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What Can't You Say on YouTube? Its Content Creators Aren't Sure (theatlantic.com) 122

"Recently, on a YouTube channel, I said something terrible," confesses a staff writer for the Atlantic. "But I don't know what it was." Whatever it was, it was enough to get the interview demonetized, meaning no ads could be placed against it, and my host received no revenue from it.

"It does start to drive you mad," says Andrew Gold, whose channel, On the Edge, was the place where I committed my unknowable offense. Like many full-time YouTubers, he relies on the Google-owned site's AdSense program, which gives him a cut of revenues from the advertisements inserted before and during his interviews. When launching a new episode, Gold explained to me, "you get a green dollar sign when it's monetizable, and it goes yellow if it's not." Creators can contest these rulings, but that takes time — and most videos receive the majority of their views in the first hours after launch. So it's better to avoid the yellow dollar sign in the first place. If you want to make money off of YouTube, you need to watch what you say....

YouTube operates a three-strike policy for infractions: The first strike is a warning; the second prevents creators from making new posts for a week; and the third (if received within 90 days of the second) gets the channel banned.... Although many types of content may never run afoul of the guidelines...political discussions are subject to the whims of algorithms. Absent enough human moderators to deal with the estimated 500 hours of videos uploaded every minute, YouTube uses artificial intelligence to enforce its guidelines. Bots scan auto-generated transcripts and flag individual words and phrases as problematic, hence the problem with saying heroin. Even though "educational" references to drug use are allowed, the word might snag the AI trip wire, forcing a creator to request a time-consuming review....

[T]alk with everyday creators, and they are more than willing to work inside the rules, which they acknowledge are designed to make YouTube safer and more accurate. They just want to know what those rules are, and to see them applied consistently. As it stands, Gold compared his experience of being impersonally notified of unspecified infractions to working for HAL9000, the computer overlord from 2001: A Space Odyssey. ["They don't tell me if it's Nazis, heroin, or anything," Gold says later. "You're just left wondering what it was."]

The article notes that YouTube's algorithm seems to flag people who are debunking misinformation as misinformation. (One study found that purveyors of controversial content simply stop worrying about YouTube demonetizing their videos, using them to direct viewers instead to their "affiliate" links offering commissions, or to their content on other still-monetized platforms.)

In just the last three months of 2022, YouTube made almost $8 billion in advertising revenue, the article concludes. "There's a very good reason journalism is not as profitable as that: Imagine if YouTube edited its content as diligently as a legacy newspaper or television channel — even quite a sloppy one. Its great river of videos would slow to a trickle."
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What Can't You Say on YouTube? Its Content Creators Aren't Sure

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  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @03:04PM (#63364277)

    By not telling your victim just WHAT they can't say, you ensure not only that they won't say that, they won't even say other things that you could technically not really forbid them to say without causing a shitstorm against you, and you don't even have to define what you can't say. You just whack them if they do.

    Kinda like some abusive parent that says "You know EXACTLY why I beat you!"

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Kinda like some abusive parent that says "You know EXACTLY why I beat you!"

      Except, unlike a child who is being abused, you *CAN* get away from YouTube.

      Yes, YouTube's "rules" are completely arbitrary and ridiculous. So what. Don't like it? Don't post videos to YouTube. I quit dealing with their nonsense long ago.

      And *THAT* is the real problem. YouTube "demonitized" your video? So what. Posting videos on YouTube should be a hobby, not an occupation.

      • by loufoque ( 1400831 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @03:37PM (#63364365)

        I think you fail to see how big of an industry "posting videos on Youtube" is.

        You might as well say that people should only sing as a hobby.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          Anyway from TFS:

          and most videos receive the majority of their views in the first hours after launch.

          This is definitely not true!

          I am a long time YouTube content provider and here on Slashdot, I am also a very respected Slashdot moderator, contributor and content provider.

          By making my videos "search friendly", I can count on having views with them in 10 to 25 years from now.

          Remember kids, if you want to make it on YouTube, you content has got to be search friendly!
          --
          Posting as AC to avoid my jealous trolls

          • I am also a very respected Slashdot moderator, contributor and content provider.

            The only person I know of who thinks so highly of himself is BarBar, Son of Hud. Maybe also Angel'o'sphere, but you can't be him, because he can't even wipe his own ass without making a major grammatical error.

