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Youtube Advertising Businesses Communications The Almighty Buck

YouTube Videos Could Get Demonetized If They Have 'Inappropriate Comments' 347

In response to a mother's inquiry into why her son's gymnastics videos were deemed not advertiser friendly, YouTube said on Twitter it has "taken a number of actions to better protect the YouTube community from content that endangers minors." The video-sharing website went on to say something very concerning for anyone who has ever uploaded a video to the site: "... even if your video is suitable for advertisers, inappropriate comments could result in your video receiving limited or no ads (yellow icon)."

Essentially, what YouTube is saying is that if someone leaves a "incendiary or demeaning" comment, or one with "inappropriate language," the video which features that comment could get demonetized and the content creator would not generate money from it. If you've ever read a comment thread on YouTube, it shouldn't take long for you to realize how big of an issue this could become. According to YouTube's "advertiser-friendly content guidelines," the following content may not be suitable for most advertisers: "controversial issues and sensitive events," "drugs and dangerous products or substances," "harmful or dangerous acts," "harmful or dangerous acts," "hateful content," "inappropriate language," "inappropriate use of family entertainment characters," "incendiary and demeaning [content]," "sexually suggestive content," and/or "violence."

The best advice for circumventing this issue is to disable comments entirely, but this would significantly reduce the interaction between the YouTuber and the viewer. "If this is our new reality we're going to need the ability to restrict comments from accounts under 1-4 weeks old," says news commentator and YouTube personality Philip DeFranco. "Sounds like this is prime for weaponization. Also it would probably be best to have an official blog post instead of my tweet as a reference for this change."
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YouTube Videos Could Get Demonetized If They Have 'Inappropriate Comments'

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22, 2019 @01:22AM (#58162080)

    ...have no problem collecting 100% of the ad money. They will still run the ad and bill for it, it's just a new way to stiff you out of the money.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22, 2019 @01:57AM (#58162168)

      If they can detect those comments... Why not just hide the offensive comments ???

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        They already massively shadow ban (i.e. comments just visible to yourself if logged in). Log out and they are not there, No explanation no indication this has happened. Worse it seems to happen particularly if you have a polite comment backed by links etc. that is considered wrongthink. But you can still see all comments like "kill all....", direct insults and the conspiracies. Total shit.

      • by jythie ( 914043 )
        That.. is a really good question. Something as simple as auto-hide comments and have a switch to make them visible or not. But then again, that would be a good solution from the product's perspective, not the customer.
    • My solution is to use YT-Adblockers and instead pay the content providers I like directly.

      FUYT

      • by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

        YouTube Red / Premium is basically that plus some paywalled content. If everyone paid for it, advertisers wouldn't have a say in how YouTube operates anymore.

      • Agreed. But even so, your content providers will miss that ad revenue just the same. Why not give them an option: either you risk losing ad revenue by having inappropriate comments on your videos, or you simply let YT delete the offensive ones.
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The problem with direct payments is that the minimum amount due to processing fees is too high.

        There is no middle ground between watching an ad for 5 seconds and donating $1.00 (of which about $0.30 gets to the creator). People would pay $0.01 to view if they could (which is more than the ad pays), but there is simply no way for them to do it.

        YouTube could fix it by having a monthly "tip jar". You put in however much you want, and then get to watch videos ad free with the creator getting a cent or two each

        • This is what Twitch does with their Bits system. It doesn't take much to toss in a few bits towards a channel that you like.

    • Indeed. I don't know why you were modded down - this is exactly what will happen, and gives the lie to whatever "hate free zone" smokescreen they might construct as justification.

    • YouTube/Google Monetizing algorithm is messed up. However, the public outcry when offensive information and there is a post making money, that is breaking copyright laws... Is also bad for the company.

      The biggest problem with social media is the fact that all the content is user created, and it is nearly impossible to police and follow the rules set up for the broadcast industry. For the broadcast industry, there is only 24 hours of content to monitor. This could mean for a full day to live TV there needs

    • ...have no problem collecting 100% of the ad money. They will still run the ad and bill for it, it's just a new way to stiff you out of the money.

      Your making a critical mistake in understanding this. Youtube viewers are not the consumer. Youtube viewers are the product. Your eyeballs , watching youtube advertisements are what is sold to the real consumer, Youtube Advertisers.

