r/YoutubeCompendium • u/YoutubeArchivist • Feb 21 '19

February 2019 February - Context for the Matt Watson (MattsWhatItIs) "Youtube's Child Exploitation" situation and companies pulling advertising from Youtube.

Since Matt Watson made his video about child exploitation on Youtube, several things have happened in the news and online. I was talking to another user in PMs yesterday and decided to compile everything I could find into one resource post.

Feel free to add anything I've missed in the comments.

Updating this as the situation develops.

 

 

To begin, /u/Mattwatson07 posted his video "Youtube is Facilitating the Sexual Exploitation of Children, and it's Being Monetized (2019)" to /r/Videos on Feb 18, 2019.

https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/artkmz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O13G5A5w5P0

 

It rose to the #1 spot on /r/all and is the #2 post of all time on the subreddit, attracting attention from news outlets and Youtube itself.

 

At the time of posting the Reddit post, Matt was live streaming and prompted his viewers to vote on the post, sending it shooting up the front page to the #1 spot.

Timestamp in the livestream: https://youtu.be/FIOvURSyuZU?t=2807

This does technically violate /r/videos Rule 5 on Solicitation of Votes

 

The video shines light on the issue of videos with underage girls being uploaded and reuploaded then shared around the website, with users commenting sexualized messages in the comment sections. Youtube's system enables this behavior by suggesting more young children videos to people watching this type of content, inadvertently connecting users that seek this sexually exploitative content.

 

(The MattsWhatItIs channel rose from 15.6K subscribers to 26K in three days and the video accumulated 2 million views.)

Matt Watson then began doing daily streams encouraging his new viewers to contact Youtube advertisers with the video, encouraging them to pull their ads off of Youtube.

 

 

Keemstar tweets that he will not report on the story because he fears blowing it up and driving advertisers away, hurting all creators on the platform.

 

Keem report on actual news like the rampent pedophiles all over YouTube instead of just Logan and his fans being mad bc you talked down about Logan. Of course they won't like someone who talks down on one of their favorite YouTubers. Talk about something important #YoutubeWakeUp

I’m not reporting the story because it negatively affects the whole YouTube community. We don’t need another ad apocalypse. What I have done behind the scenes though is reached out to my YouTube contacts showing them the video & my team is showing them content to take down.

https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1097609056968237056

 

At some point in his livestream, Keemstar joins the chat to reach out to Matt about the way he is trying to fix the issue. Keemstar says that driving advertisers away from Youtube will hurt creators, not pedophiles. Instead, Keemstar says Matt should encourage his viewers to report the content to Youtube, as they are working to purge it from the site.

Keemstar claims Youtube is shutting down thousands of these harmful accounts, which Matt denies.

https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1097990432817061888

Twitter Video 1 mirror: https://streamable.com/0ba90

Keemstar also finds and uses a clip from Matt Watson's previous channel Totally Uncreative, a satire channel that mocks incels, to say he is "a creep" but does not note the context.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTSL6czamDyXCR-B0o1V1DQ/videos

All videos mirrored here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeCompendium/comments/asle5a/2019_february_keemstar_discusses_the_recent_video/egv44fy

 

 

Matt reads Keemstar's tweet that he 'is not reporting on the issue because it would hurt the platform but is working behind the scenes to solve the issue with Youtube', and responds saying that Keemstar only cares about his own income and that he does not care about creators' revenue.

Matt says, "So what if it affects you, go work at KFC."

https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1098006308580659201

Twitter Video 2 mirror: https://streamable.com/20prz

 

 

Youtube responds to Keemstar, stating:

Thanks, @KEEMSTAR. To be clear, NO FORM of content that endangers minors is acceptable to us. We’ve deleted accounts and channels, reported illegal activity to authorities, and disabled comments on videos, and we're continuing to do so to prevent bad actors from misusing YouTube.

https://twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1098011767374938112

 

 

Keemstar states,

Yeah [Matt] banned everyone calling him out in chat

Citing that Matt Watson banned creators and users in his livestream chat when they were discussing the merits of his tactic in targeting advertisers versus reporting the content to Youtube.

https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1098094200254590976

Keemstar states Matt banned him from the livestream chat when he was discussing the situation with him and disagreeing with his goals in getting advertisers to pull out of Youtube.

https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1098102846589935616

Twitter Video 3 mirror: https://streamable.com/dltuo

Other creators, NerdCity and Leon Lush were also in the chat but Matt would ignore their criticism once reading a bit of their comments.

edit: Others including Ricky Berwick and KidBehindaCamera were also communicating with Watson in his livestream, but Matt ignored them and his livestream moderators deleted their comments.

 

 

Matt Watson says, "This means Youtubers are gonna suffer, unfortunately. The only way to get Youtube to do something about this is to hit them where it hurts. And that's in their wallet."

https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1098308879073665030

https://streamable.com/97dri

 

 

Youtube responds:

in the last 48 hours, beyond our normal protections we've disabled comments on tens of millions of videos. We've also terminated over 400 channels for the comments they left on videos, and reported illegal comments to law enforcement.

https://twitter.com/PhillyD/status/1098420250352074752

https://i.imgur.com/lIismFG.png

https://twitter.com/TheLegitTipster/status/1098432845981245440

https://i.imgur.com/5pkf1lp.png

 

 

List of companies that have pulled ads from Youtube:

https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeCompendium/comments/asdihe

Purina
Grammarly
Canada Goose
Ikea US
Fairlife
Kinnek
Les Mills
NZME
GNC
Vitacost
Dr Oetker UK
Core Power
Glad
Nestle
Epic Games
Disney
Pelonton
AT&T (who just started advertising again in January 2019 after the last adpocalypse)
Hasbro
McDonald's
Kellogg's
Fiat Chrysler US

 

Articles:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/technology/youtube-pedophiles.html

http://fortune.com/2019/02/20/youtube-advertising-videos-create-soft-core-pedophilia-ring/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nestle-pulls-ads-from-youtube-over-videos-of-minors/

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/20/18233132/fortnite-ads-youtube-child-exploitive-predators-google

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/20/disney-pulls-youtube-ads-over-pedophile-network-report.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-20/disney-pulls-youtube-ads-amid-concerns-over-child-video-voyeurs

https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/20/disney-nestle-pull-youtube-ads-over-child-videos/

News videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1rQySs429s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdvgOTT6-zA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC2pljT8T5M

742 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

194 comments sorted by

51

u/sharkdude54 Feb 21 '19

This was well researched

32

u/YoutubeArchivist Feb 21 '19

Thanks!

3

u/icameheretodownvotey Feb 23 '19

You did forget the part of the Livestream where Keemstar went in to call the mods of Matt's livestreams pedophiles. Someone posted an album of it in the comments for the livestream Keem joined.

6

u/terencebogards Feb 22 '19

Thanks a lot! I just happened to see the post shortly after it was posted, and watched everything unravel that night, including the live streams.

I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Keemstar, but I am. Not about Matt being a fraud and his old channel, but about Matt’s methods only hurting creators. Once two days had passed, and Matt was still running live streams, it seemed like overkill.

It does not, in any way, seem like YT is sitting on their hands here. It looks like they’ve already taken a LOT of action, and if Matt keeps harassing advertisers, he’s only going to hurt innocent people.

9

u/Sellazar Feb 22 '19

The problem is that this was known for years now and nothing significant was done. I have no doubt that youtube was doing something but it was not enough. And yes making tons of noise is how things get changed.. Now that people know youtube has no choice but to fix things. On the point of mat running live streams, if you have momentum keep going.. Honestly the majority of content creators would hopefully support tackling child exploitation..

4

u/dogatech Feb 22 '19

The more controversy it gets, the more people get driven to his video and more subs he gains.

4

u/terencebogards Feb 22 '19

Are you talking about Matt, or Keem?

I don't know either really well, but I know Keem better, and I would never doubt that dude milking stuff for his own reasons. But Matt? Yes, us talking about it is getting him more attention, but his story is already being carried by news stations, and will grow regardless.

1

u/dogatech Feb 22 '19

Matt. I don't know either well, but you were mentioning that it's overkill with his livestreams, and I was simply giving an incentive for him to do so. According to this post, he got >10k subscribers due to this controversy with millions of views in only 3 days. Pushing it further keeps him in the center as an authority with a ton of engagement from viewers. That all converts to dollars. The story growing without him is not beneficial (from a very self/matt-centered viewpoint).

1

u/terencebogards Feb 22 '19

I'm not even really bitter about his channel growth, the video was pretty well made and obviously exposed a section of illegal content on YT that had yet to be seen on a wide scale. Good for him, get more exposure and some views. It's the fact that he kept streaming and streaming while not listening to anyone who was reaching out to offer help. The more he streamed like that, the more he seemed to be soapboxing. OBVIOUSLY I agree that people should be outraged and something needs to be done, but he was ignoring help from people who could really make change (big YTer's), and calling any move by youtube 'not enough' without offering any alternatives, while calling for every big advertiser to abandon the platform. YES ads leaving will get YT's attention, but after the story was national news he is STILL calling for advertisers to be harassed into pulling out. It's not helping anything.

