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YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

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

#571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube doesn't want to be demonetized by advertisers, so they are demonetizing Brand. It's basic reputation management / income stream protection. Brand is free to go elsewhere or set up his own streaming / video publishing service.

YouTube is a massive platform and inherently has power. People used the exact same argument for Twitter but I don’t think you can deny that arbitrary management choices made a huge difference in how it worked, which had substantial impacts that a private company shouldn’t have.

I continue to assert that the solution to this is not to regulate how an individual private company decides who to associate with (which is a core First Amendment right), but rather to pass strong anti-trust laws to prevent any one company from individually having enough power over society.

YouTube should be free to decide who can be on its platform however it sees fit. However, YouTube shouldn’t hold such power over us that when they arbitrarily ban someone it severely harms them.

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

#572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I guess Youtube should instead by compelled to continue providing their monetization and hosting services to anyone who wants it until a court of law can prove they are guilty of an actual crime? Who is going to compel Youtube to continue providing those services again?

That's generally the premise behind "innocent until proven guilty in a court of law", as opposed to "guilty whenever the histrionic internet mob and its tech enablers deem it so".

[deleted]

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

#573

> “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,…

Yay for extra-judicial, pre-conviction punishment! Even better, if acquitted he still won't be re-instated!!!

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

#574
post #494

> “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,…

I believe this is about protecting the ecosystem. YT has basically stopped ads from playing on his content…no advertiser wants to be associated with him right now. If YT didn’t take this action, it’s likely advertisers would pull back on spend because they don’t want to risk being seen along side his content. YouTube, afaik, doesn’t just let advertisers blacklist individual channels.

> no advertiser wants to be associated with him right now.

I see this sentiment all the time and I just don't understand it. If I sold razor blades, or if I was Stephen He's dad and sold Beijing Corn, I would want EVERYONE buying my product. Communists, Fascists, Russians, Ukrainians, Israelis, Palestinians, Antifa, Proud Boys, Prince Andrew, Andrew Tate, etc.... They may all hate each other but they should all agree that I make the best damn razor blades / canned corn on planet Earth, and everyone should buy it.

This weird era of conspicuous consumption, "lifestyle" branding, and virtue-signaling faux-activism can't end soon enough.

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

#575
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.

Problem is that we are at a point at which these 'private platforms' are in a position to do serious damage to public speech primarily due to network effects. They dont become important venues of speech until they are a dominant portion (if not outright monopoly) of communication medium. This is structural & will not be resolved on its own unless some other non-profit seeking entity (Govt) enforces it. As it is we are losing the 'money is speech' battle because of 'Citizen's United' (google it), This left unchecked will just make it hopeless.

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

#576
post #140

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?

Zuckerberg said that the FBI pressured Facebook over Hunter Biden, you can look it up if you want another datapoint.

Anyone who votes on Hunter Biden's personal habits is a dummy but there was definitely a coordinated campaign to call it "disinformation" despite the dude's actual dick being in the pictures.

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

#578

Did I read this correctly? It sounds like YouTube will continue to host his content, but will now pocket the money they would have paid him. That doesn't seem right to me. If they were to cease hosting his material, that would maych their corporate-speak blurb. This sounds to me like more money for YouTube.

Just like how Youtube will demonetize videos with things like violent retro video games. But they don't take down the video or hide it, they just collect all the ad revenue for themselves.

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

#579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

Epistemologically you can't be completely sure, but when someone's discourse is habitually interwoven with rhetorical gambits and logical fallacies it's not unreasonable to conclude that they're actually a bullshit artist.

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

#580
post #300

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.

That's a great policy idea! You should create a competitor to YouTube so that you can enforce it. Nobody's stopping you.
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