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Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

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Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#211

'De-Monetized' suggests that someone who produces a video has an automatic right to income. That's bonkers, it's already quite a service that Youtube allows you to upload your videos to reach an audience that you'd be hard pressed to serve from your own server. They do this for free. In the previous iteration of such platforms all the ad income would go to the owner of the website, not to the rights owners of the vid…

It is not the right place to discuss this issue in the context of this shooting, and I accept if I am downvoted for it, but since you answered in general, I'd like to point out that I generally disagree.

In my point of view, it can be reasonable and morally justified to subject companies that manage to obtain a quasi-monopoly on some form of information distribution to rules that go beyond of what is required for a company merely by law, or even to adjust the law in order to better protect those companies' users.

I would consider it fair and reasonable, for instance, to demand of Facebook, Youtube, and similar platforms (incl. app stores with quasi-monopoly status on a given platform) to be fair, to not manipulate content in favour of the company's political ambitions, in favour of obviously immoral or of decidedly anti-democratic agendas. I also think it is fair and reasonable to expect these companies to remove dangerous, illegal, or decidedly anti-democratic content, to remove radical propaganda, and so on, within reasonable limits. And it is also reasonable and fair to expect or even regulate these companies to adequately compensate content-providers, since they de facto act as their publishers, make money of this content, and have besaid quasi-monopoly. I also think that companies that hold some quasi-monopoly over some information channel should be held to higher standards than those for which there are many viable alternatives, since the former are closer to being utilities. (What constitutes a quasi-monopoly or enough of a monopoly is, of course, another, quite debatable question.)

Obviously, none of this justifies any kind of violence, and the shooter was deranged and most likely wrong about her perceptions of her supposedly unfair treatment. But I couldn't let your statement stand on its own, since I believe it to be wrong in general. This is a debatable standpoint, of course, but there should be a debate. To give another example, I really don't think that Google should be allowed to skew their search results as they see fit, e.g. to influence elections in various countries, just because they are a private company and using Google search is free.

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this kind of reaction is about philosophical "right" to an income from a particular company, more about sudden changes. It's similar to being fired: you previously got an income from this company, then they decided not to give you an income. Some people get angry at that, and sometimes feel desperate, worried about ending up homeless etc. depending on how much they relied on this income and what kinds o…

It's not similar to being fired. [REDACTED: It's similar to a store owner allowing you to panhandle outside their business, and then later telling you you can't panhandle there anymore (but loiter all you want!).] It is not reasonable for adults to look at internet ad revenue as a reliable source of income. It's unfortunate if/when they fall on hard times because they made the mistake of relying on something so volat…

Youtube is a valuable platform in no small part due to content creators, and they recognize that, which is why they have a revenue sharing program to begin with. It's disingenuous to compare those content creators to panhandlers.

I agree that they should realize it's a volatile system and prepare for downswings, but that doesn't make them beggars.

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#213
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big problem with automatic demonetization is that what frequently happens is that (let's assume that you are a popular Youtuber): You spend a lot of time and money to make a video. You upload it to youtube. It trips some random check and is flagged and de-monetized, you appeal. People come and watch your video, with this type of content the vast majority of views is in the few first days since publishing. Your appe…

Business disputes are not normally resolved with weapons. If you treat your Youtube presence as a business you are doing it wrong to begin with, and your conflict resolution venue will be the courts, not shooting at random employees.

I don't think he was defending the shooting but rather the fact that many so-called "pro" Youtubers feel like they're getting shafted.

I think you built a strawman that makes it harder to discuss because you seem to equate "being unhappy with Youtube's monetization scheme" with supporting that shooter which is obviously inane. I doubt anybody here is saying that you should go shoot Google HQ if you're unhappy with their ToS.

For the record I don't think people complaining about Youtube's monetization are right anyway, begging a tech giant for lunch money is not a viable business model. If you think you ought to be paid for your content then you should try to work together with other content producers to create your own platform where you get the share of the profit you deem fair. You need Youtube more than they need you.

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#214

Americans in the comment section are reacting about this woman being a disgruntled user, angry about perceived discrimination from Youtube, down on her luck, suicidal. Me, a european, I'm reacting to how easily she found a gun. I hate to bring up this very toxic debate, my comment will seem like fishing for trouble. Yet you have to understand our perspective. Not every lunatic where I live can find a gun when they ne…

I would be really interested to see statistics about this. I hypothesize that the prevalence of "violent lunatics" is a bigger factor than availability of weapons, i.e. that the US just has more of these people than other places due to something in the media and culture.