      This is true of almost all entertainment economies since we first learned to reproduce performance with the advent of the printing pre

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22, 2019 @01:22AM (#58162082)

    I hole-hardedly agree, but allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are wrong. In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. We often put our false morality on a petal stool like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you all seem to be taking something very valuable for granite. So I ask of you to mustard up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out there. Although there is some merit to what you are saying it seems like you have a huge ship on your shoulder. In your argument you seem to throw everything in but the kids Nsync, and even though you are having a feel day with this I am here to bring you back into reality. I have a sick sense when it comes to these types of things. It is almost spooky, because I cannot turn a blonde eye to these glaring flaws in your rhetoric. I have zero taller ants when it comes to people spouting out hate in the name of moral righteousness. You just need to remember what comes around is all around, and when supply and command fails you will be the first to go. Make my words, when you get down to brass stacks it doesn't take rocket appliances to get two birds stoned at once. It's clear who makes the pants in this relationship, and sometimes you just have to swallow your prize and accept the facts. You might have to come to this conclusion through denial and error but I swear on my mother's mating name that when you put the petal to the medal you will pass with flying carpets like it's a peach of cake.

  • Golden Age is Over. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AtomicSymphonic ( 2570041 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @01:29AM (#58162100)

    Making a business or any sort of living as a content creator on YouTube seems to be coming rather quickly to an end if this rule takes hold.

    Then again, maybe all that will be left on YouTube are those that do this as a passion project and not expect to make money from it... Those that are only in it for the money will quickly move on to something perhaps more profitable.

    • Itll get abused rather quickly and they will have to remove it. :)
      • Re:No worries, (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @06:12AM (#58162776) Journal
        That was my thought as well. If I don't like certain social or political commenters on YT, I can just post a few inappropriate comments on their videos and take away their ad revenue.
        • by jythie ( 914043 )
          Yeah, but just like the big copyright holders, they will probably have special protections put in place for some channels while not others. DMCA takedowns already do not generally work on 'official' channels, there will probably be something similar for this comment policy.
    • Nope. Don't worry. Those that really just do it for the money (and I mean big money) will find a way around it. Those that do it as a passion project are few, far between, and usually about as entertaining and interesting as all the other "let's play" videos.

      What we'll really lose is the ones that have a passion, want to show, teach, inform and share their knowledge and need to make at least a bit of revenue to make it work out. I.e. the only thing still worth going to YT for.

    • by NicBenjamin ( 2124018 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @06:33AM (#58162810)

      Most of mine already have a Patreon. That and sponsored videos seem to be most of their revenue.

      Nobody depends on AdSense revenue since at least the Adpocylypse.

      • Patreon itself is pretty cancerous and may decide to remove your account for whatever you did or said on the platform or off it.
      • by Bromancer ( 5669524 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @11:43AM (#58163866)
        Which would be great, except the people who run google are effectively friends with those in Patreon. So, the same policies are spreading over there. If you have content that they deem offensive, then Patreon is defunding you too. This famously occurred for Sargon of Akad last December, which is the reason some large content creators who champion free speech left patreon in protest.

        You might feel your content is safe, and it is just those "bad" people who disagree with you get silenced. The problem is that when bad means disagree, you can find yourself suddenly on the wrong side very quickly.

        Free speech is the hardest thing, because it means defending the right of someone to say something that is completely annoying to you. It goes against human nature, which makes it one of the great intellectual achievements of humans.

        Ironically, you might not see this post because my karma is bad. My karma is bad because I said some very, very critical things about the slashdot community chasing politics over the quest for science. Even here, censorship happens.
  • Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)

    by atrex ( 4811433 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @01:40AM (#58162126)
    If they're so obsessed about "protecting the children", then just hide and disable comments across the entire site on the Youtube Kids interface. Then it's just up to the parents to ensure that Youtube is locked in the Kids mode on their devices.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Chas ( 5144 )

      Can't do that. That requires adulthood and actual initiative.

      Everyone MUST be coddled and saved from everything, including themselves!

      All this really is, is another push at screwing content creators out of their cut.

      • Re: Good grief (Score:4, Informative)

        by peppepz ( 1311345 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @02:09AM (#58162206)
        You need to understand how YouTube works. Videos don't generate money by themselves, it's advertisers who pay; since their own livelihood, and certainly their return on investment for the ads, depend on their public image, they have a reason not to publish ads on videos that are used by paedophiles to do their thing. YouTube have no say in this decision, and if they can't manage to appease the advertisers, the alternative is for them not to get money any more - at all. Surely that would hurt content creators even more.
        • Re: Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Chas ( 5144 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @03:16AM (#58162424) Homepage Journal

          I understand.

          I also understand that a content creator could do NOTHING WRONG, and could still have legitimate videos demonetized through no fault of their own.
          Simply because some jackass puts up a comment.

          • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            I understand.