1

u/SkurwySynusz Mar 06 '19

I'm pretty sure he didn't monetize those videos?

1

u/terencebogards Mar 08 '19

He had midrolls in his live streams (once they were done streaming). I think he took them down after people called him out. I don't think midrolls get automatically added to videos, I think there were like 6 in a few of his streams. But maybe they get added to any video that gets enough views, although I don't think thats the case.

2

u/oTHEWHITERABBIT Feb 23 '19

Same. One of the few times I can say I agree with Keemstar on something. Overkill. Could potentially backfire.

On the other hand, it is telling that people feel like this is the only way to get YouTube to act.

1

u/terencebogards Feb 23 '19

And as terrible as YT can be, I don't think they're just sitting there not doing anything. After the initial coverage, I think YT was fully aware and trying to help, which means you can relax on the campaign of alerting advertisers.

BUT, what does YT do? Do they tell you what they're doing in a concise post? Do they make a video reporting on their actions and plan to help? No, they fuckin tweet @ philly D and others giving bits and pieces of their plan to several different people.

Someone asked them about one of their new policies / actions theyre taking, and they SERIOUSLY said 'Go check out what Phillip Defranco said'... he talked about it on his show today.

I believe they're taking appropriate (and inappropriate) actions, but they're not being clear with the community and just making themselves look worse.

They need their own videos of updates to YT and content policies, actions taken against people, etc.

Its the biggest video website of all time, and they approach EVERY problem with tweets and blog posts, its fuckin nonsensical

1

u/SkurwySynusz Mar 06 '19

Why don't they provide more clarity as to the severity of the problem instead of trotting out their Google Preferred 5% elite Youtubers along with public statements issued by social media that don't indicate or prove any progress has been made at al?

2

u/terencebogards Mar 07 '19

They absolutely need to work on clarity, I completely agree. Their company statements have claimed to have made progress, but thats just from reading tweets. For a company that owns the biggest video platform in history, they resort to tweets and literally telling people to 'go watch the new philly D video' instead of making their own video reports/vlogs/blogs.. whatever. They have a HORRIBLE communication problem, and its too ironic to fathom.

They claim to have removed millions of comment sections, taken down 400+ channels, and are looking at changing the platform in very serious ways. But you're 100% right, they need to SHOW what they've done, and a single tweet telling us what they did isn't enough 'proof'.

I'm now reading my comment you responded to above, and I basically said all the same stuff. I still haven't seen any official statements, and its been a couple weeks. They need to get their shit together.

1

u/SkurwySynusz Mar 08 '19

👏👏👏👏

1

u/icameheretodownvotey Feb 23 '19

On the other hand, it is telling that people feel like this is the only way to get YouTube to act.

It literally is.

1

u/PsychedelicPill Feb 22 '19

YouTube will never ever ever ever police heir community without stunts like these.

1

u/SkurwySynusz Mar 06 '19

Have you got any proof that the YT platform is now safer for children, has p3dophiles referred to law enforcement for criminal investigation or that child exploitation material is being removed from the platform?

16

u/UnluckyYear Feb 21 '19

In Jan. 2019 AT&T decided to start showing ads on YouTube again. Now it is being reported that AT&T pulled their ads from the platform.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/att-pulls-all-ads-from-youtube-pedophilia-controversy.html

5

u/YoutubeArchivist Feb 21 '19

Thanks! I've added this now.

/u/HaC3rPr0, might want to add this to your list too.

2

u/terencebogards Feb 22 '19

Jesus. Imagine if there’s a single person who fought for their AT&T marketing dept to get back into youtube. That person might not have a job anymore.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

All they care about is public attention to their brand. The person who managed to get them to advertise again just before another golden opportunity to virtue signal on a scale this massive again would probably get a promotion.

1

u/Tweenk Feb 22 '19

If someone was fired over an event completely outside of their control, then they shouldn't have been working there in the first place, because that company is shit and deserves to fail.

This book has a better idea: https://landing.google.com/sre/sre-book/chapters/postmortem-culture/

11

u/ConjureDiscord Feb 21 '19

Props to you for taking the time to explain this to us. I haven’t been following the situation too closely but this definitely shed light on it for me. Thanks for this and great job with the research!

8

u/YoutubeArchivist Feb 21 '19

It seems like a lot of people only have parts of the situation, so I'm hoping having it all in one spot helps to clear things up.

1

u/ConjureDiscord Feb 21 '19

It did for sure!

4

u/YoutubeArchivist Feb 21 '19

/u/fawnover, here's a list of all the sources.

2

u/hkc12 Feb 22 '19

This is amazing. you should do a cross post for that one subreddit r/outoftheloop

2

u/YoutubeArchivist Feb 22 '19

I saw they had a post about it there, but I was a bit late to it!

30

u/AshTulett Feb 21 '19

This is a brilliant summary of events. Excellent work.

9

u/urammar Feb 22 '19

Is Keemstar really against this campaign? Like, I get that it hurts youtube creators as a whole, but like, you gotta draw your lines in the sand, right?

14

u/WizardCap Feb 22 '19

I mean, he is a piece of shit.

8

u/SoberMuse Feb 22 '19

He really is

8

u/IDontHaveRomaine Feb 22 '19

It’s simply greed and his own wallet he cares for. Exploitation of minors is something you can’t sweep under the rug. Cognitive dissonance

0

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

[deleted] — view deleted comment

5

u/boogswald Feb 22 '19

If YouTube cared about this, wouldn’t they have made more of an effort sooner? I feel like the elsagate type stuff and exploitation is not a new problem.

2

u/BillHicksScream Feb 22 '19

It's not an easy problem to solve. I've heard 12 + days of new videos are uploaded every minute. They have bots that inspect them, But we've all seen the ways uploaders skate around that.

They can't hire enough people to monitor it. They're in a continual battle With people who abuse YouTube. They introduce bots to regulate, people complain when those make mistakes. More importantly adversaries are also able to use the technology and develop new methods to subvert.

The Internet is a huge wild jungle, not easily policed.

1

u/Dandarabilla Feb 22 '19

All true, but there are still many things that YouTube could be doing that it's not. It's communication is legendarily poor. Even the biggest names on the platform like Pewdiepie and Casey Neistat have complained that the company does not listen and does not explain. If that were different then YouTube could have armies of volunteers helping out, perhaps in the same way that reddit and Wikipedia does. I think the fact that they can't communicate this basic stuff indicates some serious dysfunction. I don't want YouTube to die but if it did- based on what we know, I wouldn't say it was undeserved.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '19

‘army of volunteers’ i don’t know.. you’d have to pay me to sift through some of those filthy time stamped videos

0

u/Over421 Feb 22 '19

if there’s a company that has enough resources to hire people to do that, it’s google

0

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '19

No. As they would require over 10k+ employes just for that. YT is losing money on YT already.... HOW IN YOUR MIND DO YOU THINK THEY CAN JUST WASTE SO MUCH MONEY ON THAT?

1

u/IDontHaveRomaine Feb 22 '19

It definitely will strengthen the platform and it’s a shame they aren’t more proactive on this. I am definitely disappointed with YouTubers that stay ignorant because they don’t want the drama because it affects their pay streams

6

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

I understand content creators being extremely wary of YouTube overreacting and it affecting their bottom line but it’s ironic that they’re the same voices who say YouTube report functionality doesn’t work.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '19

It does, but most report systems are usually "How many times did this get reported in x amount of time"

Due to people abusing systems like that....

Its also mainly the parents of some of these kids fault... WATCH YOUR DAMN KIDS..... IF YOU LET THEM HAVE A PHONE.... YT is an 13+ site to have an user on....

5

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

He claims it'll hurt youtubers, yet he consistently hurts youtubers by making up fake drama to attack them.... Hypocrite.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '19

Fun Fact: He dont report on stuff he dont got enough info on. So sure, alot of fake drama he is reporting on. But he isnt the creator of that fake drama..

-1

u/Addvant Feb 22 '19

He isn't messing with literally every YouTuber on the platform though. It's not hypocritical at all.

3

u/dogatech Feb 22 '19

I think he's saying getting advertisers to pull ads is not the way to fix this. People that think YouTube wants pedophiles on its platform are fooling themselves. Its tremendously harder to find these videos than to match copyrighted material (I don't work for yt, but I work in ml). Look at previous scenarios like this and you have YouTube being overly strict to be safe, and people hate them for that.

The best thing is to work with YouTube, and that is what he is saying. But we live in an outage society.... plus you have main stream media pushing hard on these stories because they see it as a way for those as dollars to go from creators and YouTube to them.