          • Remember kids, if you want to make it on YouTube, you content has got to be search friendly!

            I believe it also has to have a title like:

            You won't believe what happened when we put two bits of toast in this toaster and pressed the button!

            in order to get views.

        • Your analogy doesn't quite work, because "posting videos on Youtube" means that you have to play by Youtube's rules.
          People can make a living from singing in all kinds of places.
          There's a reason why sharecroppers are always poor.
    • by sound+vision ( 884283 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @03:58PM (#63364401) Journal

      Nobody is being censored. Demonetized videos are still there for all to see. They're even still promoted by the recommendation algorithms. The only difference is Google has declined to pay you for the video.

      Live by the Tube, die by the Tube.

      • And nobody knows what causes the demonitization.

        Don't forget that someone reporting a video can also cause it to get demonitized.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Some political or interviews are not only demonetized but banned, most notably for copyright claims. Since the guidelines are so mercurial, and typically enforced with a "ban first, fix it later" approach, the result is sometimes censorship via nonsensical copyright claims.

      • by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @04:59PM (#63364535)

        >"Nobody is being censored"

        Channels are banned all the time on YouTube, not just demonetized. And when you are banned, you are, in fact, being censored on the platform by YouTube. They will not only take down the "offending" video, but ultimately prevent new ones from that channel as well. And most of the time, they will not even tell the creator exactly WHY it was banned- just some vague reference to some rule category.

        And yes, I am sure there are plenty of nasty and illegal things that are being censored/banned that most everyone would agree about. But there are a LOT of other things that are being banned based on political position or opinion, and in ways that are completely non-transparent or predictable.

      • by budgenator ( 254554 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @05:05PM (#63364553) Journal

        One of their (Youtube's) gimmicks is they demonetize a video on spurious grounds, but still show ads around the video. The Content Provider appeals and prevails, but only after the video has had 80% of it's views already, do they get remonetized but don't get the revenues during the time they were erroneously demonetized. They banned Steven Crowder for "Medical Misinformation" over quoting the CDC website.

        • no if the video is demonitized then no ads are shown. The video can be limited to a certain age group or for ads that have opted in for that limit and then ads are still shown and the creator is still paid but of course the number of ads and thus revenue is heavily decreased.
          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward
            That's not true at all, maybe you are running an ad-blocker. YouTube will absolutely run ads on videos that they demonetize. They will even run ads on videos where the creator proactively demonetizes the video. This is a common issue for gun-tubers and Youtube's tactics are well known and documented.
            • so link so such a video and we will discover together that it isn't really demonitized but instead set to a limited age group.
          • The only way you can tell for sure if a video is demonitized or not on youtube is to be the channel owner and look on the dashboard.

        • by NewtonsLaw ( 409638 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @09:33PM (#63365071)

          I had a video removed and a community strike for posting a video in which I said that I was double-vaxed and boosted and that I thought this was a good idea. I recommended that others do the same but stated that I could understand why some might choose not to be vaxed and that their choice, like my own, should be respected by anyone who supports the concept of a free society.

          Apparently that was "medical misinformation".

          It was a 12 minute video. I lodged an appeal and within 30 seconds the appeal came back "reviewed by a human reviewer -- decision upheld".

          Yeah, there's no censorship and no lying at YouTube :-/

          • It's been revealed that social media companies where getting pressured to flag true statements as medical misinformation if someone thought it might cause vaccine hesitancy.

      • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @05:35PM (#63364623)

        It's censorship through the backdoor.

        A lot of content creators depend on YouTube for an income. So they will avoid saying things that upsets YouTube. YouTube can still claim they don't censor, no way, no, you can say what you want... we just take away your livelihood if you do.

        Also, if you think that channels become popular because they just so happen to magically appear in everyone's "related videos" list, you're delusional. Take a wild guess what will be listed there. Li'l hint: It ain't what upsets YouTube's sensibilities.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          It's YouTube growing up. Compare it to broadcast TV. Those networks could never give you a complete list of what is not allowed on them. Yeah there were various lists of banned words, but nothing definitive about content, and under certain circumstances even those rules could be circumvented.