            I also understand that a content creator could do NOTHING WRONG, and could still have legitimate videos demonetized through no fault of their own.
            Simply because some jackass puts up a comment.

            Well, that's the current environment advertisers are finding. Remember yesterday when a bunch of advertisers pulled out because of a pedophile ring in the comments?

            Guess what? When advertisers pull out, videos get demonetized. So just because some jerkoff manages to jerk off to your video causes advertiser

          • Which all but guarantees that this will be weaponized. Don't like a video or a content creator on YouTube? Why bother with a well-released response or making a video of your own, when you can leave comments designed to get them demonetized. Pretty soon creators will be forced to disable comments entirely because they can't take the risk if their content production has become their livelihood.
            • True. To be honest, I think that it's not wise for your livelihood to be based on a Google product; at least, not if you haven't got backup plans.
        • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          Of course if no one see the content, well advertisers are paying for nothing. Just another scam by google to reduce outgoings, what is bad language in one tongue is just an expletive in another. So from an Australian perspective, you scummy pack of Alphabet cunts, stop pushing your fucking bullshit on the rest of the world, seriously go fuck yourselves. All legal words in Australia and Google can eat a dead dogs dick.

      • Which is it, coddling or screwing content creators?
    • This isn't about comments that they don't want kids to see.
      This is about some really messed up stuff that happens with the algorithm for recommending videos and comments certain people post on videos of kids. It's a messed up situation that needs to be addressed somehow. Hopefully YouTube will come up with better solutions.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bob8766 ( 1075053 )
      They aren't concerned with making this a safe space for children at all. They want to make it a safe space for advertisers . Want to make a video on a political topic? Nope, that's getting demonitized. Can't take a chance that someone sees and ad next to a video of something that might offend them.
      • by SeaFox ( 739806 )

        Want to make a video on a political topic? Nope, that's getting demonitized. Can't take a chance that someone sees and ad next to a video of something that might offend them.

        Advertisers can rest easy then. They don't have to worry about me ever affiliating them with a topic or viewpoint they don't want to be, since I don't see any of the ads on YouTube anyway.

        • Agreed, haven't seen an ad on youtube in years. Don't miss em either. I sometimes feel bad for the creators, then I remember they know what they signed up for. Ads ruined the internet and are an additional attack vector.

    • by Barny ( 103770 )

      This is likely in response to the recent discovery that pedophilia groups were making comments that effectively "tagged" the video and what point to skip to in it, for particular tastes to be fulfilled. A child's gymnastic video would most likely fit in that category.

      They had a few major advertisers pull their ads for this reason.

      Ultimately, the comment section is up to the video owner to police, it seems.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They don't care about protecting the children, they care about protecting their ad revenue!

      Advertisers can make any arbitrary demands they want, and YouTube is reliant on ads for most of its income so has little choice but to comply.

      This is very very bad because it makes it easy for anyone to force channels to disable comments (and thus reduce their income due to decreased engagement, resulting in decreased recommendation and views) or lose their monetization.

      • by epine ( 68316 )

        I rarely watch videos with comments disabled, because then there's no way to find out in advance that the critical parts of the video were filmed through a potato, that the audio is 1.5 s out of sync, that another version is available without all the problems, that the most improbable sequence on a blooper real was actually filmed as a commercial (even if never aired), or where to find the associated PDF of a technical talk, etc. etc.

        But I suppose I rely more on comments than most people, because I never su

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      If they're so obsessed about "protecting the children", then just hide and disable comments across the entire site on the Youtube Kids interface. Then it's just up to the parents to ensure that Youtube is locked in the Kids mode on their devices.

      You're assuming this is about "the children" when it's actually about Alphabet reducing the number of things they could be potentially sued for.

  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @01:58AM (#58162172)

    That will work out well. Everybody on YouTube, no matter how nice or friendly, has enemies. There are a lot of dissatisfied, cruel, envious and stupid people around and also some outright psychos. If these people now get handed a Really Big Stick, they are going to use it.

    On the plus-side, this extreme stupidity hopefully will hasten the demise of YouTube. It has vastly overstayed its welcome anyways.

    • by Calydor ( 739835 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @03:49AM (#58162466)

      How long until 4chan weaponizes this with a comment posting script to attack ALL of Youtube at once?

      Random video, random comment from random account containing a bunch of random keywords. BOOM.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Indeed.

      • Especially if they take writings from places like stormfront, then replace all the racial epithets with the names of google properties before posting. Maybe throw a few others in like any news sites that have been critical of 4chan. That way if Google automates cleaning things up the usual Google way, the AI will be keyword trained to nail posts about Google, as it'd be more funny if they start censoring anything about Google's business practices.