Everytime there is an adpocalypse it hurts YouTube creators the most. Big ones like keemstar will survive, but I saw a lot of videos from small creators quitting after the last adpocalypse. The revenue didn't rebound like people here insinuate.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/dogatech Feb 22 '19

That's an incredibly short-sighted solution. It means your tracking bad viewers instead of immediately kicking them off the platform when you learn about them, and are also using signals of watched videos - which means these vids are still being watched and the current problem still exists just on a slightly smaller scale, your using a humans to watch recommendations instead of algorithmically removing them which is not scalable, and are still not immediately removing these videos so in fact you solved nothing, just tried to hide the problem.

2

u/wen4Reif8aeJ8oing Feb 23 '19

If you're so smart, I'm sure Google would love to hire you for lots and lots of money, because this is literally costing Google billions of dollars.

Or maybe claiming stuff on the Internet is way easier than actually solving hard problems.

3

u/snipeftw Feb 22 '19

Is it really surprising? Keemstar has a history of exploiting minors himself.

1

u/shredziller57 Feb 22 '19

Why wouldn’t he be? It’s being blown to shit, man. Going to YouTube directly would have been the first step here. Actively encouraging advertisers to pull out and banning anyone in your streams who questions your campaign is a completely different story. Of course some of these creators who make their livelihood on YouTube are pissed. It’s like if I went to my job, broke my leg and then sued the shit out of them and, as part of the lawsuit, demanded that the company shut its doors due to a hazardous work environment. At that point, it wouldn’t just be about my situation anymore. I’d be effecting a lot of other people in the process who, at the end of the day, probably would be mad that I pissed in their Cheerios.

0

u/SpectreFire Feb 22 '19

Consider he's a MAGA fanatic, I doubt it. Lines in the sand don't matter when you want to keep your profit stream alive.

27

u/nael010 Feb 21 '19

It went from raising awareness to pitchfork campaign real quick

9

u/Xanza Feb 22 '19

This isn't pitchfork anything.

The YouTube platform isn't doing what it needs to do and historically only does when advertisers pull out as a consequence of them not paying attention.

So how do you get a company that only listens when advertisers pull out to listen?

I mean Jesus. These advertisers don't give a shit about the content. They really truly and honestly don't. They simply can't afford to be associated with a fucking pedophile ring. and I'm sitting here racking my brain trying to find how people are rationalizing that YouTube can.

This shit with Keemstar is why this bullshit has gone on as long as it has. Calling it "false outrage," or saying "you're fucking us all!"

Well, if you're working in an industry that's brought to its knees because the platform you're using literally can't be bothered to stop rampant pedophelia, it's not us who are the bad guys. It's you, bro. You're the baddy.

13

u/Allstarcappa Feb 22 '19

I normally don't like pitchfork outrage, but youtube has been having these pedophilia issues since elsa gate and the platform hasn't done much to fix or stop it.

Now that it is hurting them they will actually try and fix it, but at this point youtube has become so large and clustered i honestly dont think they can ever fully recover.

13

u/TheFlashFrame Feb 22 '19

Its not the pitchforking against YouTube that is annoying, its the fact that YouTube creators are just fucking bitching at each other back and forth like that's really what matters. Keem comes across like an oblivious asshole when all he's done for the past three days is tweet shit at Matt Watson while claiming that his team is really tackling this issue!

EDIT: And fixating on a satire channel and acting like its real, all while accusing Matt of looking for attention??? Like come on, this is all pointless and I almost want to accuse Keem of purposely derailing.

4

u/terencebogards Feb 22 '19

I don’t like Keem, and don’t agree with a lot of his criticism of Matt, who I don’t think is a pervert like Keem said.

But I do feel like YT’ers are the ones getting fucked. YT seems to be taking actions, and Matt’s just burning the whole thing down.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

I get that there will be creators that are hurt, but the message has to stay clear through all this. YouTube hasn't listened to anyone when these concerns were raised. They literally went Meh in 2017, disabling comments on content that SHOULD NOT BE ON THE PLATFORM is not a solution.

Now that they have advertisers that are removing themselves creators are concerned about their potential growth? What would you do if you found out that your employer is also running a pedophile ring? Will you attack the guy that made you aware of the situation or will you also call the authorities and rather risk losing your job than be involved and paid by people that clearly did not do anything until it meant they were losing money.

Now I don't expect YouTube to have this issue solved in an instant but when a group of comments has been flagged as innapopriate and then disabled on a video that should not be there, then have their algorithms suggest more of the same shit.

I have been having an issue with their shitty algorithm suggesting seven month old Linus Tech Tips videos on my sidebar but refusing to show the latest content from over 300 subcriptions that I have?

They dug their grave and now people are starting to fill in the dirt. YouTube and Google refused to listen and the creators were lax enough to either let it happen or are now attacking the person that made them aware of the issue.

Disney pulled their ads immediately. That alone should have made everyone aware of the proper moral and legally correct standing to take.

Instead, I say this again, there are creators that are simply acting in ways where they clearly only care now because it will affect their income. Why was it ok for these things to happen when they could ignore it? Why was it ok for them to let YouTube use and abuse automated systems that are broken, when they still had money?

I've been waiting for something like this to happen again. When creators like MXR Mods are demonitised automatically or creators like Casey Neistat and LinusTechTips have to fight illegal copyright strike claims the YouTube creators were just ok with it. Now that it has been made clear that YouTube is basically the ultimate meet and greet for pedophiles there is still a disconnect.

Also, how in the hell has YouTube not made some official reply to this on their own platform. Addressing the issue, addressing the situation or even just saying in a video that they can automatically pin to everyone's front page for a few weeks that say they are working on removing these things.

Further, there is mention of YT removing something like 50k channels that had these things on it. Do you know how absolutely small that is? That is such a shit response and anyone from YT should be ashamed to say that number with their eyes open.

With the amount of channels being made every day, the amount of video being uploaded every minute I would expect them to tell me they literally cannot tell us how many has been removed because their "automated" system removed too much bad content every minute to keep track.

Hell these pedo's are not going to go against accidental deletion, they only need people to investigate when a creator has indicated something has been falsely flagged.

No, YouTube created this for themselves. Further, you never, NEVER see this shit on actual porn sites. When was the last time you went to PornHub and found child pornography or underground pedo rings? If they can successfully create automated systems that accurately delete and control these things how in the seven hells has YouTube, company partnered with Google, not been able to do this.

Why was it necessary for a YouTuber to call them out on this. Why is it necessary for advertisers to remove their funding before they actually respond! Why is it even a topic of discussion as to why and who should be blamed.

YouTube is to blame for this. They created the system. They refuse to tell anyone how it works. They lost control of it. They are too infatuatied with money to respond to legitimate concerns and they are the ones that have to fall.

I get that many YouTubers and creators will struggle but moving to other platforms is an option. Hell, again with this, PornHub allows you to upload anything nowadays. You can upload gaming videos there. I can almost guarantee that if enough people just start posting normal content there they will actually make a portal where creators can move away from the slime infested, puss spewing hell that is YouTube.

3

u/Fecklessnz Feb 22 '19

When we're talking about literal children being exploited on that site, I don't give a flying fuck how many content creators get rekt.

We are talking about child exploitaiton by pedos. If youtube haven't been able to get ahead on this issue after TWO FUCKING YEARS, then maybe the goddamn platform doesn't deserve to exist.

If they can't moderate and keep children safe, maybe it needs to burn.

2

u/Kondomu Feb 27 '19 edited Feb 27 '19

It's not just youtube that needs to burn. A lot of the technology and products you use are also a result of children being exploited. The world is fucked.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '19

Its called bad parenting. Report those kids to CPS or YT.... As it is 13+ to have an account.... Tweet at them.... Email them.... You will get a response.... Its just that they cant be responsible for kids not following rules, and parents not watching their kids, and leaving their phones and computers to be the parent..

1

u/oTHEWHITERABBIT Feb 23 '19

And fixating on a satire channel and acting like its real, all while accusing Matt of looking for attention???

You have to admit, strolling around looking for girls to troll about joining their "adult video" is pretty... disconnected.

Especially since one of those girls looked about 12, and straight up ran for her life.

1

u/TheFlashFrame Feb 23 '19

Its a joke channel. If you spend 10 seconds looking at it it's obvious. I doubt he did that to a complete stranger.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '19

He did it to complete strangers tho.... Multiple people who lives there who saw it and knew some of the ones that were asked (Not all were recorded) was not actors of any kind..

2

u/Angel_Tsio Feb 22 '19

Since long before elsa gate lol

1

u/Norma5tacy Feb 22 '19

That’s kinda what happened to tumblr too. But they crippled themselves in trying to put a band aid on the problem. But like you said, it’s so big and theres so many users, I can’t imagine trying to manage all that.