          There was a great example in the UK some years ago. At the time you were not allowed to show an erect penis on UK TV. Flaccid was fine, but no boners. There was an exception though: educational content. So Channel 5 mad

          • The problem YouTube is facing is that people turned to it in the first place because they were fed up with the antiseptic and perfectly sanitized, family-friendly crap networks show. Take a hint from the success of the Fox network. In its early days, Fox content was worse than it is today. Hard to imagine, I know, but it was. The shows were utter and total crap. Allow me to give you an idea, The Simpsons was pretty much the flagship show they had. And it's also a perfect example of what's going on with netw

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              I must admit I'm not the biggest Simpsons fan, but from what I remember the first series or two were pretty tame. Maybe my memory is bad but apart from stuff that hasn't aged well, it was mostly fairly bland.

              Later on Fox got shows like Family Guy that were quite provocative.

              • For its time, it was pretty far out. Remember that it ran opposite to stuff like the Cosby Show, Family Matters and Full House, which depicted a vastly different and far more "family friendly" picture of the average American family. Compared to these shows, the Simpsons were quite far away from the stereotypical "good" family. Even compared to another Fox show that turned heads, Married with Children, it was unacceptable. Al Bundy was a lowlife in a dead-end job, but at least he stood by his family, despite

      • by RJFerret ( 1279530 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @06:52PM (#63364751)

        *compensated for the work that you've provided them

        Imagine you are hired to write a an article for publication, the editor declines to pay you afterward, and won't tell you what you could change to be paid for the work you did?

    • by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
      So basically it's like being married.
    • Welcome to the world of corporate justice. Be thankful that your judicial system (mostly) doesn't work the same way.
    • by John.Banister ( 1291556 ) * on Sunday March 12, 2023 @05:26PM (#63364603) Homepage
      I talked to a fellow who had taught english in china. He said it was just like that. Sometimes a person would just disappear. While sometimes there were good guesses about what would make people disappear, one of the know ways of disappearing was making a fuss about someone else disappearing, so no one talked about it much.
      • by shanen ( 462549 )

        In a rather large discussion of this topic, that particular country should have gotten more mention.

        Having said that, I still don't want to say more. I'm already sure they have plenty of evidence in my file and I wouldn't want to provoke a major state actor into deciding that any additional action was called for.

        You'd think some of the ACs would develop more intestinal fortitude for such situations? (Either that, or they might be worried about hackers within Slashdot's server...) But at least the moderators

    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      Okay FP, but my approach is just to post the same criticism (of YouTube) until they start censoring it, and then I change to another version. Some days they are slow about censoring my comments, other days I have to change several times.

      Oh yeah. What are they censoring? My complaints about the recent increase in offensive ads. Both the number of ads and the degree of offensiveness.

      New theory: New form of reverse blackmail. Rather than tailoring the ads to things that I might buy, they are tailoring the ads

      • Dude, just install an adblocker and get over it.

        • by shanen ( 462549 )

          You seem to be projecting your moral standards (or lack of moral standards) on me. No thank you.

          However, in solution terms, it would be nice if they were up front about the terms of the deal and even offered the punters meaningful choices about the ads, rather than just trying to devise ever more cunning ways to ram the ads forwards or backwards down the suckers' throats. (The "they" reference extends beyond the google and Facebook and Amazon, though those three corporate cancers are the worst (or most visi

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12, 2023 @03:06PM (#63364291)

    Bots scan auto-generated transcripts and flag individual words and phrases as problematic, hence the problem with saying heroin.

    Eough talk about shady stuff like drugs. To be safe they should talk about good things like historic figures e.g. Amelia Earhart (she's my heroine).

  • by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @03:13PM (#63364315)
    Just like safe search, give me a box I can check that says "I'm an adult, not easily offended, feel free to swear, show a nipple, or talk about drugs". Let the content creator decide if their video has adult content or not. If they say it's kid friendly and start with "fuck, is this a great nipple or what?" then yeah, demonetize them and give them a strike. Otherwise, STFU.
    • by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @03:35PM (#63364361)
      Because it’s not enough to not be offended by things you might see but chose not to, you need to curtail everyone’s freedom so as “the right group” is to never be offended. Note that this plays out to great hypocrisy while trying to dominate them with beliefs toxic to all sides. It’s because they are 100% confident in their rightness and often are highly misinformed to the facts; a Venn diagram of the left half of the Dunning-Kruger chart on the subject in question and people who believe in speech suppression are almost just one circle and this is especially true in the US. It is not in fact possible to have speech that does not offend someone nor is being “correct” on social issues a binary yes no good bad thing even if it can be reduced to a general binary value. the solution to controversy is more speech and more factual education not suppressed speech.
      • by Anonymous Coward

        I am offended by your defense of free speech, you insensitive clod!

