Censorship is A-OK for a company. It only becomes a legal problem if the government does it.

YouTube Demonetization Explained

Sure, but he never made the argument that YouTube couldn't do what it was doing, only questioned whether it should.

YouTube is walking a fine line here, their empire is built on all these small creators as much as it's big ones. Piss them off enough and they may decide it's no longer worth it and either quit or take their content elsewhere. The less diversity YouTube has in it's programming and the more it just looks like another TV network, with all the same safe boring bullshit.

Aww... just let the invisible hand of the marketplace fix everything.


Oh wait, that's what's causing the problem...

*related=http://videosift.com/video/An-Open-Letter-from-Exurb1a-to-YouTube

An Open Letter from Exurb1a to YouTube has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine.

The most reasonable counterargument to this I've heard (and I'm not saying they're right, just eminently reasonable) was made yesterday by my favorite Canadian Let's Players:

1. Youtube has always had this content policy. Everyone who signs into the monetization program has always accepted this code of content before joining the monetization program.

2. Youtube has had this content practice for a long time. These videos were demonetized long before this recent 'scandal'. The only thing that has changed is that YT is now letting content creators know which videos were never being monetized in the first place.

3. It's not so much a question of content as it is of tags. The vast majority of content processing is based on the original tags by the uploaders, and you can avoid demonetization easily by having fewer, less controversial tags (that will also limit your viewership).

Obviously Youtube has been opaque and shitty in communicating how and why they make changes. But censorship? I would have a hard time going back in time to Bolshevik dissidents and telling them that censorship in the future means that a corporation that broadcasts your opinion for free won't always force other corporations to also pay you for those opinions.

*Edit: Also, eric3579's already got this shit covered, I just hadn't followed his links yet.

"YouTube is walking a fine line here, their empire is built on all these small creators as much as it's big ones advertisers and their willingness to pay for ads. Piss them off enough and they may decide it's no longer worth it and either quit or take their content elsewhere. The less diversity YouTube has in it's programming and the more it just looks like another TV network, with all the same safe boring advertiser-relevant bullshit."

Except you still need content to attract viewers and YouTube did that by creating a place where you could find shit you will never see on traditional TV. Without viewers you might as well be erecting billboards around Neptune. And advertisers will be willing to pay for ad space on YouTube, there are simply too many eyeballs for them to ignore.

You can't pretend that all content is good content, though. Youtube needs to weed out the Isis recruitment videos and the kitten crushing, and they need to be able to reliably promise advertisers that their ads won't appear in front of that shit. YT has convinced creators that likes and views are actually what's important, but I bet YT can lose 100 large channels before they are willing to lose one large advertiser.

eric3579's link explains it, but there are options for advertisers who want to advertise on anything, regardless of content, and there are options for those who want to only stick to the approved material. Given the sheer volume of videos on YT, an automated system is necessary, and it's a good thing that they've now given users an option to appeal the non-monetization.

Youtube's advantage is not that they have content that isn't on tv, but that it's an established platform for viewing content on every device in existence. On the whole I think Youtube is still leveraging its significant power to provide a fairly open and unrestricted platform. If my company was being advertised there I'd probably want to have full freedom to choose the videos, and to demand, for example, that comments be turned off on every video with my ads.

The ad-based revenue model fundamentally breaks the concept of relaying information free from external influence.

Everywhere.