YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by yreg » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 10:53 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #281

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,…

YouTube is like HR - they are there to protect the company and the company's revenue streams, not you or "the community". This is why I think the term "community guidelines" for "censorship policy" is such abusive gaslighting. It's unilateral censorship, not community, and they are rules, not guidelines. It's the same deceptive drive that renamed "searching your bag" to "security screening" at airports.

I agree in general, but in this case the company has nothing to protect from. The matter doesn't relate to them in any way.

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

#462

Post by FormerBandmate » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 10:53 PM UTC

surfingdino wrote: post #308

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,…

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.

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.

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

#463

Post by indoclay » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

Airsinner wrote: post #293

indoclay wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If people find these allegations credible—and most should Why should most people find these allegations credible? I do not believe there is a police report, arrest, and let alone a trial. These are currently just allegations, their credibility has not been adjudicated.

One might evaluate the situation based on what I think is called a "preponderance of evidence", combined with an understanding that the legal system is both slow and tends towards innocence unless a crime is proven "beyond a shadow of a doubt". A person may know how slow and different a legal decision is compared to what may be obvious and a reflection of reality, and therefore might arrive at a conclusion well befor…

What evidence has been provided to meet this preponderance of evidence standard you are putting forward for moral evaluation?

You have one party making an allegation claiming they have documents to back it up and the other party denying innocence with claims of their own exculpatory evidence. Nothing has been shared to the public by either party for me evaluate who has the preponderance of evidence.

I do believe YouTube (or any other private platform) can and should be able to set it's own rules for participation so I see no issue with what they did here. If it's a right for someone to be on that platform then we should not be relying on a private party to guarantee that and make the necessary legislative changes.

I would just love to understand why I should be outraged at this individual before anything has been presented before me so that I can evaluate for myself.

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

#464

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

curiousllama wrote: post #443

toyg wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brand could argue he was discriminated as a man, in the sense that he was assumed as guilty of rape because he's a man.

He could argue he was discriminated against because he's actually secretly a butterfly; both arguments would hold similar weight.

[deleted]

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

#465

Post by thallium205 » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 10:58 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #407

christkv wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt YouTube worries about being demonetized by advertisers at this point. Where exactly will this advertisers go to advertise on long form videos otherwise?

> I doubt YouTube worries about being demonetized by advertisers at this point. They've been the target of that twice at least, in 2017 over hate speech [1], in 2019 over pedos[2]. Large brands spend insane amounts of money on advertising, and they do not want their content to appear next to people facing allegations of sexual misconduct or otherwise bad behavior. Hell just look at Twitter and how much advertising in…

I’m pretty sure YouTube still shows ads on demonetized channels.

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

#466

Post by mongol » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 10:58 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #180

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.

I wonder if YouTube takes into consideration local values when doing this. For example, nudity and other controversial stuff can have much different standards on what's acceptable and what's not. If this is not baked into the formula, then it's likely that YouTube is pushing cultures to align with SV or some managers in Google. I'm not going to defend Russel Brand, just making a point about YT's impact. This time aro…

> then it's likely that YouTube is pushing cultures to align with SV or some managers in Google.

This is as sure as that the sun will rise tomorrow. I have absolutely no doubt that the rest of the world is culturally influenced by the larger SV companies.

> we need to move to a model where if you can moderate content you are liable for the content.

Agree completely.

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

#467

Post by sixQuarks » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 10:59 PM UTC

jmfldn wrote: post #285

c7DJTLrn wrote: post #143

Putting aside recent allegations, it's disappointing what has happened to Russell Brand's YouTube channel. I watched some of his videos a few years ago and they were interesting discussions of the news with a particular emphasis on questioning everything which I see as a healthy habit. Inevitably though, the algorithm steered the videos to become more clickbaity, divisive, and frankly crazy. He probably saw that outr…

His decent into outrage-bait, alt-right friendly nonsense struck me as abrupt. One minute his channel was reasonable enough, the next it was totally nuts. Part of me wonders whether this was calculated once he knew that a major expose was circling. I have zero evidence for this, but you can see the logic. Court a following that is sceptical of everything, and that will see an investigation by the 'mainstream media' a…

Can you give an example of what made his videos “totally nuts”?

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

#468

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 11:01 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #353

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…

The internet is no longer decentralized and interoperable. It's all walled gardens. Want to send an email? Better be on a major email platform or none of your messages will arrive. Guaranteeing internet access as a utility is a great idea but by itself it's only an illusion of freedom. Access to things like Google accounts / AWS / cloudflare and of course the banking system and payment processor duopoly also need to…

Government should offer email (and identity verification) as a utility. And if the populace wants video streaming as a utility, then that too, although I would rather the government simply provide high quality fiber internet connections as a utility since that is limiting factor in hosting your videos.

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

#469

Post by nullifidian » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 11:01 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #407

christkv wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt YouTube worries about being demonetized by advertisers at this point. Where exactly will this advertisers go to advertise on long form videos otherwise?

> I doubt YouTube worries about being demonetized by advertisers at this point. They've been the target of that twice at least, in 2017 over hate speech [1], in 2019 over pedos[2]. Large brands spend insane amounts of money on advertising, and they do not want their content to appear next to people facing allegations of sexual misconduct or otherwise bad behavior. Hell just look at Twitter and how much advertising in…

Maybe a bit too conspiratorial but I can easily imagine some Google exec asking advertisers: "Give as a casus belli for a crack down on free speech".

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

#470

Post by GenericPoster » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 11:01 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #388

threeseed wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that Brand hasn't been censored. His videos are still online.

Of course it has, and we all know it. He's now been proven to be "that guy who had rape accusations" by "multiple women". Or the "controversial figure known for his wild antics and potentially non consensual dealings with women in the past". It's all just the start of a large machine thats been set in motion. Every news outlet that doesn't like him or doesn't want to portray him in a neutral or positive light will us…

What an absolutely deranged comment. Putting aside the fact that you're going up to bat for some random guy that you don't personally know. Instead of listening to the testimonies, let it go to court and then make a judgement. But the thought of preemptively supporting a stranger that's been accused of rape is actually insane.

And if news outlets don't want to work with him then they can just stop inviting him to things. They don't need to accuse him of anything. Just stop giving him roles and he's out of the spotlight. He'll fade away into obscurity.

Take your meds and get off the internet for a bit.