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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

#351

Post by jjoonathan »

roenxi wrote: post #302
jjoonathan wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I think he understands. Constantly criticizing mainstream media for low standards while having far lower standards yourself is the kind of thing that you have to put significant ongoing effort into rationalizing. Consumers of alt media can do it thoughtlessly. Producers ? I'm not convinced.

> ... having far lower standards yourself ... How are we measuring that? Firstly, as a nitpick, the mainstream media these days is Russel Brand. He has an audience comparable to a group like CNN. Possibly slightly larger. Secondly, the quality of the podcasters is generally better on net than the big media companies. They tend not to be gung-ho all-weather war supporters for example. People like Brand might get a lot…

Journalism. Reaching out to involved parties for comment, boots on the ground, making retractions, reserving judgement, citing sources, seeking and contextualizing opposition and/or expertise, making an attempt to prefer observation over interpretation, pushing back on wild claims, etc etc etc.

I was acutely aware of partisan bias in MSM but I didn't appreciate just how much they actually did get right until the deluge of "MSM sux, here's what THEY don't want you to know" replaced it.

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

#352

Post by Supply5411 »

droptablemain wrote: post #185

Anonymous allegations from more than a decade ago, procured by a fishing reporter, should not lead to the cancellation of someone's means of supporting themselves. This is absurd, regardless of whether the accusations are ultimately true or not. Beyond the absurdity, this is tyrannical. Even the "testimony" they released was recorded by an actor. There's simply very little of substance here.

Maybe the real lesson here is nobody who wants to speak their mind should be supporting themselves on a platform of nervous advertisers.

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

#353

Post by fallingknife »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #238
mrtksn wrote: 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…

> 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…

The internet is no longer decentralized and interoperable. It's all walled gardens. Want to send an email? Better be on a major email platform or none of your messages will arrive.

Guaranteeing internet access as a utility is a great idea but by itself it's only an illusion of freedom. Access to things like Google accounts / AWS / cloudflare and of course the banking system and payment processor duopoly also need to be guaranteed to some degree all law abiding citizens.

Edit: I don't think this applies in the case here with Russell Brand and demonitization. There should obviously not be any right to be paid by advertisers.

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

#354

Post by mrighele »

grecy wrote: post #192
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…

> 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…

> A house painter would make more money if he did a rush job

If the way to find a painter is to use the yellow pages, and the order inside the yellow pages is by the time the to finish painting, most of the jobs will go to people that make a rush job, thus pushing painters into that direction.

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

#355

Post by gooseus »

asdfman123 wrote: post #294
rcxdude wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between questioning everything and rejecting everything from the mainstream is an important one which Brand and many others seem not to understand.

Don't buy into the bad faith arguments. They aren't genuinely "asking questions," they're trying to bring what they already believe into the mainstream.

I forget where I read/saw it, but someone once made the point that because there are an infinite number of questions that can be asked, someone is always making some kind of statement based on a conscious decision about which questions to ask, and which not to ask.

I think this is especially true when someone is repeatedly ask the same kinds of questions while simultaneously ignoring lots of other really good questions.

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

#357

Post by CydeWeys »

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…

> Inevitably though, the algorithm steered the videos to become more clickbaity, divisive, and frankly crazy.

"The algorithm" didn't force him to go off the crazy deep end. He chose to do this himself. Don't absolve him or that decision.

I think it's more like, he knew this was coming out and it was going to make him look bad, so he preemptively decided to modify his audience to consist of people less likely to leave him once the news did break.

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

#359

Post by agentgumshoe »

woooooo wrote: post #54
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.

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 think the point you're making is there's no such thing as the Far Left, despite the Far Right seeing such common use.

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

#360

Post by rexkwondo »

asdfman123 wrote: post #294
rcxdude wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between questioning everything and rejecting everything from the mainstream is an important one which Brand and many others seem not to understand.

Don't buy into the bad faith arguments. They aren't genuinely "asking questions," they're trying to bring what they already believe into the mainstream.

How are you determining what people (strangers) "already believe"?
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