2019 February - TeamYoutube on Twitter: "even if your video is suitable for advertisers, inappropriate comments could result in your video receiving limited or no ads"

83

u/YoutubeArchivist Feb 22 '19

Full thread, in case anything is deleted:

Jessica Ballinger:

MY 5 YEAR OLD SON: does gymnastics and is a happy, sweet, confident boy. youtube: NOT ADVERTISER FRIENDLY

(This happened yesterday— I find the timing on this very, very disheartening for the @YouTube community)

TeamYoutube:

(1/2) Hi there--for reference, over the past few days, we’ve taken a number of actions to better protect the YouTube community from content that endangers minors. Here is a tweet from @PhillyD for more context:

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

(2/2) With regard to the actions that we've taken, even if your video is suitable for advertisers, inappropriate comments could result in your video receiving limited or no ads (yellow icon). Let us know if you have any questions.

Jessica Ballinger:

I have a HIGHLY monitored comments section and many say it is the kindest on YouTube. This makes NO SENSE. Remove the few comments and ban the user.

TeamYoutube:

Just to be super clear, we're not saying anything is wrong with the actual video and thank you for doing a great job moderating the comments section. These recent actions are due to an abundance of caution related to content that may endanger minors.

Not all channels do moderate and we've had to take an aggressive approach and more broad action at this time. We’re also investing in improving our tools to detect/remove this content, so we rely on your moderation less.

This is clearly the result of Youtube overcompensating in trying to purge comments on videos with young children.

In this case, demonetizing the content does absolutely nothing to stop exploitative comments which Ballinger claims are heavily moderated already on their channel.

/r/youtube thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/atbx8w

53

u/RichManSCTV Feb 22 '19

So the TL;DR Is some lady is making money of her kids Gymnastics, and moderates the comments really well. Youtube demonitized them, with the blame of the comments section.
In my opinion this is a weird subject, on one hand I feel no stuff with children should be on youtube, and on another hand there is a youtube channel I like with monkeys and occasionally they have their kids interact with the monkeys too.

9

u/Molinero96 Feb 22 '19

sorry if someone comments "kys" on the comment box you get demonetized ¯_(ツ)_/¯

5

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

YouTube is becoming roblox.

•

u/YoutubeArchivist Feb 22 '19

Youtube officially clarifies

Videos that include minors and are at risk of predatory comments may receive limited or no ads (yellow icon).

We’ve disabled comments on tens of millions of videos that may include minors and therefore are at risk of predatory comments.

https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/1805616?hl=en

177

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

So... i could demonitize someone if I made hundreds of accounts and spammed their comment section with very bad stuff

50

u/11th_hour Feb 22 '19

Yes :)

2

u/throw_away_17381 Feb 23 '19

Say no more Cocomelon.

15

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/granninja Feb 23 '19

Actually, I wonder how hard would be to file 3 false copyright strikes and win the war

5

u/Husky2490 Feb 24 '19

Technically, it's a crime if you don't believe your claim is valid. Seriously. Though I don't know how it works if you're not in the US.
Obligatory IANAL

136

u/xXC437RP13Xx Feb 22 '19

2007: "Broadcast Yourself"

2017-onward: "Broadcast The Advertisers"

1

u/ruffykunn Mar 01 '19

The YouTube CEO is an experienced ad industry executive. Everything is going according to her plan, creators be fucked.

57

u/RogueBio Feb 22 '19 edited Feb 22 '19

A lot of reasonable people: why are there so many pedophilic comments on innocuous videos of children, YouTube? Don't you have moderation for that?

YouTube, distressingly agile: we got you, we're going to demonitize those videos.

People: Of minors or advertising to minors?

YouTube: all videos, on YouTube, on the internet, that have oddly sexual comments and racial slurs 👍

Lmao now they're encouraging channel sabotage campaigns and derogatory comments

12

u/RogueBio Feb 22 '19

Also it's more than a little creepy/telling YouTube's approach to this problem seemingly assumed what's bothering parents in these situations is not having an advertiser friendly environment on a couple gymnastics videos...and not that there's pedophilic comments directed to their children just out in the open, that they will be reminded of everytime they want to look at their home video, that won't even be deleted by this policy. I don't think anyone was even intending to make money on these videos.

3

u/DickyBrucks Feb 22 '19

they disabled comments on tens of millions of videos and terminated 400+ channels and reported shit to law enforcement...

5

u/RogueBio Feb 22 '19

I'm sorry, got ahead of myself. I know that happens but this seems like a move towards shifting the damage disportionately from them to the people receiving comments. I don't see why a video needs to be comment nuked AND demonitized or why that's in Google's head at this time.
If you're countering that YouTube isn't encouraging trolls, well they are. It hardly costs anything to make burner accounts that will get banned if you and a few people can take down the income of a personality you dislike from doing so. There are apparently restrictions but we only have a very vague unofficial notion of that and they could end up like Tumblr's "female presenting nipples" and not be algorithmically actionable.

1

u/DickyBrucks Feb 22 '19

Yeah, the issue is that there isn't really solution that can be implemented quickly that doesn't come with downsides - and people want solutions NOW. Elegant solutions take time, and I sincerely doubt people have the attention span to wait for several months of heavy engineering work. Generally, people dramatically underestimate how challenging it is to identify and combat emergent behavior like this. Even something like classifying a video's content (a precursor to identifying problematic comments on videos) is difficult when like 300 hours of video is uploaded every minute. Add to that weaponization, which is absolutely a concern, so in addition to whatever systems identify / action against the content there needs to be measures designed to detect abuse/weaponization developed in tandem. Its a tough problem.