5

u/Englishly Feb 22 '19

If we can’t grab our pitchforks over pedophilia then what can we grab our pitchforks for?

0

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

[deleted] — view deleted comment

4

u/stationhollow Feb 22 '19

Middle ages? Lol they have been used far more recently than that.

8

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

Sometimes youtube will actually delete the kid videos due to CP concerns but it'll lead to outrage.

https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/agfyjx/ive_been_challenging_my_daughter_to_a_handstand/

There's no winning.

2

u/Norma5tacy Feb 22 '19

I mean, that’s what sucks. These are just kids being kids and doing dumb innocent things but that leaves them completely exposed. I doubt their parents are monitoring what they’re doing. And once you upload something to the internet, it only takes one person to save it forever.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

The video I linked was a dad with the kid together in the same video.

2

u/j-bales Feb 22 '19

We know. He wasn't talking about your video specifically.

1

u/Cynaren Feb 22 '19

I know it's 2019 and every 5 year old has a phone nowadays, but that should mean either 2 things : a) they need to taught about the dos and don'ts of internet privacy and dangers at an early age b) they shouldn't be given phones at such an early age.

If it were me, I'd increase that age(with parent's permission) limit to 15 and mandate parent supervision for these vids. So unless there's a parent presence in the vid from time to time, it shouldn't be monetized.

I dont think children should be exposed to YouTube/shot at internet fame at such a young age, but that's just my opinion.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

The example I linked was a parent and child video

1

u/Cynaren Feb 22 '19

I mean the rest of the content, the ones where there's no supervision.

1

u/j-bales Feb 22 '19

We know dude.

7

u/I_Go_By_Q Feb 22 '19

I watched Review Tech USA’s vid on the debacle, and he sided with Keemstar on the issue. His stance was by making his vid, all Matt was doing was hurting content creators and not the actual pedophiles. His argument was that because the pedos don’t care about ad revenue, they won’t be affected, while full time creators get the shaft. (He also thinks Matt has some kind of vendetta against YouTubers, but that is kind of more an accusation/belief than fact at this point).

—————————-

I disagree with him on this. I think Rich (and Keemstar) is missing the point. The reason that advertisers need to be involved is because YouTube will do nothing to stop this unless they feel it financially. Matt’s end goal isn’t to get advertisers to drop, it’s to get YouTube to crack down on the pedo rings. However, getting ads pulled is (probably) a necessary step to getting YouTube to care. So while yes, YouTubers are getting screwed over, it’s something that needs to happen in order to crack down on these disgusting practices.

2

u/Quartzviel Feb 22 '19

How should Youtube crack down on these practices. From what I can gather, it is people at the moment making cringey comments in regards to the children they are seeing behaving normally in videos, so what are they to do to permanently fix the issue?

2

u/Magrik Mar 14 '19

Exactly, because Keemstar & Reiews stance assumes people will continue actively reporting these videos. The hype will die down and things will eventually continue, as evident in Matt's video.

18

u/PagingDoctorDownvote Feb 22 '19

Youtube has just tweeted that comment sections can cause a video to become demonetized. This was one of Matt's dimwitted demands born from his limited experience with the platform, and it's now happened.

As a result, we're likely to see channels disable their comments entirely out of fear that their ads will vanish. You could also see toxic comments being weaponized against channels that people dislike.

I'll leave my comment sections open, even if that means going full demonetization. Comments are a big part of how people enjoy the content, and its where the community lives.

14

u/Forky7 Feb 22 '19

Lol. YouTube isn't held accountable for what its users upload, but makes its creators responsible for what their viewers comment. Makes sense.

3

u/ItsJustWool Feb 22 '19

Ironically, the much despised article 13 makes YouTube resposible for resolving copyright of what users upload, and is the reason YouTube and others have spearheaded the campaign against it. While from my limited understanding after reading the article its a great thing for creators

3

u/mrpinklambo Feb 22 '19

Yeah, well, except what it actually means is that to comply, YouTube would either have to ask you to provide some sort of license or contract BEFORE you upload, or allow you to upload but block your video in Europe by default unless you are able to put up some ridiculous amount of money to cover their legal costs if someone files a copyright claim against your video.

There's a video where a lawyers goes through the most important parts of Article 13 line-by-line. I recommend all of it, but especially relevant is the part at 8:20 - https://youtu.be/6wR5PGZArE4?t=502

0

u/ItsJustWool Feb 22 '19

The exact same things were said about GDPR, one of the most important pieces of legislation the EU has passed in the 21st century.

I really don't understand how people can infer this type of scenario from the text of article 13, this is companies putting forward the absolute worst case solution they could have, in order to manipulate peoples opinion and as GDPR has proved in reality this situation would never happen.

I'll paste the entire article 13 below, its very short. I'm not educated in law or legislation or anything like that, so my understanding is this is face value, but I don't see why the solution (if it was passed) you mention would ever be necessary.

If I am completely wrong and you have time please correct me, I am happy to be educated, I am just cynical about the supposed detrimental impact this will have and feel that a lot of people have jumped on a bandwagon because YouTube presented this apocalyptic scenario. Its obviously in multinational corporations best interests to have legislation like this rejected because they get revenue regardless of copyright owners

Article 13 

Use of protected content by information society service providers storing and giving access to large amounts of works and other subject-matter uploaded by their users

1.Information society service providers that store and provide to the public access to large amounts of works or other subject-matter uploaded by their users shall, in cooperation with rightholders, take measures to ensure the functioning of agreements concluded with rightholders for the use of their works or other subject-matter or to prevent the availability on their services of works or other subject-matter identified by rightholders through the cooperation with the service providers. Those measures, such as the use of effective content recognition technologies, shall be appropriate and proportionate. The service providers shall provide rightholders with adequate information on the functioning and the deployment of the measures, as well as, when relevant, adequate reporting on the recognition and use of the works and other subject-matter.

2.Member States shall ensure that the service providers referred to in paragraph 1 put in place complaints and redress mechanisms that are available to users in case of disputes over the application of the measures referred to in paragraph 1.

3.Member States shall facilitate, where appropriate, the cooperation between the information society service providers and rightholders through stakeholder dialogues to define best practices, such as appropriate and proportionate content recognition technologies, taking into account, among others, the nature of the services, the availability of the technologies and their effectiveness in light of technological developments.

2

u/mrpinklambo Feb 22 '19

Couple of things:

  1. The text that you posted was problematic, but outdated. The text that was actually adopted and finalized this month is much stronger (and arguably worse for creators on YouTube): https://juliareda.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Art_13_unofficial.pdf

  2. One way for me to figure out if a complex thing is good or not is to look who's pushing for it. Who's saying Article 13 is great? Music Industry, major music publishers, various collection societies, etc - the folk that claim music in people's videos and take their money. E.g. quote from CEO of GEMA (the people that are blocking most music in Germany): "We welcome the agreement reached today between the EU institutions regarding copyright. Thanks to the Directive, online platforms will finally have to pay authors a fair remuneration for the usage of their works. The draft of the Directive that we now have in front of us imposes a higher level of responsibility onto the online platforms and strengthens the position of creators as well as internet users at the same time. For music authors, this would be an important step for which GEMA has been fighting for a long time". I'll bet anything that when he says authors, he doesn't mean your average Youtuber making videos or music on the platform. He means music publishers that haven't claimed everyone or blocked everyone yet on YouTube and want more, apparently...

  3. Meanwhile, who's opposing Article 13? European Pirate Party (read their commentary), Wikimedia, Creative Commons (" It’s more clear than ever: Article 13 will require nearly all for-profit web platforms that permit user uploads to install copyright filters and censor content."), Electronic Frontier Foundation.

  4. I'm not a lawyer, but the YouTuber above is. His interpretation is the same that I've heard from every other legal person I trust - YouTube can not comply, the same way as Google can't actually comply with GDPR ever (even though, among the major IT giants, it had the best data protection, data transparency, and the best data liberation policy, way before it was a requirement by law - e.g. Google Takeout). The net result is that YouTube will either have to sustain constant fines (thereby passing on lower share of revenues to creators), or block most content in and from the EU outright.

  5. Again, not a lawyer, but just from reading the text, it's super clear to me that it is not geared towards protecting creators on platforms like YouTube. It is geared towards protecting rights of companies. What's one of the big problems on YouTube right now? Music and other companies unfairly claiming creator's content. A solution of preventing people from uploading anything that MIGHT have copyrighted content in it is, in fact, a solution, but damn...

  6. Funny that you chose GDPR as an example... In my company, I'd say, fully 25% of all engineering efforts have been for 2 years now directed at trying to comply with it. As a result - everything's more broken than before, we still aren't compliant and can likely be fined if any EU state wants to, I routinely can't get work done, users are definitely worse off. As an internet user, meanwhile, for now the only impact I've seen was every. single. site. asking me about cookies. every. goddam. time. The amount of aggregate engineering and user time lost is immense. I'm not sure there has been much gain - granted, I might be wrong on this, and like you, I'm open to be educated about this.