        Hopefully the googles at 4chan will have waymo fun time.

  • by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @01:59AM (#58162176)

    So Youtubers uploading videos of minors are going to have to choose between no comments or no monetization? This'll doom channels that are specifically about audience participation, like "leave a comment about what you want me to do in my next video". This'll push more Youtube content creators to accept kickbacks from companies to shill their products, rather than being able to rely on monetization and potentially remain unbiased.

    • Re:Morton's Fork (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CronoCloud ( 590650 ) <cronocloudauron.gmail@com> on Friday February 22, 2019 @02:06AM (#58162196)

      This'll doom channels that are specifically about audience participation, like "leave a comment about what you want me to do in my next video".

      If only there was a way for viewers to send comments and suggestions directly to the content maker, like sending a letter in the mail. We could call it "electronic mail" People could have addresses where such "e-mail" could be sent.

      All sarcasm aside, perhaps those youtube content creators overlooked how useful e-mail is in their haste to adopt social networking platforms.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Email isn't really a good substitute. What would you prefer, 900 emails all saying the same thing that you have to manually process, or one comment and 899 up votes supporting it? And if you need to reply to that comment, do you want to send 900 email responses or one follow up comment?

    • I believe there's at least an option that can be set in which the owner see's all comments, and then manually approves ones liked. That would fully allow someone to do a "let me know what you want me to do", and they can look through approve a few hundred, and deny any pedo comments etc...
  • False flags galore (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @02:02AM (#58162182) Homepage

    What'll happen is people who hate others speaking their minds will infest their comment sections and troll them, leaving inflammatory comments. This'll get them demonetized, which is about the same as being shut down. Appearing on Youtube is a full-time job if you do it right. It's not vapid internet celebrities either, there is some really incisive content by people like Jimmy Dore [youtube.com] that is regularly reported and demonetized by these trolls.

    Censorship isn't a school board banning Huckleberry Finn any more. In the corporatist system we have, corporate censorship isn't any different than government censorship. It doesn't make much difference whether the one silencing your dissent is Youtube or Andrew McCabe. The effect is the same.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Qwaniton ( 166432 )
      Being demonitized is absolutely not the same as being shut down. In fact, nonmonetized videos are more true and pure, coming from the mind and the heart. Google doesn't owe you money, and the very concept of "monetization" is venal and corrupt.
    • forget that. It'll be bots. Lots and lots of bots. Including Bots by state actors attacking videos they don't like.

      Say goodbye to any political discourse that isn't from the establishment. Say goodbye to anything that's not pro-corporate.
  • by blind biker ( 1066130 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @02:04AM (#58162194) Journal

    I duplicate every video I put up on YT on at least one alternative site. So far I have everything up on Bitchute as well. Anyone who doesn't duplicate their content on an alternative video sharing site, is crazy.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22, 2019 @02:17AM (#58162234)

    "How to solve an important but complicated problem"
    By: YouTube

    1. Ignore problem
    2. Keep ignoring problem
    3. Once people bring light to problem, keep ignoring it
    4. If it might lose you ad revenue, announce you're looking into it (but keep ignoring it)
    5. If it has caused you to lose ad revenue, PANIC! ANNOUNCE YOU'RE TAKING MAJOR STEPS TO SOLVE IT!
    6. Implement the worst possible solution to fixing the problem (Make sure the solution can be easily abused to shutdown small channels!)
    7. Wonder why people hate YouTube
    9. ???
    10. No profit

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Note: Step 8 is missing because YouTube has ignored that problem

    • Yeah, somehow the idea of making the down-vote and flag actions ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING, it too much of a stretch for YouTube to imagine.

    • 6. Implement a fix that re-directs all the revenue to Google while blaming the creator.
  • It's lucky for Google that there is no way this policy could be abused to demonetize your competitors videos. Otherwise there could have been a lawsuit coming their way.
  • by Sivaraj ( 34067 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @03:15AM (#58162422)

    Why should the content creators be solely responsible for such comments. Isn't Youtube jointly responsible? Will they refund the money charged to their advertisers?

    If not, this is only a tactic to maximize their revenue, not for protecting children.

  • by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @03:17AM (#58162426)

    If they can identify the comments and demonetize or restrict the video, surely they can give creators the option to instead opt for the comments to be deleted or blocked when they are detected. Some way that creators can choose to have the inappropriate comments removed to prevent demonetization.

