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In light of a potential second coming of the Adpocalypse, in which a number of major marketers have pulled YouTube ads after discovering that campaigns had run against ostensibly innocent videos of young children where pedophiles were exchanging fetishizing remarks in the comments, YouTube is taking severe pains to stamp out the behavior — but not all creators are thrilled with its sweeping response.
On Twitter, Christian family vlogger Jessica Ballinger — who shares videos with her husband, Christopher, and their four children (pictured above), including Parker, a five-year-old gymnast — expressed dismay that a handful of recent vlogs had been demonetized. YouTube acknowledged that while the clips themselves were ad-friendly, in light of the recent controversy, "even if your video is suitable for advertisers, inappropriate comments could result in your video receiving limited or no ads (yellow icon)." (According to YouTube's monetization icon guide, a yellow icon means that videos are not suitable for most advertisers).
Ballinger, whose channel counts 1.2 million subscribers, countered that she monitors her comment section stringently, and suggested that rather than punishing channels like hers, YouTube remove the offending comments and ban the users. However, the company said its "recent actions are due to an abundance of caution related to content that may endanger minors." It continued, "Not all channels do moderate, and we've had to take an aggressive approach and more broad action at this time. We're also investing in improving our tools to detect/remove this content, so we rely on your moderation less."
YouTube has backtracked, with a representative saying that videos that seem likely to attract predatory comments could have advertising restricted. But the damage is probably done, and YouTube creators may start disabling comment sections and doing outreach off-site in order to avoid the "someone sneezes and the video is demonetized" problem. That or they will write off monetization entirely, turning to Patreon and other platforms to supplement their income.
Matt Watson, the YouTuber credited for spearheading the latest adpocalypse, has been criticized for urging his livestream viewers to contact advertisers directly and ask them to pull ads from YouTube. In response to an argument that this hurts YouTube and video creators rather than pedophiles, Watson said that affected YouTubers can "go work at KFC".
See also: YouTubers fear looming 'adpocalypse' after child exploitation controversy
YouTube's child predator comment controversy: all the latest updates
YouTube's Ad Revolt Seen Fleeting. Brands Just Can't Quit Google
Related: YouTube AI Bots Are Now Heavily Involved in the Task of Removing "Problematic" Videos
YouTube Announces "Channel Memberships" and Other Ways for Creators to Make Money
YouTube Considering Removing the "Dislike" Button to Stop "Mobs"
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by crafoo on Sunday February 24 2019, @04:28PM (2 children)
Yeah. This won't be abused at all. There won't be any brigading of unpopular channels and ideas. If this is actually implemented universally, and not selectively, it hands power to the anarchists and trolls. However, I predict it will be used to provide an excuse to eliminate advertiser-unfriendly channels selectively while attempting to maintain the facade of fairness. It has actually nothing to do with protecting the children.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday February 24 2019, @05:02PM (1 child)
YouTube is hypersensitive to criticism because their advertisers are also hypersensitive to criticism. I think YouTube's consistently hated (by the community) actions are less about an infestation and just an inevitable consequence of serving the real customers: the advertisers.
In many cases, web sites should get cheaper to run over time. In YouTube's case, the amount of video uploaded every minute increases over time and people are consuming more content per day. The load could increase further as people use 4K and maybe 360-degree video. New codecs can only offset that to an extent. Now they also have to use machine learning to scour videos in order to appease advertisers and fend off governments (ISIS videos, CP, etc). And they have to use humans to deal with edge cases and potential PR problems. Google has never been a company that wants to have human support staff.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday February 24 2019, @05:46PM
You may be right about the mechanism, but that doesn't disprove the grandparent's assertion. The way they are doing this, or claim to be doing this, will allow trolls to easily take down any page they choose to...well, any one that depends on money,
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.