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Ichijo ( 607641 )

        the solution to controversy is more speech and more factual education not suppressed speech.

        I used to think so, too. Then I learned that false information spreads faster than truth [slashdot.org] which completely blew that theory out of the water.

        To compete on a level playing field, if misinformation spreads 20x faster than truth, then it must be punished 20x more harshly. Like arming the sheep against the wolves.

        • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

          if misinformation spreads 20x faster than truth, then it must be punished 20x more harshly.

          That is an absolutely wonderful Freudian slip (hint: x = "punishing the truth").

          • by sfcat ( 872532 )

            if misinformation spreads 20x faster than truth, then it must be punished 20x more harshly.

            That is an absolutely wonderful Freudian slip (hint: x = "punishing the truth").

            Ironically, perhaps the solution is going back to the old ways. Mocking people who believe dumb stuff. Not punishment and not organized, just social enforcement.

      • And further, the only way to really have effective "parental controls" that are ENFORCED by the platform is to require EVERY user of that platform confirm their age. And the only way to do that is some type of positive identification. And once you are identified in such a way, tracking is truly scary. Plus it sends major chills through the whole platform because it won't be used JUST to verify age content viewability. It will be used to much more effectively target those who dare to consume content that

    • This already exists, of sorts. When uploading, you must indicate if your content is intended for kids; it's meant to refer to calendar age, but just as easily applies to sensitivity regarding common enough subjects and words. That's not really what this discussion is about though.

      • That doesn't help. All my content is NOT intended for kids, still some of it got age-restricted because the algorithm considered some video title words offensive (e.g. "vibrating").

    • The reason for the demonization is because advertisers do not want to be associated with controversial content.

      • demonetization, still no edit feature on slashdot in 2023

      • Exactly. Plus definition of "controversial content" for advertisers is very wide, they want content to be as neutral as possible, no nazi shit but don't try to not upset nazis either they are potential customers too.
      • That's a disingenuous argument, Advertisers don't seem to care when their billboard ads are next to a whorehouse or a chop-shop. Some companies primary demographic is attracted to " controversial content". If Google was really smart they could they could tailor ad presention to a fine degree and use it as a value added tier of adverts.

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @04:33PM (#63364487)
      It's about advertisers. Google the phrase "Youtube adpocalypse". A bunch of major brands had their adverts appear in front of white supremacist and neo-Nazi content. That caused a panic and pretty much *everyone* immediately pulled ads. Worse, when you do that you can clearly see how effective the ads were, and the answer was "not very".

      The result was a long period when YouTube was hurting. So they came down hard and never stopped. What the advertisers want, the advertisers get.

      Parental controls won't make advertisers want to advertise on those videos. If anything it'll be worse since the audience is smaller.
      • I have to ask, is there still anyone who doesn't autoblock all ads on YouTube? Including the sponsoring blurb?

      • This is understandable however there are multiple comments suggesting that YouTube shows ads on demonetised videos anyway, just the creator doesn't get the revenue. I can only assume there is a separate category of advertisers who don't care about possible negative associations.

    • Just like safe search, give me a box I can check that says "I'm an adult, not easily offended, feel free to swear, show a nipple, or talk about drugs"

      The thing is: it's not about you - it's all about the advertisers. Companies work really hard to sculpt their image and branding in their commercials and they get upset if a commercial for their "wholesome" brand is played in the middle of a video discussing dark topics such as mass murder or human trafficking. Since advertisers are the ones actually paying

    • That doesn't solve the algorithm hiccups.

      Here's some examples from my really small, not monetized, inoffensive YouTube channel:

      A video of a 3D printer head vibrating when changing direction (basically a hardware issue I was trying to troubleshoot with the community) got age-restricted, most likely because the title contained "vibrating slow motion" in its title. As a matter of fact, both videos about the same issue were age-restricted.
      Another one: a video titled "The Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim - Bug - Floatin

    • give me a box I can check that says "I'm an adult, not easily offended, feel free to swear, show a nipple, or talk about drugs"

      Ready for the really stupid part? They have this. All content uploaded to youtube needs to be flagged by creators if it is targeted at minors or not and this prevents monetisation and also blocks comments from the onset.