In other words, if availability of guns were really the most important factor, then wouldn't we expect Europe to have a similar number of attacks but conducted with knives, cars, etc? Do you think there are a number of europeans out there with the desire to commit these acts, and would do so if they only could get a gun more easily? I'm skeptical.

That isn't to say I think gun control would hurt, just that I see a deeper problem it wouldn't solve.

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#215

'De-Monetized' suggests that someone who produces a video has an automatic right to income. That's bonkers, it's already quite a service that Youtube allows you to upload your videos to reach an audience that you'd be hard pressed to serve from your own server. They do this for free. In the previous iteration of such platforms all the ad income would go to the owner of the website, not to the rights owners of the vid…

"They do this for free" in return for something. Google/Youtube is not doing this for free. They are a corporation in it for the profit

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I disagree. Obviously responsibility is shared and primarily owned by Nasim but some is also owned by youtube. Think of it like this - does youtube bear some responsibility when creators leave the platform because of demonetization? Of course. Does youtube bear some responsibility when creators make lots of angry videos because of demonetization? Of course. Does youtube bear some responsibility when demoneti…

I think you're confusing being part of the reason behind something and being responsible for it. When a fit minded adult makes a decision out of his own free will, there's a lot of factors and reasons involved. However, since it's his decision, he's the only one responsible for it.

This seems... curious. It might be an appealing simplification of a terrifyingly complex world to operate on the basis of the binary attribution of responsibility; but I really think it's a bias that we should fight to overcome.

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'De-Monetized' suggests that someone who produces a video has an automatic right to income. That's bonkers, it's already quite a service that Youtube allows you to upload your videos to reach an audience that you'd be hard pressed to serve from your own server. They do this for free. In the previous iteration of such platforms all the ad income would go to the owner of the website, not to the rights owners of the vid…

>It's like when Apple pulls something from the AppStore because they want to release something similar. when did that happen?

Flux

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#218
post #94

I'm really surprised at how many of these HN comments are so sympathetic to this murderer's cause. To me, this illustrates how dangerous this type of reporting is, this media obsession with the perpetrators of mass shooting. This is the problem that I feel utterly powerless against. You can make more mental health programs, pass more gun control legislation, pay more for security, but what can you do when the culture…

I largely agree with you. But, about 1% of me, can't help but note that... well, I think there's a reason for people's tendency to give the perpetrator some sympathy. The thing is, we abstract this away into things like "it's not censorship if a private organization declines to monetize the content you freely publish with them," but... let's be clear about what happens here, at the granular ground level: 1) Company c…

This is basically how I see it, and it's probably going to be worse the more we get into whatever this "gig job" world we are entering is. Uber reduces payouts to enough drivers, or goes all in on self-driving cars? One of them is probably going to be an extremely unwell gun-owner that's suddenly broke and hopeless. This is part of humanity that can't be explained away with "You should have known it wasn't a REAL job (but please make content for us / drive for us anyway)!"

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#219
post #79

> "The night before Nasim Aghdam opened fire in a courtyard at YouTube's headquarters Tuesday afternoon, Mountain View police found the San Diego woman sleeping in her car. She had been reported missing by her family in Southern California, and her father Ismail Aghdam told police she might be going to YouTube because she 'hated' the company. Police called the family at 2 a.m. Tuesday to say she'd been found and that…

If you start threatening people with your weapons, you should have them confiscated, or rather more likely to have them confiscated. This is one of the few instances where this could have been completely prevented.

Re: Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this kind of reaction is about philosophical "right" to an income from a particular company, more about sudden changes. It's similar to being fired: you previously got an income from this company, then they decided not to give you an income. Some people get angry at that, and sometimes feel desperate, worried about ending up homeless etc. depending on how much they relied on this income and what kinds o…

Mark Ames wrote a whole book (which I admit I didn't quite finish) with the thesis that you could tie the rise of workplace shootings to an increase in worker precarity.

Is Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond the book you were thinking of?

(Thanks for the recommendation in any case.)

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Going-Postal-Rebellion-Workplaces-Col...

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