that a D-list celeb, likely with li…

Your assumption is the reason his content was removed was because of the allegations, which is potentially not true. While it's very likely the allegations are what drew attention to it, it doesn’t mean there wasn’t a bunch of stuff there already that violated policies – especially given the content he had doubled down on.

All Youtube did was cite their “Creator responsibility“ clause[1] as the reason. This could have included a myriad of violations, especially considering the type of content he was producing.

Also, if you read the allegations, he very much was in the protected status you mention. “Open secret”, lots of people covering for him, running interference, etc etc. Calling him a “D-list celeb, likely with little to no major influence” illustrates your lack of research into the issue.

[1] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7650329?hl=en as the reason.

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

#327

Post by mortureb »

jmfldn wrote: post #285
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…

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…

It’s pretty simple. If you have to be masculine and assertive in any way now you have to cowtow to the insane right because the left is a hostile space for regular men. The right welcomes you with open arms and basically shields you from any consequences for past wrongs. There is no middle. You can get away with just about anything on the right now with no repercussions.

You can downvote this all you want but you know there is more than a modicum of truth here.

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

#328

Post by lotsofpulp »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #305
lotsofpulp wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> You do not get to control Google’s computers. Then why does Google control my phone? Can't have it both ways

That is an unrelated topic.

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

#329

Post by jayrot »

pauldenton wrote: post #96
coldpie wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they have an obligation to treat video creators with a greater degree of fairness and formal process There isn't really a way to enforce this that doesn't violate a private company's rights. Protected classes are the closest thing, but I think you'll have a tough time getting "person accused of being a jerk" to be declared a protected class. > perhaps they are simply too big and should be broken up This, however, t…

Have you ever had your phone call interrupted because the phone company didn't like what you were talking about? Have you ever had your TV get disabled because your cable company didn't like the content you were watching? 140 years ago in the age of telegram, I suspect they weren't censoring messages they didn't like either.

This is such a disingenuous argument, it's painful.

Did someone's internet connection get disabled?

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

#330

Post by kobalsky »

JohnMakin wrote: post #123
Nextgrid wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this should be reconsidered when a "private company" controls a large majority of humanity's social fabric and/or popular culture?

How do you propose this actually work out? Every time youtube, twitter, facebook, etc wants to ban someone they have to submit a request to the government or be subject to its oversight? That's far more dystopian.

"government oversight" sounds ominous.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if the judicial branch was in charge of arbitration.

These companies are not obligated to pay creators. They pay them because it's profitable, and the moment money exchanges hand and someone livehood depends on them, the relationship changes.

At that point, if you leave creators without recourse, you only changed labels and left workers without hundreds of years worth of labor rights thrown down the toilet.

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