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Gaming YouTube Is In Turmoil Thanks To New Violence and Profanity Rules (kotaku.com) 159

Posted by msmash from the tough-luck dept.
AmiMoJo writes: Members of YouTube's gaming community are calling out the video hosting site for adding new regulations regarding profanity usage and violent content, disproportionately affecting gaming creators who produce unscripted videos such as let's plays of M-rated games. Worse, the policy is retroactively deeming their videos in violation of new rules and affecting their ability to make money on the platform.

The rule changes in question was originally made in November of 2022, and the blog post announcing it says that YouTube now treats all profanity equally (meaning "ass" is just as bad as "fuck"), and any usage of such in titles, thumbails, or in the first seven seconds of a video may result in complete demonetization. While you can swear after the first eight seconds, if you use profanity "consistently throughout the video" it may also be demonetized according to this new policy. The same restrictions apply to violent content, as well.

Previously, YouTube's violent content policy applied to images of real-world violence, though game violence is now specifically noted as of the November update. As for profanity, prior to this change, YouTube allowed creators to use what it describes as "moderate profanity" (it says "shit" and "bitch" fall under this category) in the first 30 seconds without fear of demonetization.
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Gaming YouTube Is In Turmoil Thanks To New Violence and Profanity Rules More

Gaming YouTube Is In Turmoil Thanks To New Violence and Profanity Rules

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  • Nothing will change (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kiddo 9000 ( 5893452 ) on Friday January 13, 2023 @11:44AM (#63205930)
    Operating a website like YouTube at a global scale is so insanely expensive that it's impossible for anyone to really compete. Even if YouTube doesn't reverse this change, virtually nobody will actually leave the platform. Unless another mega corp creates a viable alternative, basically nobody will ever leave YouTube.

    • Well their are alternatives, it is just everyone uses YT. So that is where the views are. No one is not switching to bitchute because they believe BC will grow too big too fast and its infrastructure will collapse. They dont switch because YT has more viewers, and the viewers stay because YT has more CCs.

      What I dislike is their is some push to move to Odysee, but half the world dislikes crypto nonsense enough for that to ever be a possibility.

    • Operating a website like YouTube at a global scale is so insanely expensive that it's impossible for anyone to really compete. Even if YouTube doesn't reverse this change, virtually nobody will actually leave the platform.

      Unless another mega corp creates a viable alternative, basically nobody will ever leave YouTube.

      Huh? There's literally dozens of competitors out there [google.com].

      And the scaling isn't hard, sure you need to write the framework cleanly enough to scale, but cloud services are everywhere and with additional users comes additional ad revenue.

      Simply make your YouTube competitor, have streamers multistream to YouTube and KiddoTube [switcherstudio.com], and start draining users away.

    • What pisses me off the most is that content creators gravitate exclusively towards the most popular platform and don't support any alternatives. "Not worth it", they say. Everybody seems to want a monopoly and put all their eggs in one basket. They're practically begging to be abused or canceled.

      I see this a lot in the art gallery communities. For years, more and more people are deleting their galleries and moving exclusively to one social media platform. In that past, that was Tumblr, for now that's T

  • Treatise on Word Fuck (Score:4, Funny)

    by BrendaEM ( 871664 ) on Friday January 13, 2023 @11:50AM (#63205944) Homepage
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • the NFL has violence so NFL TICKET may get auto blocked / flagged by this

  • Gotta protect the children (Score:5, Insightful)

    by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Friday January 13, 2023 @11:58AM (#63205966)

    Gotta protect those children from.... words.

    Wouldnt want them using the wrong ones!

    • So do you concede that if it is adults, at work, who don't want their company's advertisement (that they're responsible for placing) to be placed next to a bunch of impolite language, then it is fine?

      Some people just can't comprehend that it has nothing to do with the straw-man they've spent their whole life knocking down.

      • So do you concede that if it is adults, at work, who don't want their company's advertisement (that they're responsible for placing) to be placed next to a bunch of impolite language, then it is fine?

        Why do you think that is relevant? Nothing about Google's policies talks about advertisers. Every part of their guidelines talks about content appropriate for children. You are building a strawman. If advertisers wanted the choice to not be displayed on videos where an f-bomb is dropped I'm sure one of the largest companies in the world with their insane technical resources could code that change in the first half of a stand-up scrum. But they don't.