      This means literally every video being demonetised for swearing or other content violations on Youtube has been ticked as being for adults by the creator already.

    • It's not about you, it's about the advertisers. Youtube couldn't care less whether you're offended or not. The problem is that advertisers do not want to be associated with "offensive" content, and that occurs because the mob complains to the advertisers.

  • Enough with those horrible algos. Let ChatGPT decide what's "monetizable." /s

    More srsly, I don't get it: a sensible, logical (I know I know) rule would be that either material is allowable on YT or it isn't, and everything allowable should be monetizable.

  • Sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @03:40PM (#63364371)

    YouTube decided Kafka's "The Trial" was a good model for their monetization policies.

    • See, the humanities aren't dead after all. Literature informs us how to act in our roles in modern society.

  • by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @04:19PM (#63364443)
    Men are evil: okay
    Women are evil: ban.
    Scary N word: ban.
    Cracker: okay.
    I am a proud Latino man: okay.
    I am a proud White man: ban.
    Kill all Christians: okay.
    Kill all Jews: ban.
    Christianity is stupid: okay.
    Judaism is stupid: suspect.
    God hates gay people: ban.
    God hates straight people: okay.
  • by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @04:26PM (#63364465)

    Anyone over a certain number of subscribers should have the ability to get a real human review and some sort of arbitration. Anyone doing monetized videos who is gettins tens of thousand plus views on their videos is generating enough revenue for the service to pay some liasons of sorts for hands on service when necessary. I am even sure many of those creators woul dhave no problem contributing a fee of some type for that service anyway, for many it's their livelihood on the line here.

    "It's expensive to have human review" seems like an excuse that rings exceptionally hollow for YouTube today for it's larger creators. For the smaller people posting videos yes, that doesn't help them as much (or maybe once you have this service spooled up you can have it be a buy in for anyone) but getting to leverage the worlds largest video platform is a privelege not a right.

    Plenty of services out there today where you can post as much controversal topics as you want (Rumble, Odyssey, BitChute, etc) but everyone wants those big view numbers and fat cash stacks. You can't get your cake and eat it too, just like if I make a film I don't get to have it distributed by Universal or Warner Bros without them getting some input on it.

    • Anyone over a certain number of subscribers should have the ability to get a real human review and some sort of arbitration.

      The issue is not human or not. The issue is unclear guidelines. There are some large creators which already have Youtube liaison personnel. There was one creator who got a summary video of his flagged (while the videos they were a summary of were not). So he contacted his liaison and they agreed to do a manual review. They proceeded to then go through and demonetise about half the videos on his channel without telling him why or how or giving him any option to edit out offensive content. In some cases the m

    • What could be worse than blacklisting/outright banning a vintage stereo electronics repair channel on reel to reel magnetic tape player alignment? Youtube did, but re-instated after a torrent of complaints by big hitter - but no reasons. Then there is Fran showing NASA moon landings(public, cannot be copyrighted) de-monetarised by a content pirate. How dare a women teach STEM subjects to young people. Youtube need to be seen apologizing and explaining the most egregious strikes, and de-monertising the slee
    • YouTube was bought by Google and for practical purposes is Google at this point. And Google is allergic to the entire idea of human review. Their entire existence is owed to an algorithm for automatically ranking search results. They will only ever use human review in a reactive way, and then only when they're forced by some external pressure.
    • by wings ( 27310 )

      [Disclaimer:I don't create videos for distribution on any platform]

      It would seem that if the notice of a violation at least included the timestamp range from the video where the alleged infringement occured and which rule was violated it would go a long way to helping understand the problem.

      It's one thing if a video has obvious rule violations. When a specific violation can't be identified it makes me think that maybe YouTube wants, has designed in, or are reluctant to fix some percentage of false detectio

  • by holostagram ( 6735694 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @04:29PM (#63364475)

    Google removed my business' Google Maps pin and content without any explanation whatsoever. They sent an email saying they detected 'suspicious activity'. When I inquired, they repeatedly sent me to their policies page. There was absolutely nothing out of line with my very banal informational site. They refused to explain the problem, and they refused to reinstate my business on Google Maps.

