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from the even-my-parent's-VCR-clock-is-right-once-a-day dept.
Channels like VAXXED TV, LarryCook333, iHealthTube, and other anti-vaccination channels on YouTube have been seeing their videos demonetized starting Friday.
“We have strict policies that govern what videos we allow ads to appear on, and videos that promote anti-vaccination content are a violation of those policies”
the policy referenced by YouTube states:
Harmful or dangerous acts
Video content that promotes harmful or dangerous acts that result in serious physical, emotional, or psychological injury is not suitable for advertising. Some examples include videos depicting painful or invasive surgical or cosmetic procedures, or pranks involving sexual harassment or humiliation.
According to YouTube, this includes anti-vaxxer content.
Youtube has also introduced an information panel pertaining to vaccines. Looking through some anti-vax channels, the following text and link is displayed below anti-vax videos:
Vaccine controversies
Vaccine hesitancy, a reluctance or refusal to vaccinate or have one's children vaccinated, has been identified by the World Health Organization as one of the top ten global health threats of 2019.[1][2] Hesitancy results from public debates around the medical, ethical and legal issues related to vaccines.
Wikipedia
Most may agree with the target of these actions (particularly with measles making a tragic comeback in the U.S. due to loss of herd immunity resulting from reduced vaccination rates), but the process still has those 'unaccountable', 'untransparent', 'arbitrary', 'unappealable' characteristics that have become the norm with large social media providers.
Pinterest is also taking measures to reduce the spread of anti-vax propaganda on its platform
So how exactly is Pinterest doing this? By blacklisting search terms like “vaccines” from the platform, along with sites that spread this sort of health misinformation.
Additional coverage of anti-vax demonitization Here and here
A sampling of previous coverage of the 'vaccine controversy' on SoylentNews here and here
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Monday February 25 2019, @02:50AM (10 children)
In reality, the effects are likely to be mixed, of course.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday February 25 2019, @03:06AM (8 children)
The vast majority of people who upload videos are likely not getting paid anything (or an amount so small as to be insignificant). Having ads removed is probably a plus for those people. More importantly, it is a resource drain for youtube because its running machinery and spitting out data, but getting no revenue.
Obviously, what the world really needs is a universal list of demonetized ad-free youtube vids. THAT would make youtube blink I think it being a representation of nothing but lost costs.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by patricepetticoat on Monday February 25 2019, @03:13AM (1 child)
Oh no no. You give some more specifics or your statement is meaningless. How many people are are not getting paid. What percentage?
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday February 25 2019, @11:36PM
Google seems to be ruining my searches, and hiding anti-vax shit from me, but I deliberately searched for an anti-vax string of words, and the first thing that wasn't anti-anti-vax - the top thing - the thing that's most likely to get views - was this:
Vaccines Destroy Children: Is Your Child Next?
LarryCook333
2 years ago 26,140 views
Let's call that $26 dollars.
He should learn to code.
You're falling for the trap that many musicians fall for - you see some at the top earning a lot, and you think there's money in it generally. That's a naive fallacy. OK, my sample was a sample of 1, so is not statistically sound, but if you want to address that aspect of my argument, you should know that the next 2 were:
Their Vaccine Free Children Are Strong, Healthy and Smart!
LarryCook333
6 months ago 2,724 views
My Kids: Their Severe Vaccine Injuries Do Not Qualify For A Medical Exemption
LarryCook333
3 years ago 4,975 views
$3 and $5 more - woo woo - let's buy a yacht!
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday February 25 2019, @04:38AM (5 children)
... the demonetized ad free YouTube vids?
A world full of curated lists of links to most things would result in the insolvency of the search engines.
We wouldn’t want that to happen would we now?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 25 2019, @10:04AM (1 child)
Something close to it used to be called WebRing [wikipedia.org] in the '90.
Maybe would be a good thing to see them come back?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday February 25 2019, @05:45PM
There was a time that I actually had quite a lot of money.
I mean I really did. And you know what?
I was miserable then. I really _am_ far far far happier singing for my burritos.
There is no amount of money whatsoever that could possibly entice me to accept payment for listing a company at Soggy Jobs. No sponsored listings, no graphic logo listings, no bold-face listings, none of that.
WebRing sold out.
I was quite stoked that I got listed at the Yahoo Directory very early on - by quite _literally_ emailing my link to Jerry Yang! I Am Absolutely Serious.
Imagine my dismay when I wanted to do other stuff than BeOS only to find that the newly-funded Yahoo! Corporation required four hundred Simoleons not so much to give me a second listing, or to create a new listing, but merely to alter just a few words of the text of my existing listing.
By contrast, IMDB - which really was Just Some Guy Like Me [archive.org] - has always listed everything absolutely free of charge - _all_ the movies, _all_ the actors, _all_ the crew - but makes quite a lot of their money with an entirely separate site which is there specifically for Entertainment Industry Professionals to list themselves that their fellow Pros might find them and so hire them for new productions.
I'm going to write a Manifesto which addresses these two. More or less what it will say is that we can return the power of the World Wide Web to the common people to a large extent through no other means than for hobbyists to compile their very own curated list sites, but that those hobbyists must either _remain_ hobbyists, they must monetize some _other_ way than by accepting payments for Sponsored Links, or that like IMDb, they must maintain two sites apiece, on a free site, the other a paysite but one in which _all_ links, while paid for, cost exactly the _same_ as each other.
I am by no means the first to build a curated link list site, but to the best of my knowledge Soggy Jobs is the most extensive such curated link list to date.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 25 2019, @11:44AM (2 children)
Dude, people type google to google to get to google. People search for facebook so they don't type facebook.com. They search for their bank and click on first thing on google.... they can't even use bookmarks and browser history (ie. when you start typing in address bar it also searched your history) to find their sites... and now you think they will go to magiclists.antigoogledsite.com/~bestthings/index.hml to find some curated lists?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday February 25 2019, @05:54PM
Lots of people use bookmarks; others set their homepages.
Consider that after applying for ten or twenty jobs, most of my users will bookmark me.
My domain name was _very_ carefully researched.
Any link list that enjoys widespread popularity is likely to end up on its own domain.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Monday February 25 2019, @11:40PM
I've seen someone search for facebook.com in order to find facebook (OK, she's grandma-aged, so we cringe internally when we see it, but know there's nothing that can be changed - her method does, after all, work).
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday February 25 2019, @03:23AM
Actually, they are removing the financial incentive/ability of the creators of the videos to continue using youtube, which isn't a thing as long as nobody disconnects them from the internet.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..