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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

#901

Post by lesuorac »

happytiger wrote: post #834
browserman wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With any luck we'll go even further than that and confine him to a small metal box for a period of several years.

We call that a conviction and a system of law for this. We should use it. I don’t think private corporations that are monopolies should decide who can speak and who cannot. Obviously they can protect their business, but then they shouldn’t be allowed to be universally dominant in a technology category like video.

The fact that Russel Brand hasn't been gifted a cable channel is a real shame isn't it.

Or do you just mean YouTube when you say video?

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

#902

Post by watwut »

camillomiller wrote: post #867
rayiner wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m 100% in favor of cleaning house with that generation of musicians and performers that openly preyed on women. But is that what YouTube is doing? When is Aerosmith getting demonetized? https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/steven-tyl... How has it taken YouTube this long, anyway? Hasn’t much of this stuff been openly known for a decade or more? Is YouTube literally just reacting to the media cycle and…

Same here, but tbh the accusations against Brand are quite moot. Regardless of that, why is YouTube to decide and not a court of law? Of course a private platform can do whatever they want, but when their decision is basically the same as a court issuing fine or damages in the way it affects a person’s livelihood, shouldn’t their decisions be regulated accordingly?

Does the same thing applies to Budweiser and everything tainted with trans when right wing machine targets them?

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

#903

Post by lesuorac »

marcell wrote: post #581
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of weird lawyerly nitpicking is this. YouTube does not want to be associated with an alleged rapist. Is that so hard to understand.

It’s not lawyerly nitpicking. The US has a tradition in rule of law, and it’s a social convention that applies broadly. YouTube, in their statement, is pretending they have an objective standard that is fairly applied to everyone. In reality, there is no uniform standard. They ban people when business interests dictate it. So their policy reads as “we have an objective standard,” but reality is “we ban when we feel l…

> It’s not lawyerly nitpicking. The US has a tradition in rule of law, and it’s a social convention that applies broadly.

I think this is pretty much objectively false.

Cops are constantly accused of uneven policing.

Court routinely give lighter sentences for the same crime to different demographics.

Sports are not ruled by the rulebook.

Pretty much every business uses a super vague ToS that do not define concrete rules.

Did you give your kids the Codes of Marcell that they have to abide by? With everything they have to abide by?

Society runs off "at our discretion".

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

#904

Post by ghilly »

watwut wrote: post #902
camillomiller wrote: post #867

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, but tbh the accusations against Brand are quite moot. Regardless of that, why is YouTube to decide and not a court of law? Of course a private platform can do whatever they want, but when their decision is basically the same as a court issuing fine or damages in the way it affects a person’s livelihood, shouldn’t their decisions be regulated accordingly?

Does the same thing applies to Budweiser and everything tainted with trans when right wing machine targets them?

The backlash Budweiser got was from purchasers of its beer who were turned off by its marketing message. How is that comparable to this?

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

#905

Post by phil21 »

4bpp wrote: post #890
ncallaway wrote: post #571

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…

Network effects mean that most internet platforms form natural monopolies, as a hypothetical scenario in which there are dozens of video websites with idiosyncratic communities, rules and technical constraints would add friction that most inhabitants of the current ecosystem would loathe. This arguably makes Youtube more similar to a public transportation service - imagine if New York's MTA having banned Russell Bran…

> Network effects mean that most internet platforms form natural monopolies

I'm not entirely convinced. I think it's more "unlimited VC money so platforms could operate at a loss for a decade" had way more to do with entrenching these "natural" monopolies.

I recall plenty of social media/video sharing/etc. sites back in the day. I hosted a number of them. They did not die due to lack of popularity, but due to lack of ability to pay for bandwidth and server costs. VC funded folks could just spam money for free, while being told to not even worry about revenue or monetization.

This is around the time the word "startup" became a joke - and instead described a vastly funded corporate enterprise vs. a couple guys in a garage.

Network effects are certainly a thing, but they are so warped by cheap money and the ability to operate for years at huge losses that I'm not convinced they are as strong as suggested. You had no way to compete with Youtube back then backed by Google money. They effectively had free bandwidth for a decade while they figured things out. Competitors actually had to pay bills and staff with actual revenue. The game was over before it began.

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

#906

Post by thedrbrian »

madrox wrote: post #494
karaterobot wrote: post #243

> “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.

>YouTube, afaik, doesn’t just let advertisers blacklist individual channels.

It's sort of amazing that the biggest search company on earth can't filter/select ads like that.

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

#907

Post by benj111 »

867-5309 wrote: post #886
benj111 wrote: post #851

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1/3 isn't a majority.

X = Y/3, X = Z, Y != Z

The GGP said

> But the thing is, a majority of people on Earth are Youtube users, so what the heck does that even mean.

The GP challenged this.

The parent defended this by point out the 1/3rd figure.

I pointed out that 1/3rd isn't a majority so the GGP was still wrong.

So yes I agree. X or Z aren't 'the majority' of Y.

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

#908

Post by lotsofpulp »

vmladenov wrote: post #830
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…

There’s a bit more to it than this. If you run afoul of the big payment processors like Visa and Mastercard, you may find it difficult to even pay for the stuff you mentioned (or get paid). The ideal of companies being able to refuse service makes sense from a freedom perspective but in reality we have a handful of very skewed markets, and there is often no “municipal alternative” to support those who have been black…

So the solution is to create those “municipal alternatives”. Constitutionally guaranteed electronic money account and ability to receive and send money, constitutionally guaranteed access to internet, email, and identity verification services, provided by the government.

And any abuse should be prosecuted by the government.

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

#909

Post by roenxi »

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #439
roenxi wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... 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…

Just in terms of viewership do you have a specific source for saying his audience is comparable? I am having trouble finding something reasonable. e.g. 6.58M youtube subscribers 80 million television households as subscribers for CNN Although these numbers are not really comparable ~700k daily watchers for CNN: https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/here-are-cable-news-ratings-... 800k video views for Russel: https://social…

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/02/business/media/cnn-profit... or https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2023/03/14/cnns-rat... for example - CNN is pulling a viewership of ~400k people and you can see Brand's videos generally averaging above that on YouTube.

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

#910

Post by enaaem »

benj111 wrote: post #853
surfingdino wrote: post #308

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]

Why should he go? He is not being censored. He is still allowed to post videos, ask for Patreon support, sell tshirts etc… Youtube simply cancelled their commercial partnership.
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