    I signed up for Office 365 and I am slowly moving everything I have off of Google. It is a giant pain, but I have had enough. Google is in serious decline.

    • I had Bob as a roommate, and I found out he gets hairy every full moon and tries to eat me. I had to put steel bars over my door! I got tired of Bob's shit, and I'm going to kick him out. Vlad Bloodtooth is sure to be better.
  • by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @04:42PM (#63364501)

    With this size of the audience, there is always a non-zero chance that someone, somewhere may get offended by something you say, no matter how neutral you'd like to be. It's just impossible to please everyone with so many different countries, cultures, religions, orientations, philosophical views and what-nots, especially since your views may be later reviewed retrospectively when the political climate changes in X years time. You are either allowed to say everything and let the audience grow up and deal with any caused negative emotions themselves, or you are not allowed to say anything.

    • ^^^ +1 THIS

      And the same applies for advertisers. Only an idiot thinks that some random add from a company means that company agrees with whatever content it was shown before/during/after. This could end tomorrow if advertisers got some back bone and just said "ENOUGH, we are not going to submit to the extreme vocal minorities anymore."

      The main objective of the advertisers should be that they are connecting their ads to the people who most likely to want to see or buy their products. Not that their prod

    • Non-zero?

      You will always offend someone no matter what you say, especially in this age of delicate snowflakes who are unable to differentiate between what is in fact offensive and what is not. And even more so now that among these snowflakes there are really bad people who want power no matter what, and their way to get power is to convince others that their ideas (however horribly wrong or meaningless they may be) are "the only truly way" and all who think differently must be cancelled.
  • by xack ( 5304745 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @05:06PM (#63364557)
    Give advertisers cheaper rates on the condition that they can't complain about the content. The free market will soon sort things out. Basically if they want to censor videos they have to pay more for it.
    • Many advertisers will just walk if given that choice or so many will choose the latter that it effectively becomes the new standard and then nothing has changed.

        For one they worry about brand association, something very valuable to risk for some cheaper rates, and second they know 99% of ads are just ignored, they are trying to reach a thin slice, thats why all these sites let you drill down demographics so much.

  • Social Engineering 101: Keep the message clear, concise and completely unspoken.
  • by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Sunday March 12, 2023 @11:12PM (#63365241)

    Too late to get worked up about big tech censorship. It was all fun and games while deplorables were getting hammered. Now it's everyone, just like you were told it would be.

  • What you need is bandwidth and ad revenue. If YouTube's policies don't work for you, find another host.

    If your business depends on videos being reliably posted and monetized, you need to ensure your platform is not going to arbitrarily cut off your income at the whim of an algorithm with no practical method to get a human to review the decision before it causes harm.

    When you're not big enough to host your own and run your own ad system, you need to find multiple social media outlets and always - always - c

  • my account got banned a few years ago because it "violated community guidelines", after appealing I heard back that the ruling stands, and that was that. To the day I don't know what caused it. I filmed a concert of a band where there was a penis visible for a second in the background visuals. Maybe that? I also filmed comedians criticizing the german government - maybe that? I also did some official music videos and regularly got flagged by bots claiming a copyright violation although I had the copyright
  • by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @12:31PM (#63366641)
    See, it's not a platform for you to make money: It's a platform for Google to make money off of you. So if what you say is related in some way to the adsense buzzwords that make them money, you are monetized; if not, then you're not. And they won't tell you what because that would cost them money to police, and degrade the value of their analytics.

    What you're actually trying to do is irrelevant to them. You are not human to them. You are an endless field of random words that may or may benefit them, and they don't care why you're doing any of it, nor will they will help you ever.

    In fact, when and where convenient, they simply falsify your content. Arbitrarily change timestamps, the look of your videos, erase or implant fake comments, rearrange the order of your uploads, doesn't matter. It's all just stew ingredients to their algorithm. As far as I know, the only reason they haven't outright faked entire videos from a content creator is lack of technology to do so, but that may change.
  • A YouTube video, or channel, is demonetized.
    Does YouTube still make money from the ads that still run on the video?
    If so, YouTube is cheating the creators and lining their own pockets.

    YouTube is destroying the "How-To", video industry. There is information, all legal & normal to access, that is now forbidden by YouTube. I have heard the creators of many channels say that the publishing rules have changed but they don't know what the new standards are. (I guess they communicate among themselves to

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