  • by jenik ( 1030872 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @03:53AM (#58162474)
    A mother wants to make money off her son's gymnastics videos? This world is really going to hell...
    • by doubledown00 ( 2767069 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @10:44AM (#58163552)
      Exactly this! I'm more creeped out that she's trying to monetize her 5 year old this way. It's not a platform to share "OMG cute!" videos anymore. It's "Hey Austin, do something adorable so mama and dada can make this month's mortgage payment".

      Also lost in this lady's question, but probably very relevant, was Youtube's announcement the other day that they had identified videos that had high pedo interest. One of the top categories *drum roll* Youth gymnastics videos. It is possible that Youtube's actions were an attempt to prevent sickos from looking at her kid!
      • Exactly this! I'm more creeped out that she's trying to monetize her 5 year old this way

        Are you creeped out that some big corporation will make the ad revenue on her son's gymnastics video (to the extent that she doesn't)?

        Did you castigate America's Funniest Home Videos when they'd send somebody $100 for a tape? What's the objective criteria here?

  • We are the trolls who say "FUCK!". We shall say "FUCK" again to you, if you do not appease us.

    And a shrubbery won't do this time!

  • So Youtube can detect inappropriate comments obviously, but instead of deleting, hiding the comment or banning the user of the comment the video itself will be banned. Does not make any sense.

  • My solution approach would be to use MEPR (Multidimensional Earned Public Reputation) to help the trolls in rendering themselves invisible, except to each other and to people who actually want to play with the trolls.

    Time's up, but I bid you ADSAuPR, atAJG.

  • It would be interesting to see what kind of Cobra effect this will create. E.g. content creators make 2 videos, one with comments disabled and one redirecting for comments where less advertising income is expected.
  • backwards (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sad_ ( 7868 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @07:47AM (#58162942) Homepage

    why punish the video, while the commenter is the one who should be blamed.
    wouldn't it be easier to set a time limited (or permanent) commect ban on that id?

    basically you could build a bot right now that makes sure everything on youtube get demonetized.

  • by ReneR ( 1057034 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @07:54AM (#58162960)
    Expected nothing less form silicon valley ethics, not. Take the users content, make big $$$, give nothing back. profit.
  • Those who are truly entertaining enough to be worth enough subscribers to make money should probably just go into the proper entertainment industry instead, rather than propping their livelihood up on Google. I wouldn't rely on them to provide me with any service that doesn't get whisked away or changed unrecognisably at a moment's notice, so I sure as heck wouldn't rely on them to pay the bills!

    Then we can all use some alternative to Youtube and just be happy with the old idea of making videos because you

  • by sabbede ( 2678435 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @09:16AM (#58163184)
    Well, probably not, but she is exploiting her kid for money. And how many of the viewers are pedophiles? If she's moderating comments she probably knows at least some are, yet continues to try and make money from her son showing off for them.

    Maybe don't put your children on YouTube.

    Maybe don't try or expect to make money from your child being on YouTube.

    Maybe we all know that social media isn't good for kids anyway.

  • YouTube hasn't abandoned or even limit censorship in any way.

    They have outsourced it.

    Now, consider that YouTube will censor your video, by denying you full exposure/rights/permissions, not (ostensibly) for the content, but because of the comments, even (especially) those you have no control over. If someone wants to harm you, they can easily post objectionable comments to your posts, and *poof*, you suffer consequences of their deliberate acts.

    The State wins.

    Oh, be sure the State is working their evil on th

  • Every day it seems less and less like YouTube, and more and more like UsTube.
  • A tool to stifle comments comments that are contrary to their agenda as well as an excuse to snarf up 100% of the profits for other people's work.

  • ...because the more massive communications companies behave this way, the more ammunition there is to claim they should be treated as common carriers.

  • And if you let your children watch something fucked up, its on you.
    Hell force YouTube to require a Google account to even get to the page. Those require you to be 13.
    Got to anyways to watch videos with the word fuck in them
  • So we can just post inappropriate shit on videos of content creators we can't stand, and they get demonetized? Just create an alt account so your primary one doesn't start getting shit suggestions of stuff by RG and the Pauls...
  • I think within the least year or two it's become clear that Youtube as it once existed will not be able to survive. This is partially the fault of advertisers and partly the fault of Youtube itself.

    I can understand demonetizing blatant racism, or terrorist training videos, etc, but it seems that just using profanity or DISCUSSING bad things (even for the sake of informing viewers) leads to demonetization now.

    What made Youtube refreshing to me was that I don't have to put up with bullshit censorship like ma

  • by Macdude ( 23507 ) on Friday February 22, 2019 @02:12PM (#58164822)

    If only there was some way to rank comments, on say a -1 to 5 scale, then people could view comments at the level they're personally comfortable with.

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