        • This is nothing more than Google coming up with bullshit reasons to 'demonetize' more content so that they can keep a larger share of the profits. It has nothing to do with advertisers, content creators, or users... hell, it doesn't even have anything to do with foreign regulations. It's about money and Google trying to bilk creators out of more and more of it with each passing day. What the creators should be doing is filing FTC anti-trust complaints for Google using their market power to steal their ha

    • Gotta protect those children from.... words.

      Wouldnt want them using the wrong ones!

      Yup. That's what virtually all parents do.

      If YouTube wants parents to let their kids watch their game streamers then that's what YouTube needs to do as well.

      Though ideally I suspect they should have multiple sections, mature (with profanity) and family friendly, though they might have a secondary motive. Occasionally a streamer goes over the line and gives the whole group a bad rep, if you ban profanity altogether the crazy incidents become less likely.

  • Fingers crossed... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Friday January 13, 2023 @11:59AM (#63205968) Homepage

    Let's hope a whole load of rap videos get removed as well. The world will be a better place without that din.

  • I grew up being told that people who constantly use profane words do so because they lack the vocabulary (or the intelligence) to substitute for anything more clever. And that basically sums up my opinion of people who constant curse at videogames as a business model.
    • It is really hard to be FUCK!
      Sure you can read of a whole poem of flowery words to describe your anger at something, or you can succulently sum it up in one word.
      Artful

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      I grew up being told that people who constantly use profane words do so because they lack the vocabulary (or the intelligence) to substitute for anything more clever.

      Obscenity is the crutch of inarticulate motherfuckers, eh? That was always a joke, and some of our most talented authors have been fond of profanities. Whoever taught you that lesson was doing so from a position of ignorance. Now that you're an adult, and have access to the internet, you can find numerous counterexamples if you want to.

      • They're words. Like any word, it's possible to overuse. Take a course in writing and very quickly you will be taught that unnecessary redundancy detracts from your style, whatever that style may be.

        An accomplished author that uses these words doesn't overuse them. (Except maybe in dialogue, where they need to depict a character that overuses them.) Overuse makes them lose the potency that is their purpose.

    • Re:And nothing of value was lost. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nmb3000 ( 741169 ) on Friday January 13, 2023 @02:36PM (#63206506) Journal

      I grew up being told that people who constantly use profane words do so because they lack the vocabulary (or the intelligence) to substitute for anything more clever.

      And people who drink alcohol just lack the ability to deal with life sober.

      And people who use cannabis just lack the ability to entertain themselves without being high.

      And people who watch porn just can't form meaningful relationships.

      And people who gamble just can't control their impulses.

      And people who drink coffee just can't get through a day without a caffeine hit.

      And people who have sex outside of marriage just can't keep it in their pants.

      Etc, etc, etc.

      The first step when indoctrinating someone is to separate "us" from "them" and this is always accompanied by some dehumanization and inferiorization. This both justifies the rules and provides a false sense of superiority over those "lesser" people who don't know any better. The animals.

      I was raised Mormon and this is par for the course.

  • Once again this is a perfect example of a law which discriminates against the adult population in the name of protecting the children. Profanity is a normal part of the language and it actually has some very important functions like relieving negative emotions or emphasising our message. If it goes like this, we'll end up with a completely new dialect - Safe Online English which is ridiculous.

    • Re:For the children! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Zak3056 ( 69287 ) on Friday January 13, 2023 @12:19PM (#63206046) Journal

      Once again this is a perfect example of a law which discriminates against the adult population in the name of protecting the children.

      What law are we talking about here? Because all I see are Youtube terms of service. Note that I am in no way supportive of this, but it's important to realize that this is no action of government.

      • Follow the links and you end up on a page titled "Advertiser-friendly content guidelines". This is whiners whining about having to do what the people who pay them tell them to do. They are not taking down videos. They are not stopping you from getting your own advertisers (sponsored segments). They just, for example, won't run ads on your fucking video if you can't make enough fucking sentences without using the word fuck..

        • if you can't make enough fucking sentences without using the word fuck..

          Did you know you only need to say fuck once in a Youtube video to be automatically demonetised? Did you know it's not about the word fuck, but advertiser friendly content, which includes demonetising videos of people playing M rated games which don't include swear words. In fact there are several youtubers who have had their videos blocked despite having never sworn once.

          Your links are irrelevant if you don't understand what they mean.

          This is whiners whining about having to do what the people who pay them tell them to do.

          I guess you're also not aware that Youtube is retrospectively applying th

          • I'm aware. I produce videos for YouTube about video game development. Many things used to be normal decades ago and are now taboo or illegal. Drinking and driving. Owning people. Dueling. Your arguments make no sense to me. Want to try again?

