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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

#631

Post by saagarjha »

NoPicklez wrote: post #608
turquoisevar wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube has been doing this for a while. If you’re just starting out and don’t qualify to become a “partner”, you can’t monetize your videos until you reach X amount of subscribers and Y amount of watch hours. This doesn’t mean your videos won’t have ads on them. They most assuredly will have ads on them. It just means that YouTube doesn’t consider you good enough to share the revenue with you. Load of BS of course.…

I don't think it's a load of BS. Youtube is a free platform to host video content, they themselves need to pay the bills. At a particular point that your videos become "valuable" they offer to provide you with a cut. The grey area is potentially how they determine the value

Right, but there's a difference between "we don't think this person should be profiting from our platform because they are causing harm" and "we think this person causes harm so we're going to let them use the platform but take the money we would have paid them".

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

#632

Post by pixl97 »

Aunche wrote: post #597
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.

This is how ad-subsidized media has always worked. You worked for a television network has a team of censors that protected it from reputational damage. You had to listen to them if you wanted your show to air.

Heh, I bet there is an age gap here in the replies. Older people remember the days of TV/magazines where if you did the wrong thing, suddenly your face disappeared from the media like it never existed. Then the wild west days of the internet was a weird time where there was all kinds of crazy crap on the net. Now we've recentralized the services and it looks like traditional media.

I do not blame Google on this. They are behaving in their business interests exactly the way one should expect. The problem is as a society we grow massive corporations that have large near monopolies over multiple aspects of the internet and think it's perfectly fine.

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

#633

Post by georgespencer »

shadowtree wrote: post #617

Huge opportunity for X to continue to become the safe haven for "cancelled" content. Tucker Carlson, etc.

Perhaps a moral opportunity if you believe that people credibly accused of and under investigation for rape (Brand) or spreading white supremacist dog whistle conspiracy theories (Carlson) is a moral imperative.

Not such a great opportunity when you consider that the audience for this sort of content is poorly-educated, credulous, reactionary, and anathema to advertisers who can actually support the businesses behind the platforms.

This is the most surprising thing about Elon's lurch to the right: it has already cost him c.40% of Twitter's ad revenue because, huge surprise, nobody wants to be associated with conspiracy theorists even when they aren't rapists or racists.

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

#634

Post by throwaway290 »

rwhyan wrote: post #622
dragonwriter wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds like YouTube will continue to host his content, but will now pocket the money they would have paid him. If he is demonetized, then his videos won’t get ad placement, so Google won’t make the money in the first place, as it will contribute neither to advertising revenue nor to the marginal benefit from the Premium users derived compared to non-Premium users in avoiding ads. Since Google pays creators less…

> If he is demonetized, then his videos won’t get ad placement Not necessarily true. YouTube definitely runs ads on demonetized videos and channels.

There's complete demonetization where videos have no ads altogether (e.g., videos from BBC if you're in UK).

There's partial stuff like Content ID matches. If you post my song, YT still shows ads, but you get no money. I now get your ad money (and YT its cut).

Not sure what they meant in case of Russell Brand, but I bet they will show ads for advertisers who don't opt out and pocket the profit.

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

#636

Post by lotsoweiners »

bluedays wrote: post #593
bluedays wrote: post #548

While it's not my place to adjudicate his innocence or guilt, the decisions by platforms like YouTube and the BBC to immediately curtail his revenue streams are ethically contentious. Such actions, rooted in the pursuit of reputational safety for these organizations, inadvertently presuppose guilt, potentially skewing public perception and compromising the accused's ability to muster an adequate defense, particularly…

Before reflexively expressing disagreement through a downvote, I invite and encourage a thoughtful discourse on the matter. It's disheartening to observe dissent without accompanying dialogue, as meaningful engagement fosters mutual understanding and growth.

[flagged]

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

#637

Post by andrei_says_ »

georgespencer wrote: post #626
poorbutdebtfree wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Andrew Tate has been indicted on charges of rape, human trafficking, and forming an organised crime group to sexually exploit women. He is by his own admission a violent misogynist and, in his own words, "probably 40% of the reason" he moved to Romania was the perceived ease of evading rape charges there: "I'm not a rapist, but I like the idea of just being able to do what I want. I like being free." That's the same…

This is one of the best viewpoints criticizing the “I’m being silenced” victim position of conspiracy theorists.

Also, consider that the ones that are silenced we are not hearing about and from.

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

#638

Post by pixl97 »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #156
diogenes4 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At some point the private platform becomes so influential over the information environment and politics that it can no longer be considered merely a private platform. It is now also a public square. It’s not unreasonable at that point to require it to adhere higher standards of evidence, law, and reason. In this case, I’m no fan of Brand, but I’m even less a fan of YouTube’s apparent policy of “guilty till proven inn…

Then break up Google from YT and their ad network. Have more competition in the market. You are going to get exactly the opposite of what you want by having one huge monopoly that's controlled by the government on what they can and cannot say.

>It’s not unreasonable at that point to require it to adhere higher standards of evidence, law, and reason.

Civil law is based on contract. Nearly every civil contract regarding media has disparagement clauses.

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

#639

Post by pixl97 »

poorbutdebtfree wrote: post #520
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.

[flagged]

Expect the Andrew Tate treatment if you are a rapist.

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

#640

Post by incompatible »

aidenn0 wrote: post #500
hinkley wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allegedly. If a bunch of people come forward accusing you of assault, odds are pretty good you did it. However, private businesses punishing people for having charges brought against them but not yet tried? That's judge, jury and executioner, which is incompatible with the set of laws that the US is built on - for which the source material was English Law, and precedent even older than that. So an American company pr…

By the definition of "punish" that you are implicitly using, private businesses in America used to be able to punish people for anything ("we reserve the right to refuse service to anybody"). Now there are certain things they cannot punish people for (e.g. being black). Are you suggesting that the time has come to mandate that companies may not discriminate against customers for other reasons as well?

It seems to be going the other way in the US. Recently, in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, it was found that discrimination against customers who "violate your values", in that case by being gay, was fine.
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