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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

#851

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the thing is, a majority of people on Earth are Youtube users, so what the heck does that even mean? This is beside the point, but I want to bring it up because I think it's important to remember we live in a bubble. A majority of people on earth are not Youtube users. Only ~60% of the world's population uses the internet[1], and of those, I'd assume a significant portion lack the bandwidth to stream video. Als…

2.7B youtube users is about 1/3 of the people on Earth, and a solid majority of internet users. India has the most youtube users at 570M+, though the US is highest in youtube traffic. Japan also has high youtube traffic per capita. https://www.globalmediainsight.com/blog/youtube-users-statis...

1/3 isn't a majority.

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

#852

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.

>Brand is free to go elsewhere or set up his own streaming / video publishing service. Obviously there's problems with this reasoning right? Why bother mentioning pointless rationalization here? You and Youtube both know there's only one video service that offers long form format and that's youtube themselves. Just tell it like it is. Youtube having a monopoly over online video content is effectively gagging and cens…

> You and Youtube both know there's only one video service that offers long form format and that's youtube themselves.

There are others, but YouTube has the largest audience. That's why Brand chose to use it as his platform. There was never a promise of a continuous business relationship. Things get blurry if YouTube decides to keep serving ads with Brand's videos, but doesn't pay him. They can do it, because that's how they wrote the T&Cs, but it doesn't seem fair. I don't think book publishers stop paying royalties to authors who have been accused of criminal behaviour; they may stop printing their books or even pull the books off the shelves, but the accounts will be settled and there will be no further monetization of the author's content.

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

#853

> “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,…

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.

[flagged]

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

#854

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.

[flagged]

> Ultimately the citizens of N Korea are 'free' to move elsewhere

They literally are not. They are held in by landmines and barbed wire. Nobody is going to execute Brand and his entire extended family if he moves away from YouTube. But that WILL happen if you leave North Korea.

Quit your sh*t.

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

#855

> “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,…

We thought we were going to escape a CCP style social credit score in the US, but big tech has an exploitable loophole in the administrative layer.

He is not being censored. Youtube ends their commercial partnership, because they think he doesn’t fit their brand image. But he can still upload videos, ask for patreon subscriptions, sell tshirts etc…

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

#856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Either are a solution.

Neither are getting implemented though.

Judging by the history of the web, there's a very strong tendancy to form natural monopolies, so I'm not entirely sure you can just legislate away their dominance.

I'd rather see them classed as common carriers. That can't just arbitrarily ban people from the network.

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

#857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Or just aggressively tax large/high-revenue companies. And speaking of taxing! I'm not sure why highly-successful companies draw so many more "they have too much power" criticisms than highly-successful individuals who often have power over media companies and spend a lot on lobbying politicians.

I disagree.

Brand, or anyone else is getting arbitrarily demonetised and YouTube has too much power. That is the issue.

Taxing is that situation is basically just permission for them to carry on doing that, it doesn't fix the problem.

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

#858

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Good luck taking that up with the department of justice. I honestly have no clue what you're trying to get at—just because you want a space to be public doesn't change the legal reality.

[flagged]

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

#859

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Ultimately the citizens of N Korea are 'free' to move elsewhere They literally are not. They are held in by landmines and barbed wire. Nobody is going to execute Brand and his entire extended family if he moves away from YouTube. But that WILL happen if you leave North Korea. Quit your sh*t.

Ultimately you can climb over the barbed wire fence and jump over the land mines.

They absolutely have agency to try. Just the same as Brand has agency to set up his own YouTube alternative.

Where do you want to set the limits? Is it at you and your extended family being executed?

What about starving people in Africa? They won't be executed if they leave, so it's their own fault for staying? What about USians that want an abortion? They can travel to another country, what about the first world unemployed in a recession? They could travel off to Africa and subsistence farm rather than complain about their mortgage.

Brand doesn't have a practical alternative to YouTube, so simply saying he can go elsewhere is stupid.

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

#860

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Or just aggressively tax large/high-revenue companies. And speaking of taxing! I'm not sure why highly-successful companies draw so many more "they have too much power" criticisms than highly-successful individuals who often have power over media companies and spend a lot on lobbying politicians.

Maybe because they have that power...
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