Live data from Hacker News

YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

twitlonger.com

111–120 of 256 posts

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#111

Maybe this is real, but it doesn't seem to line up with what I have heard from other Youtubers. Firstly it is almost certain that a video is initially demonetized by an algorithm. Only during a manual review is it looked at by a human. The main complaint from Youtubers is that the algorithm is way too strict and inconsistent. But the manual review process is pretty fair and the vast majority of videos get remonetized…

> The issue here being that by the time a manual review is complete most of the views for a video have already happened. Wouldn't the solution, then, be to credit the account for the revenue generated while it was demonetized? It's not like Youtube didn't get revenue from ad impressions while the video was flagged.

Sorry, when they say demonetized, they mean "ad restricted" as in no ads are shown. The issue being advertisers don't want their ads shown against objectionable content.

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#112
post #96

I don't see any problems with these rules in particular (I would prefer something less strict but we're talking America here), my problem is with all the seemingly innocent videos by people like EEVBlog that are purely noncontroversial tech stuff that gets instaflagged for no apparent reason. The manual review isn't the problem it's the initial algorithm that robs creators of all the views in the initial week(s) befo…

Except EEVBlog videos aren't completely innocent by these rules. I suspect a good number of Dave's past videos that have been flagged are because of cursing which he avoids today but definitely used to do occasionally. He can be culturally insensitive at times. I don't know if to the point that I would flag him as violating the rules, but then again these people were instructed that if in doubt flag. As the father of…

These regulations talk about what's common on TV, I can't recall him cursing worse than that, has he dropped an F-bomb?

Anyway that was just one example. Another who's gotten demonetized is LazyGameReviews, and he's a total kitten. Ashens is also clean and has gotten demonetized. There are countless examples.

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#113
post #108

Maybe this is real, but it doesn't seem to line up with what I have heard from other Youtubers. Firstly it is almost certain that a video is initially demonetized by an algorithm. Only during a manual review is it looked at by a human. The main complaint from Youtubers is that the algorithm is way too strict and inconsistent. But the manual review process is pretty fair and the vast majority of videos get remonetized…

Couldn't the algorithm give its judgement before the video goes live?

YouTube is trying to roll out something like this, it hasn't taken effect yet though.

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#114
post #3

The rules to flag videos is here: https://imgur.com/a/uTLTS and they seem quite vague. Stuff like "Regular TV" is not something many people can understand. That said, is there a way to find the demonetized videos?

creaters can find the monetary status of the videos in their dashboard. They get notified whenever any of their video is demonitized.

But it doesn't tell them why it was demonetized, which is the crux of the matter. Very Brazil.

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#115

Does anyone have any idea about why these rules would be secret? The only thing I can think of is that YouTube is not confident in their guidelines & categorization, and does not want to defend these choices publicly.

They're not a secret, I'm surprised this is so high up on HN: https://www.youtube.com/intl/en-US/yt/about/policies/#commun... https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6162278?hl=en The only thing I found confusing was the unwanted creators for the alleged secret meeting. GradeAUnderA is hilarious[0] and has a few videos that point out the drama in YouTube. Keemstar is toxic. I don't know about the others and I can n…

The problem is they don't tell you which "rule" you've broken when they demonetize your video.

My wife literally posted a 3 minute sped up video of us decorating our Christmas tree and it was demonetized without explanation.

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#116
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's very difficult to make a lot of money from YouTube ads Like anything else, I think you have to find your audience. A 6 year old apparently made $11 million this year off his YouTube channel: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/12/1...

That's news precisely because it's rare.

Not rare, just extreme.

If you see a YouTube channel with 250,000 subscribers or more, they are probably taking in around $10,000 a month from YouTube (assuming they post regularly.)

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#117
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real problem with these rules is subjectivity. Something you would consider offensive is probably not from my perspective. I'd be surprised if YouTube didn't account for this, or in other words, if they made the demonetization decision indeed dependent on a single person. I'd actually expect them to look for this bias, and filter out the reviewer, for example: reviewer X has consistently flagged videos that a n…

What about slight biases, say, 1.1x more probable to favor whites to blacks? Everyone is biased in many ways, and it adds up.

The selection of test videos (the 5%) could address that -- just pick videos that a fair reviewer would ignore, and an at least slightly biased reviewer would reject.

If a reviewer flags more than X of these videos, one might assume that the reviewer is biased. (X should probably be large enough to account for false positives from fair reviewers).

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, other things like hate speech are harder to detect Exactly. but, as I said, it's extremely subjective, and should not be dealt with in a general way, but rather broken down into subcategories, like "religion criticism", "radical feminism", "men's rights", etc, whatever ruffles people's feathers these days. Unless you have some reason to think that a non-insignificant number of advertisers would be OK with ads on…

These are huge groups. Consider religious criticism - we have Dawkins, Sam Harris, Dillahunty, Thunderf00t, PZ Myers, Aron Ra, Hitchens, etc. All with hundreds of videos. Tens to hundreds of millions of views for each of these names. If you demonetize them all because religious people consider criticism hate, you are throwing out tons of potential ad revenue. It's not much more work, just create more granular multile…

Are all those videos being demonetized now?

My point is that implementing a complex system that forces hard decisions on both reviewers and advertisers would only be worth doing if it would actually change the things much. Since we don't have the data to know, any position we take is simply uninformed.

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#119
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strict rules for tagging would just run into the same problems as strict rules for demonetization. LGBT groups won't be any happier to see their content publicly branded "sexually explicit" than just demonetized.

By strict rules I also mean objective and unbiased. Penis/vagina -> nudity (even if it's medical or educational). "Fuck" -> cursing (even if it's about the etymology of the word). Advocating murder of group X -> ban (even if you're quoting a religious text). If these rules are strict and clear, we have a chance of creating a legal-like system. Otherwise it's subjective chaos with everyone pissed off.

So a lecture quoting from the Old Testament, or an atheist quoting its worst parts, would get banned under your regime? Because, at least for the first three examples, you are explicitly including meta-discussions of the subject.

It's impossible to create an "objective" standard. Because what you want to rate is meaning, and meaning is subjective, based on context and intent.

One of history's most famous photos is of a fully nude girl, maybe 8 or 9 years old. It makes no sense to stick any labels to such an image without considering the context it was created in, and the cultural significance it has.

Re: YouTube Demonetization Screenshot Leaks and Secret YouTube Meeting

#120
post #51

I don't see the issue. Google is curating their platform and trying to remove as much un-original and reasonably offensive content. The doc also didn't seem to contain any political leanings or cultural shifters. I believe much of this is part of the service agreement on Youtube. Only issue I see here is the manual review process and subjectivity baked into that.

1) they don't tell you what rule you're breaking.

2) transparency is zilch.

3) rule changes came overnight.

4) no system to "pre-approve" videos.

5) it's affecting tons of completely innocuous videos. My wife runs a family friendly vlog, prior to October she'd never had a problem with any of her thousands of videos, and now every other one is demonetized without explanation.

From a creator experience it's just confirmation the platform is totally dead and beyond saving. The algos have won.

Post reply on HN