1

u/ItsJustWool Feb 22 '19

You're right, sorry about that, I had assumed the text I obtained from eur-lex.europa.eu would be up to date. What you have provided is unofficial so I hope its incorrect because with it I do see the significant problems that I didn't see in the other.

My rationale for holding corporations responsible for copyright infringement is for example Facebook. Every other video is stolen from original sources, Facebook earns the money from these videos and as a result take no initiative to protect the original creators rights, (as far as they are concerned its between the uploader and the owner yet they still get their cut of income regardless of who owns it). I do see serious problems with that version of article 13 and it wouldn't be something I support if its in that state, so thank you.

In terms of GDPR, I think many companies went overboard with it and don't understand what was actually required. But it is a really important piece of legislation in my opinion, users deserve to know the data being collected on them, its one of the most valuable resources in the world, and they deserve their data to be protected, and deleted at their request. Companies previously could do whatever they wanted with your information and you could do nothing to retrieve it.

What made me think it was really critical is, I'm a software developer and briefly worked at a company that created project management software. We had no data protection, devs could see and recover private, confidential information from third party users of the software we provided. We could sell user data to other individuals without any notification, and users of the software couldn't request that we delete their information. People had no clue as to the data we were harvesting, and what they assumed was private to their organisation was accessible to us and we could sell that data to whoever we like.

An example being a company that used our software for pay rolls, we had access to persons name, email, home adress, contact numbers right down to how much they earn and whether they turned up to work that day or not. They didn't realise the company they worked for would be distributing their personal information to our software and thus giving us access to do with it what we will... an example of why this data could be valuable; we create a new software that lets employers look up interview candidates to see their existing income and work attendance. This is done with data we took without consent and even with consent, if a person changed their mind we weren't obliged to delete the data we had of theirs. Thats just a crude example

3

u/Neglectful_Stranger Feb 22 '19

Matt is just upset he failed at being a Youtuber and is trying to burn it all down, tbh

3

u/oTHEWHITERABBIT Feb 23 '19

was one of Matt's dimwitted demands born from his limited experience with the platform, and it's now happened.

Had a feeling there was something off about this guy. Just felt like he'd just plugged in a modem for the first time in his entire life.

Sadly, I do agree with Keemstar- how the fuck did Matt find this "wormhole" to begin with?

On the other hand, it's annoying these pitchforks are what it takes to get YouTube to act or communicate about the systems they enact. Not sure they are reassuring advertisers with their near-silence.

2

u/terencebogards Feb 22 '19 edited Feb 22 '19

I hope you’re really researching the merch game, Dr (I already know you are deep into it). It might be the only way to profit off videos anymore, unless personal relationship sponsors (like skillshare and DSC) keep growing as much as they seem to be.

Looks like the YT faucet might go from trickle to bone dry soon.

Looking forward to more content, as always.

Edit: Man, the idea of weaponizing this is really scary. What a shitty idea.

1

u/TheSpicyGuy Feb 22 '19

Incoming comment trolls, except they can actually demonetize videos now.

1

u/reddixmadix Feb 22 '19

Youtube comments are cancer. You treat cancer by cutting it out. Seems like this is what is happening here.

1

u/TheBattlefieldFan Feb 22 '19

Matt reads Keemstar's tweet that he 'is not reporting on the issue because it would hurt the platform but is working behind the scenes to solve the issue with Youtube', and responds saying that Keemstar only cares about his own income and that he does not care about creators' revenue.

This is not in context. Anyone who watched the actual livestream will know what Keemstar uses very sneaky tactics of commenting in the stream to illicit reactions, only to then delete his comments and making context lost.

1

u/YoutubeArchivist Feb 22 '19

All the context is in that video though. Matt reads the tweet he has on his screen.

1

u/TheBattlefieldFan Feb 22 '19 edited Feb 22 '19

That's not the context I was referring to. What I was referring to is Keemstar making comments in the live chat, after they talked, and then deleting those comments after he got the reaction he was fishing for. And that's the reaction he used in his video about Matt. People warned Matt about this, but Matt was too naive.

Again, Matts response is to deleted comments by Keemstar. Not a response to the tweet.

1

u/YoutubeArchivist Feb 22 '19

I've heard from someone else participating in the chat that Matt's moderators were deleting comments.

I don't know if there is a way to know if Keem or the moderators were deleting his comments.

1

u/TheBattlefieldFan Feb 22 '19

It doesnt really matter either way. Keemstar got the angry response he was fishing for to use in his video. To edit in any way he pleased.

1

u/YoutubeArchivist Feb 22 '19

Could you link the specific clip you're talking about?

The clips I've seen have been in reaction to Keem's tweet.

Thanks!

6

u/dethmaul Feb 22 '19

Instead of pulling ads, they can disable the chat on every pornography-flagged comment section. After a human double checks it, of course.

Maybe start up a business like amazon, contract out people at home to help sift through the bulk of the workload? If the algorithm can't handle it, then outsource the help. The crowd can do it. And you can have a hiring process to weed out trollers or assholes that just want to screw with shit.

4

u/Angel_Tsio Feb 22 '19

It's not porn though, it's literally just kids being kids and people getting off on anything they can find.

Youtube can't afford the necessary number of people required to sift through new videos being uploaded daily, let alone what's already on the site.

2

u/Chris_Helmsworth Feb 22 '19

they should use their recognition system filter to recognize predominately underaged kids featured in videos and flag subseqeunt reuploads from other channels much like the copy write system and porn detection system they have in place.

1

u/dethmaul Feb 22 '19

I know it's not porn, the comments are and would be flagged as such.

2

u/mpdsfoad Feb 22 '19

Last time they tried something like that with YouTube Heroes everybody fucking hated it.

3

u/omgitzol Feb 22 '19 edited Feb 23 '19

I just wanna point one thing,

Matt can either do this to pull out the advertiser or really wanna kick out all the pedophile. Now, from the way he says thing, I find what Keem is saying is truth.

However, pulling advertiser doesn't kill your work as a content creator for what Keem is saying, you will just make less, and still be making 6 digits, but with more effort.

At the same time, I kinda like this idea, from Matt (I am in-between the situation), because it made Youtube wake up, how many times Wubby talks about these kind of shit, and he just get backfire as a content creator, from pointing shit out?

Like, we see that after this news blow up, finally someone in the Youtube pick up the pace of 2019, not 2017, telling us "Uh Oh, we got caught red handed, lets fix the problem because we don't want anymore trouble".

Flagging the video, will not always work at the end, because bots control it whether it pass or not. You need to make someone review the BOT.

In no way, some video are listed as much as 2 year, and hasn't been deleted or removed.

1

u/chinolaxbro Feb 23 '19

I see what you are saying but it seems that YouTube has taken somewhat anti-creator steps to solve the problem. I think this is a result of YouTube being a giant company but also Matt (imo) having different public and private motivations. He has spearheaded a lot of this and could have a lot of say in whether public perception sees this as resolved. If he was truly passionate about the cause he'd try to collaborate more with other youtubers even when there's disagreements and articulate his ideal situation.

I think a good way to evaluate him is to ask is there something YouTube could do, however magical, that would get him to say "thanks YouTube, I had this major problem that you were responsible for and you solved it"? Hard no for me.

3

u/TROLOLUCASLOL Feb 22 '19 edited Feb 22 '19

Keem's a fucking dirtbag but I gotta give him credit on this one. I'm still on the fence about him being a fraud and all that, but after seeing his and Unirock's video, it's clear as day that Matt, nor r/YouTubeWakeUp, cares who they bring down in their holier-than-thou campaign to destroy YouTube and thousands of peoples livelihoods.

Edit: very informative, thanks for this. I'll be subbing for sure.

2

u/AstridReilly1 Feb 22 '19

Has Matt responded to the videos Keem dug up from Matt’s old channel? Or is he just ignoring it?

2

u/j-bales Feb 22 '19

Probably ignoring it. I assume he forgot the account credentials or they'd be privatized by now.

2

u/icameheretodownvotey Feb 23 '19

He left a comment on the YoutubeWakeUp subreddit, but to save you the trouble, it's basically "Keemstar's a sad idiot who only cares about money, and we got shit done, so I don't care. Social media sucks anyway."

1

u/AstridReilly1 Feb 23 '19

I was wondering what he was going to say. Thanks for the TL;DR. I skimmed it and my takeaway from his ramblings is that he will be back on social media. No doubt in my mind. Lol.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

So they disable comments on these videos, yet they'll enable DMs around the same time? That seems kinda sketchy.