  • why? (Score:2)

    by cstacy ( 534252 )

    After trying to analyze this business decision, considering business, political, and technology concerns: I don't get it.

    The technical cost is in designing a filtering interface, and that seems trivial. The content will already have been flagged. So it must have to do with the business on the advertiser side. But if there are still ads on profane content, but you're just not paying the creator, what's that about? Just a fast buck? Or if they are throwing away ad revenue, what the heck is that policy calcula

    • After trying to analyze this business decision, considering business, political, and technology concerns: I don't get it.

      The simplest explanation is that their biggest advertisers are asking them to make this change, because they don't want their ads to be seen anywhere near types of content that repels some of their customers. And since YT is a business, and not a charity founded to promote free speech, they are complying. The safest assumption is that a corporation's actions are economically motivated.

  • Will this rely on Youtube viewers complaining or will it be "automatic'? This is not like the (highly abused) Content-Match system, looking specific recordings of specific songs; it has to find every instance of the word "fuck" said by anyone. Given how bad Youtube's auto-captions are, I expect to see a lot of videos with the words "sit" and "luck" get banned.

  • Gee ... (Score:3)

    by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Friday January 13, 2023 @12:22PM (#63206058)

    Gaming YouTube Is In Turmoil Thanks To New Violence and Profanity Rules

    Not picking on gamers in particular, they are far from the worst offenders, but large segments of the English speaking world would benefit from learning the skill of consistently forming sentences without a single instance of the word 'fuck' in it.

    • Fuck that. People who don't swear are liars.

      • People who can't comprehend that I don't want to hear them swearing in the supermarket on fucking idiots. It doesn't mean I'm against swearing anywhere. In a bar, it isn't going to bother me unless they're being hateful. On slashdot... we've got much worse problems, I wouldn't even think to be bothered by it.

        But I don't want to listen to your blah-blah in the supermarket, where I'm a captive audience, and people from all walks of life have to share the same space. I have sympathy for Religious Grandma tryin

      • ... who don't swear are liars.

        I'm against censorship but I don't want to hear a tantrum, whether it's you saying "fuck" 50 times, or "It's not my fault, you must be gay: I'm telling everyone so." Your repetition of obscenities makes them self-centered and worthless. You want me to listen, tell me more than your one-word emotional tirade against a game/video you decided to post. So I'll agree with the US FCC on limiting 'offensive' words to 2 utterances per 90 minutes.

    • but large segments of the English speaking world would benefit from learning the skill of consistently forming sentences without a single instance of the word 'fuck' in it.

      We're not talking about idiots who can't string a sentence together without profanities. We're talking about people getting their videos banned because they in some cases contain a single profanity in 20 min of content. We're talking about people getting their videos banned because it includes content that has other people using minor profanity. And we're seeing (haphazard application of) youtube videos taken down of people who don't have any swearing but happen to be doing something such as playing Call of

  • Bad words (Score:3)

    by doconnor ( 134648 ) on Friday January 13, 2023 @12:28PM (#63206074) Homepage

    Didn't YouTubers start adding swearing to their videos out of fear that they would be classified as targeting kids under 13 and then demonetized?

    • If your "business model" is predicting YouTube algorithms and making "creative" choices to place on the platform, then maybe you don't deserve to earn a paycheck from it.

    • The best part is Youtube already segregates videos for under 13 year olds on its site. It's literally the main question you get asked when you upload a video, and videos for under 13s has never been monetised so they aren't even what this story is about.

  • Given that the gaming and letâ(TM)s play, community is fairly left oriented, I am genuinely trying to figure out which political group is currently offended at censorship meant to make a streaming platform âoeless toxic.â

  • If you don't like the policy, go setup your own hosting for the videos and integrate some ads or a subscription for revenue.

  • We've had bleep technology for decades. It's not like gamers are going to lose any nuance.

  • Junk content, engagement through enragement, and all the life supplement advertisements.

    Monetization at YT is a joke, between copyright claims, advertiser white-washing, and now this. YT seems doing their best to remove unique and interesting content from their platform, ala History Channel and Discovery Channel.

  • You want my money, you sing my song. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

    You're free to create any content you like, I'm free to not pay for it.

    What exactly seems to be the problem?

  • meaning "ass" is just as bad as "fuck"

    Ass is just as bad as fuck in the since that neither is bad they're just fucking words

  • Why can't they get a real job?

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