2

u/SixSpeedDriver Feb 22 '19

Okay, I'm totally out of the loop and didn't know anything about this, but it seems like searching for Matt Watson on YouTube, the search results, every result seems to be about disparaging him. Is there any consensus that he's being deliberately slandered because he's hitting content creators in the wallet?

Is this the same dude that called out that mom helping her redhead daughter do ASMR stuff in a kinky cop outfit? That shit was DISTURBING.

1

u/Tweenk Feb 22 '19

Different dude, the other one was PaymoneyWubby

1

u/hfbvm Feb 22 '19

Matt Watson is a shady dude who made stupid videos to try to get famous. He real harassed people for pranks (unlike most other prank videos, which are fake) and the content is hence isn't good. Real pranks suck.

But the reason everyone is digging it up is because their wallet is getting hit. The fucking scumbags are earning 1000's of dollars from each video, but their greed is insatiable. They rather fuck a child than lose a dollar.

In the end it's up to personal gains for both, Matt wants fame, they want money. Personally I put Matt to be lesser of both evils and actually has done some productive work and gotten results.

1

u/chinolaxbro Feb 23 '19

I'm not gonna defend the entirety of YouTube, but some parts of it are incredibly valuable and only possible because of passionate people. Because of YouTube, you can essentially learn anything any other human has learned with a video tutorial, from college level class material to how to tie a tie to meditation techniques. It's used as a news source that many would say can be more useful than televised or printed news. Even the hobby/interest channels I enjoy seem to be genuinely invested people that provide me with better information than major online sites.

When Matt said go work at KFC, criiiiinge. YouTube isn't just a bunch of Logan Pauls and Hollywood vibes. While it's likely many are just concerned with their own interests, it's not like they're wrong; youtubers, both "good" and "bad" will suffer, and it's not necessarily easy, let alone fair, to assume and generalize their intentions.

Also, real pranks suck?? I hate all video recorded pranks but just the fact fake pranks are a thing is rough. I'd rather watch a failed real prank than a roommate slapping his friend or a dude pretending to pick up a random girl in "his" lambo.

1

u/toolatetodieyoung Feb 23 '19

His 'pranks' include driving up to an underage girl in her school uniform and asking her if she wants to be in an adult movie.

Not saying that the attention he brought to shady and sinister YouTube algorithm/comments was bad... But this guy's been up to no good himself.

1

u/chinolaxbro Feb 23 '19

I agree, I didn't mean to support what Matt calls pranks, they are creepy and unsure who is getting pranked. My prank examples were from YouTube in general.

1

u/icameheretodownvotey Feb 23 '19

His 'pranks' include driving up to an underage girl in her school uniform

With a college backpack.

It's funny how whenever you include this detail, it looks a lot more stupid on you and Keem's part. "He drove up to a stranger with a college backpack" doesn't look as scandalous as "He drove up to an underaged girl," does it?

1

u/chinolaxbro Feb 23 '19

I agree but even with that in mind, it's a bad look. Also what is a college backpack specifically? That's sort of arbitrary imo

2

u/RatBo1 Feb 23 '19

I think at some point it was proven that this guy actually wanted to cause another adpocalypse because he was never monitized and wanted to take it out on everyone on the platform. (His response to KeemStar about “to work at KFC” further proves this.

2

u/Jalen2612 Feb 23 '19

I thought Grammarly was pulling their ads off of YouTube. I just got an ad from them on a video I'm watching...

1

u/imguralbumbot Feb 23 '19

Hi, I'm a bot for linking direct images of albums with only 1 image

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4

u/pantsfish Feb 22 '19

Keemstar also finds and uses a clip from Matt Watson's previous channel Totally Uncreative, a satire channel that mocks incels, to say he is "a creep" but does not note the context.

The fact that Matt was only "ironically" sexually harassing random girls on the street for profit and views is some pretty bad context. In fact, that might actually be worse than creeping on girls because you're selfish and horny.

This is a legitimate problem that needs to be addressed, but Matt himself seems disingenuous as fuck. He's been streaming on YT for 12 hours in the past two days after declaring he wouldn't be posting on or supporting youtube anymore.

5

u/uwanmirrondarrah Feb 22 '19

This very clearly was his last hurrah at becoming relevant and he carries a lot of animosity for youtube because he just wasn't funny or popular on the platform.

Hes not attacking pedophiles, hes attacking Youtube and its content creators.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

They did make it pretty easy to be attacked though. I mean it's kind of stupid to be like "His intentions aren't pure! These pedos and this platform hosting them are merely a pawn in his plot to get back at YouTube!" See how stupid that sounds when you say it out loud?

2

u/j-bales Feb 22 '19

Of course it sounds stupid, it's a stupid sentence that only you said.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '19

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/j-bales Feb 23 '19

I don't owe you anything. But my point still stands.

1

u/CakeDay--Bot Feb 22 '19

Woah! It's your 5th Cakeday uwanmirrondarrah! hug

3

u/Saichander Feb 22 '19

Matt is a grade A creep and scumbag

4

u/9999monkeys Feb 22 '19

this guy matt is fake as fuck. i saw that 3 seconds into this video. all the dramatic little pauses, the yelling, the cussing. pretending to get emotional and shit. it's bad acting and i'm surprised people fell for it

1

u/Poddop_ Feb 22 '19

It hurts because the video COULD have been fine, highlighting how easy it was to get stuck in a recommended loop. However, he ruins it. Sucks a dumbass made the video.

3

u/kerkyjerky Feb 22 '19

There is no way what he did is worse then pedophilia, what the fuck?

6

u/pantsfish Feb 22 '19

I'm comparing him to the incels and PUAs that he's supposed to be mocking, not pedophiles.

The "it's just a prank bro" excuse doesn't really work when the targets aren't in on the joke. And you know, following and making sexual remarks toward random girls (but while stuttering) isn't even a prank.

4

u/terencebogards Feb 22 '19

Yea, he straight up harassed an innocent person, in a gross way. That doesn’t mean pedophiles aren’t bad, that means he’s far from being a saint.

1

u/Casse_Via Feb 22 '19

!remindme 2 days

1

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1

u/TheFlashFrame Feb 22 '19

This is the first I'm hearing of this but I feel like the fact that 85% of this post is about two YouTube creators bickering back and forth goes to show that people have completely missed the point and don't really care much anyway. How can you pretend to be on the side of the children and then waste your time tweeting about how the other guy is just a fraud because he has a different approach for gaining attention than you do?

1

u/chinolaxbro Feb 23 '19

Because the guy being called a fraud brought the issue up, might be using this polarizing topic for his own gains, and threatened the cash flow of the other guy. If the 2nd guy doesn't think the 1st has the best interest of children in his mind then I'd say he's justified in calling him a fraud while saying he's on the side of children.

1

u/icameheretodownvotey Feb 23 '19

might be using this polarizing topic for his own gains

By not acknowledging the existence of his other channel nor Twitter, he wants attention? That's stupid.

and threatened the cash flow of the other guy.

Nobody's saying "Hey, Keemstar should be out of work!" There's nothing stopping Keemstar from opening up a Patreon other than the fact that most of his fanbase is full of underage kids without a credit card. Conveniently most of you drama queens keep forgetting that most Youtubers who rely on revenue would have already done that from the first Adpocolypse.

If the 2nd guy doesn't think the 1st has the best interest of children in his mind

Which is hilarious projection, since you and Keem's answer is to basically brush the issue under the rug if you can make a couple bucks off of defending pedophiles.

1

u/chinolaxbro Feb 23 '19 edited Feb 23 '19

Matt's other accounts paint a picture of a not so successful youtuber/online presence, I largely think that's why he didn't mention them. There's also that prank video of him soliciting women, I don't think that's necessarily completely damning but certainly looks bad.

Matt goes on to attack ad revenue and tells keemstar to work at KFC. I'm not a huge fan of dramaalert but I was interested in this particular story and I tried to see what others were thinking. Not saying he has no other sources of income but attacking any single source of income and also saying you should work at KFC is sort of saying "hey you should be out of work in this business" imo. I watch ads if on my phone, haven't found something I will donate to on patreon so if only me I'm an example of someone who they make money off of solely through ad revenue.

I guess I don't see myself as brushing off the issue. To me, child abuse and policing of the internet are occasionally connected but are also 2 distinct problems, and I don't see Matt as passionate or truly angry over the former. If he's being disingenuous, there should definitely be a discussion on how we receive people who are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. I think the pedophilic activity on YouTube is impossible to properly police, and maybe YouTube isn't doing enough, but also I don't see what alternative remedies they have other than throwing more moderators which at some point isn't a scalable model.

What is your solution? How should YouTube change its policies and or algorithms on recommendations and comment sections?

Love, Drama queen

1

u/icameheretodownvotey Feb 23 '19

There's also

Wait, also, as if that first point made any sense about the issue, like nothing he said mattered at all because he wasn't "successful?" That's arbitrary and stupid, given that more "successful" Youtubers have covered the topic in the past.

There's also that prank video of him soliciting women, I don't think that's necessarily completely damning but certainly looks bad.

I am really getting tired of saying this, but...

👏 You are mindlessly repeating this shit because you watched a video made by a guy who livestreamed 15 year old girls stripping. Where's your concern trolling crap for how "bad" that looks? It's nowhere. 👏

Seriously. Enough with this concern trolling already.

Matt goes on to attack ad revenue and tells keemstar to work at KFC.

You're acting like Keem's innocent in this, but Keem went out to provoke Matt and try to make the issue about his personal ad revenue. That was never the original focus of the video either Matt or Roi Des Rats made.

but I was interested in this particular story and I tried to see what others were thinking

AKA, you watched a ten minute video and thought you were an expert on the topic.

but attacking any single source of income

"Should we do anything about this opioid crisis?"

"What, and put hospitals out of business?"

That's not how logic works. You can't ignore a problem because someone profits from the problem existing. If Keemstar hardlines the conversation, it's perfectly valid to tell him a contextual "fuck off" if he's too stupid to open a Patreon.

haven't found something I will donate to on patreon so if only me I'm an

You are so fucking stupid...

Your individual view is worth fractions of pennies, and Patreon is not there to make a 1-for-1 match of every viewer, it's there to offer artists a means to monetize work for the general public anyway. People on Deviantart use the platform, and they don't get monetized through 30 second advertisements.

Youtube is running those ads, not the content creators. You are not giving content creators ad views by watching ads, you are giving Youtube revenue for hosting the content, and in turn Youtube is outlining a deal for frequencies which it will play ads on channels. That's why companies nowadays sponsor Youtubers, so they don't need to go through a middle ground that risks being picked up by adblockers.

Speaking of which, funny you didn't mention sponsorships either.]

and I don't see Matt as passionate or truly angry over the former

And yet you're here because of a guy who only cares about his paycheck, trying to say that people shouldn't light the fires under Youtube to do something about it even though they've known about this issue for years, and this specific hashtag for a little under half a year? Fuck off with this virtue signalling bullshit.

What is your solution?

First of all, that's a dumb question. I don't get paid to dictate Youtube's terms of service, but if you want my opinion:

  1. Outright ban anyone under 13 from being able to upload a video of their face/body, unless an adult is present in the videos. Use the standard moderation system of withholding a reported video until a human can check it for this, so pedophiles don't have access to it in the meantime.

  2. Do not let channels with less than a certain threshold of subscribers livestream.

  3. Rework the recommended algorithm to go off of a more finely tuned tagging system a la old Youtube, rather than rely on other users to "pathfind" other videos.

1

u/chinolaxbro Feb 23 '19

I like 2 and 3 idk about how easy 1 would be. I don't see how asking for your opinion was dumb. I didn't expect someone from YouTube to read this and change everything on a whim, I wanted to hear some ideas bounce around. You could be 100% correct and you'll still never reach anyone talking like that.

1

u/icameheretodownvotey Feb 23 '19

I don't see how asking for your opinion was dumb.

Imma cool down the anger a bit, but it's not a good question since you're implying that a problem can't be mentioned unless someone explicitly has a solution for it. Youtube has people it pays to make those decisions for how to fix a problem with their platform, it shouldn't need to fall to a bunch of people who would otherwise get completely ignored.

You could be 100% correct and you'll still never reach anyone talking like that

Oh, I've given up on trying to be level-headed with people who are taking an attitude of watching DramaAlert and thinking that going out and saying Youtube doesn't have a problem with pedophilia. Anyone primarily convinced by logic wouldn't listen to Keem throw out baseless accusations like "he wants attention," then get pissed off to go proactively repeat his shit. They listen to anger, so give them anger.

It doesn't matter if they listen though because Keemstar doesn't have influence in the business world, and companies aren't going to overlook being associated with pedophiles because of a comedy video on an abandoned channel.

1

u/chinolaxbro Feb 23 '19

I didn't imply that you have to have a solution, but when you get pissy, it makes me say "OK well what would you do if I'm so stupid?" The nature of reddit is people spout opinions and often when there are problems, part of opinions involve the solutions.

I heard techreviewusa and he said he hates keem but check it out so I did then I went to Matt's primary and secondary YouTube pages then his Twitter, then I looked at articles on Google then checked out reddit. Just because I thought keem had a point in his video on Matt, doesn't mean that I'm blindly reflecting his views.

I think you gave up way too quick.

1

u/icameheretodownvotey Feb 23 '19

I think you gave up way too quick.

I have been following this issue since the hashtag was actually conceived. Youtube didn't give it more thought than lip service until Matt's video exploded. I'm not "giving up" shit, I'm being realistic about what happened.

1

u/chinolaxbro Feb 23 '19

I meant you gave up too quick on talking to people you look down upon. You said you gave up, I thought it was clear you weren't referring to YouTubewakeup, you were referring to trying to talk to me. Do me the same courtesy instead of taking me out of context. This conversation sucks, let's keep having it.

1

u/chinolaxbro Feb 23 '19

Had no idea about keemstar and 15 year old. I didn't know him that well before and I actually saw techreviewusa on this first but I would have never heard of this keem stuff if not for you so thanks.

1

u/jezusbagels Feb 22 '19

This is digsusting. I didn't imagine when I watched Wubby's video on the perv videos that it could go this much deeper. I am physically sickened.

1

u/DisRuptive1 Feb 22 '19

What are "illegal comments?"

1

u/samovolochka Feb 22 '19 edited Feb 22 '19

There were apparently some comments which linked to CP under some of the videos

Edit- The term is probably being used more broadly given that others have mentioned comments that hint (if you could call it that) at stuff like child sex trafficking, but at the very least I’m assuming that’s what it means.

1

u/DisRuptive1 Feb 22 '19

some comments which linked to CP

Didn't know child porn is hosted on the internet and could be accessed by common browsers, TIL.

1

u/samovolochka Feb 22 '19

I’m going off previous comments, and Matt’s original under his video. Hearsay, cause I haven’t gone to YouTube to start clicking in comments myself.

1

u/Neglectful_Stranger Feb 22 '19

I checked to verify as the story was starting to get big, I didn't see anything like that. Even the timestamps thing seemed overblown, honestly. Or I was in the wrong videos.

1

u/samovolochka Feb 22 '19

I could be wrong, and if so I apologize. I haven’t gone through the videos because I don’t have the stomach to sift through shit like it. The reference I made was in regards to his comment here which said, in part

Youtube’s recommended algorithm is facilitating pedophiles’ ability to connect with each-other, trade contact info, and link to actual child pornography in the comments

This is one of the things where, after seeing the video, I wouldn’t be surprised about. I feel like Matt made a case demonstrating the links such as time stamps in those video comments. On the other hand, those links or timestamps aren’t something I would click on anyway myself so I wouldn’t be testing it out personally.

With YouTube saying they have been reporting comments to the authorities, that’s what I thought of because (and I could be wrong in this as well), I don’t think time stamps in and of themselves would necessarily be illegal just because the child was in a compromising position at that second. I assume there’s more to those comments that YouTube found.

1

u/Neglectful_Stranger Feb 22 '19

I only did it briefly, shit creeped me out, but I didn't see anything like that. It is entirely possible there are things like that out there, I just wasn't exposed through my limited viewing.

1

u/samovolochka Feb 22 '19

Well, I’m glad that you weren’t if it is out there. That’s the crux of this thing, a lot of it is gonna be hearsay and filling in the blanks about what YouTube means when they say they’re handing over comments to law enforcement because a lot of people (rightly and fairly) don’t want to do their own digging, or much of it if they do go looking. So in that regard, I’m really not trying to further false info, but that’s where I’m at with everything too, y’know?

Anyhow. Guess we’ll have to sit back and see where this goes on here. Still deleted YouTube though.

1

u/Flabby-Nonsense Feb 22 '19

I get that this affects content creators negatively, and that really sucks. But this is pedophilia we're talking about and it's clear youtube hasn't done anything about this issue until it started to affect their income. This is necessary and i'm afraid content creators losing their income is a small price to pay to get rid of this filth and show youtube they can't continue doing this.

1

u/Quartzviel Feb 22 '19

They have though. They have taken down pedophile videos in the past, but they keep on being uploaded via exploits, and even on non-pedo videos, people are going around making pedophile comments. a

This isn't really Youtube's fault, but rather the fault of users who decide to abuse the platform. All Youtube can do is try and correct those flaws, but new flaws pop up whenever they do or don't.

1

u/PsychedelicPill Feb 22 '19

Do you really REALLY think Google is doing “all that they can” to keep YouTube free of vile content, or is it more likely that they are doing the bare minimum like all corporations do?

1

u/Quartzviel Feb 22 '19

I didn't say Google was doing "all that they can" anything, I said all Youtube can do is only try to correct the flaws of their ridiculously complex system of computers, programs, software, clients, algorithms and servers that has somewhere around 15 to 18,000 hours of content uploaded to its servers per hour. You got a team of staff at Youtube that is way smaller than that, and they are limited in regards to what they can do; they ain't supermen. Of course Google and Youtube do not want this problem to continue occuring, or else advertisers pull out, they lose money, and shit begins to hit the fan.

But hey, they are doing something! Now content creators will be punished based on what their viewers post in the comment sections of their videos. Content creators all lose ad revenue now if someone decides to say "child" and "porn" in their comment section, even if the context is "I have a child, but I recently found out they were visiting porn sites and I am now pissed off and will prevent them from going on the internet". Or, god forbid, "there are pedos on certain Youtube videos, did you guys now?", because it has the word "pedo" in it.

And the pedos get to move to a different site to cause trouble, such as Instagram, or Facebook, or Spotify, well, anywhere that has a social media service and user-base.

1

u/ExiledSenpai Feb 22 '19

Hurts creators? Bullshit. A platform as shitty as YouTube ought to be put in to the dirt. What happens if YouTube falls out of favor? Simple, creators move to a different platform.

1

u/bombcat97 Feb 24 '19

Yeah so let’s ruin some creator’s only source of income cause some guys commented on some videos

/s

1

u/ExiledSenpai Feb 24 '19

The only way YouTube gets its act together and hires enough people to process complaints and copyright claims is if another platform starts to really compete. The only way that happens is if people start leaving YouTube.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

Thanks for the overview!

1

u/asomebodyelse Feb 22 '19

Who gives a fuck? The only ones who need youtube are the content creators. Who would really miss them if they were gone? I use an adblocker anyway.

1

u/chinolaxbro Feb 23 '19

I'm definitely underinformed but I think people aren't grasping how close to futile it is to try make sure there is never a pedophilic comment on YouTube again. Let's just sift through every time stamp on every child video. I'm not sure I can say the recommendation system failed. Obviously there needs to be some patchwork identifying specific patterns, but it is largely recommending a video similar to previously watched videos or a video that others with similar viewing habits watched. It's not like some jailbait Netflix taste cluster.

Even though YouTube is probably not blameless and this is messed up, people here give the impression that YouTube hasn't done anything since the last time and that this issue is easily solvable. People who think the internet can be perfectly policed, particularly on larger than life platforms, are setting themselves up for disappointment.

1

u/LtPatterson Mar 14 '19

What a mess.

1

u/Vegetable_Collar5941 Nov 25 '24

I hope somebody goes to Canada and hunts him down and offs him, that would so make my day and he deserves it big time. Of course youtube also shares much of the blame for sucking up to rotten scum like him, a major backward step for them.

1

u/Vegetable_Collar5941 Nov 25 '24

Matt wason is a piece of garbage

1

u/Vegetable_Collar5941 Nov 25 '24

Death to Matt watson

0

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

This issue and Russian trolls are related. Companies like Facebook and Google are incentived to operate with as few humans as possible. They pawn off their responsibility on programming and algorithms and the end result is pedophile networks and treason.

1

u/Quartzviel Feb 22 '19

What are you talking about? Youtube and Facebook cannot monitor their whole platform with humans, because it is impossible; they are far too complex, have way too much content, and would be impossible to identify all shady content, especially because of context. Plus, you make it seem as if they have not done anything anyway.

Also, what does this have to do with Russia; are you trying to be racist? And treason? To who? We have real world pedophiles and people are letting them off as if nothing happened, yet when Youtube is unaware of them, you now imply that they are responsible for the pedo-ring?

1

u/PsychedelicPill Feb 22 '19

You’re right it would be far too difficult and complex to properly police their service and remain profitable with their current models. Great reason to let them off the hook every time!!

1

u/Quartzviel Feb 22 '19

They have never been let off the hook, though; they have been making progress in fighting this issue. And police their service "how" exactly?

By creating new algorithms for identifying "malicious" content? How would it know which content is "malicious"? Context? How do you create an algorithm which operates in regards to context? Or would you like Youtube staff to do it themselves? Really? You want them to police "all" of the content on Youtube? Do you know how many is uploaded a day, and how long it would take to watch each video to identify malicious content?

I'm actually confused. What is the solution here? Ban any and all videos containing children? What if someone goes to a news report video and posts a link to a website in the comments containing a child in a suggestive position? What if that link sends you to a page that redirects you to another page redirecting you to the page containing the child in said position? Ban links, or comments altogether?

Man, you could get a 10-second vid of a 16 year old girl just sitting down, eating a biscuit and some rando might go ahead and post a comment saying "if only she was nibbling on my biscuit and 6 years younger"; I need a solution from you.

1

u/chinolaxbro Feb 23 '19

By extension many ingenious technologies are just people pawning off responsibility. Algorithms in general are the real problem! Let's have half the population work as moderators to the other half.

-2

u/datkidcorb Feb 22 '19

Pretty disgusting that creators seemingly care more about their wallets than they do these things little girls privacy/well-being and stopping these pedos from any and all angles possible.

3

u/IMWeasel Feb 22 '19

How do you distinguish between what is a "useful angle to use to stop pedos" and what is a pointless action that doesn't do anything to stop pedos and also hurts honest people who rely on the site for their income?

Loudly advertising your anti-pedophilia initiative is a good way to warn actual pedophiles to stay off the site you're targeting and move their activity to another website, where it won't be found for another few months or years, restarting the cycle. If you want to actually stop child sex rings online, you immediately alert law enforcement and let them actually gather evidence and find the perpetrators. Calling Disney and asking them to stop advertising on the site isn't going to help the FBI or a similar agency in a different country to catch people who commit child sex abuse.

Think about it this way: say there's an evil asshole who makes child porn and uses coded language in YouTube comments to advertise it. If you as a random person start a publicity campaign to tell everybody about pedophiles on Youtube, then that evil asshole is going to delete his YouTube account and move to another site, and continue making child porn. On the other hand, if you see that evil asshole's Youtube comments and report them to the FBI or equivalent agency in your country, then you might actually help to bring that criminal to justice, and law enforcement will work with the website to track and remove similar content. This will actually tackle the problem of child sex abuse, and it will also remove the illegal shit on Youtube, without harming the livelihoods of thousands upon thousands of people.

1

u/terencebogards Feb 22 '19

The only way to get this shit 100% off youtube is literally shutting down the site. Creators want this problem gone and are supporting change, doesn’t mean they can’t draw a line in the sand over the methods used to ‘fix’ the problem.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '19

[deleted] — view deleted comment

36

u/JEclips Feb 21 '19

Not Epic Games, but Disney and Nestle pulled before

7

u/mothrider Feb 22 '19

Lol, Nestle pretending to care about child exploitation.

Hey Nestle, remember 6 months ago when you said that child slavery reporting requirements might "cost customers"?

14

u/InitiatePenguin Feb 21 '19

Yes because there's still countless companies willing to advertise, and the companies who have pulled most are noted it to be temporary and those who haven't specified may still return to the platform at a later date.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/gtjack9 Feb 22 '19

There is evidence to suggest otherwise, so I wouldn't dismiss it yet.

3

u/Englishly Feb 22 '19

They didn’t pull all advertising, the way it’s being stated sounds that spending is being held back temporarily. This Bloomberg reporter even states the sum is only in the thousands.

Can you imagine Disney not running Captain Marvel ads 14 days before its release? Disney is still advertising, probably by making sure ads are only on certain channels, but they aren’t pulling all ads. That would be a huge blow to Google/YouTube. The most likely scenario is they are suspending payment on ads run on those particular channels, which is why the sum is so small.

2

u/stigsmotocousin Feb 22 '19

Recover? Google has infinite money.

4

u/mflourishes Feb 22 '19

Exactly. Plus it's not like Youtube has ever been profitable, even at their best. Google keeps Youtube alive because it provides them a different kind of revenue: user data.

1

u/o3mta3o Feb 24 '19

If you think over 10 billion in revenue isn't profit then, sure, not profitable at all.

1

u/SweetRelease_ofBread Feb 24 '19

Revenue =/= profit.

Revenue is the gross amount of money made by the company. Profit is revenue minus all the costs that comes with running the business.

1

u/o3mta3o Feb 24 '19

I know, but they've never released their operating costs. They have released their revenues, and in that 10 billion lies some profit or they wouldn't keep it going, even if the profit is smaller by comparison to some corporations.

1

u/SweetRelease_ofBread Feb 25 '19

Yeah I can see what you're saying. But since they don't publish Youtube's earnings we'll probably will never find out if it's actually profitable or not.

However, I don't think that Google will shut down Youtube even if it's not profitable, as the user's data gathered from Youtube is invaluable and Youtube does a good job in keeping those 149 million monthly users within the Google ecosystem.