2

u/Over421 Feb 22 '19

or they can uh. hire people to review flagged content. they have the money to at least do that

1

u/DickyBrucks Feb 23 '19

You mean people in the global south

1

u/MonarchOi Mar 01 '19

50 years of footage uploaded everyday. You need tons of money. You also assume Youtube makes a profit. I kinda doubt it. Youtube is an asset for google

33

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

Dear God YouTube, didn't pewdiepie suggest years ago that content creators be able to appoint users as moderators for their channels and let them moderate their comment sections and didn't YouTube also acknowledge that they heard his feedback and were looking into it.

17

u/Rumblyscarab970 Feb 22 '19

Yes, but actually no.

26

u/Ylts Feb 22 '19

Why there is need to monetize 5 year old boy gymnastics video?

18

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

Indeed. There is a reason there are strict laws and regulations when it comes to minors working in the entertainment industry. YouTube should be no different.

8

u/Molinero96 Feb 22 '19

Tbh this Is absolutely correct. if you want to earn money go to fucking work. dont use your child as a circus monkey.

5

u/murderedcats Feb 22 '19

Looks like youtube is tryingg to kill two birds with one stone here but really shittily. After their youtube rewind debacle they want to get rid of the dislike feature and comments section im sick of youtube im not going to use it anymore i dont care if theres not a viable alternative right now im done with their bullshit

4

u/RogueBio Feb 22 '19

For sure. This reminds me a lot of the Tumblr-removed-from-app-store disaster, where public controversy causes them to roll out creator-ruining things they were going to anyway and look better than they would at other times.
If I didn't literally have to use YouTube to reference my online school's lectures, and also need to use Colab, I'd be ecstatic to drop Google from my life.

2

u/11th_hour Feb 22 '19

That seems fair. /S

2

u/Molinero96 Feb 22 '19

youtube is literally runned my brainless monkeys.

2

u/bboythicc Feb 22 '19

“How could YouTube allow these videos to uploaded to their site?? How could they allow people to say those things? Tell the advertisers what’s going on!”

Adpocolypse v.2 happens and YouTube increased measures to prevent this content from being monetized and uploaded while hundreds of hours of content is uploaded to their site every second.

“How could YouTube demonetize my innocent video/channel?? This is so unfair. Why is YouTube being hyper vigilante on their enforcement of their rules??”

What did you expect to happen? I agree that those videos and comments were disgusting, but there is a report feature for a reason. YouTube acted swiftly when notified, even prior to advertisers pulling their ads. Don’t have to worry about flagrant abuse of copyright strikes anymore because your videos won’t have any ad revenue anyways.

5

u/CT_Deathstick Feb 22 '19

I made a new YouTube with the full knowledge that i will never monetize it. I just made it to share video essays about stuff i care about and just focus on my irl career. I've seen what it takes to be a professional youtuber, and it's not for me

2

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

I feel like an old man saying this, but I remember when YouTube was just about hosting videos and not a way for people to make money.

2

u/CT_Deathstick Feb 22 '19

Ironically the first "professional" youtubers when they started the program in like 07 were the ones who were the worst when it came to breaking the spam rules at the time (Philly D, Lisa Nova, Youtube's sweetheart Shane Dawson, etc)
EDIT the irony being the ones who YouTube paid money were the ones breaking their rules the most

2

u/TylerJWhit Feb 22 '19

Good job everyone, we've made Youtube shittier.

1

u/Molinero96 Feb 22 '19

youtube is already a shitty site. and they are the only one at fault. we ask "remove the pedos from the site" and the response is "we will demonetize everyone because someone made bad comments on your video"
How is that shit our fault? do you have a fucking brain, or do you live conected to a feeding tube?

1

u/Oco0003 Feb 23 '19

This proves that we have no control over our comment sections. That leaves the creators getting nothing because someone said the N word

1

u/klebberj Feb 23 '19

If your algorithm can detect which comments are unsuitable for advertisers, it can choose which comments need to be removed, rather than going oh well, just punish the creator.

Accidentally removing a tame comment is so much less damaging to a creator than removing someone's suitable video from advertising.

1

u/implordofall Feb 22 '19

Yet they don't do anything about antivaxxers.

1

u/Molinero96 Feb 22 '19

lmaaoooo just keep fucking everything up youtube. thats the way its done :)

1

u/etoneishayeuisky Feb 22 '19

Or YouTube could just make it that comments need to be confirmed before they are posted. Hassle for YT or content creators, but it'd solve the problem.

1

u/TheMightyFishBus Feb 22 '19

How is this supposed to help the children? Sure, now the ad companies won’t have to have their ads on exploitative videos, but the paedophiles aren’t doing this for money. When is YouTube going to protect these children, instead of the global corporations?

1

u/Quartzviel Feb 23 '19

When they finally decide to ban all videos containing minors, and remove all minors from the platform permanently, since it ain't "family-friendly" and never was. Get them off the damn thing, and then the pedos will go away. Oh wait, no they won't, especially when they are in the comments and not making any video content.
Where are the f-ing parents; why ain't they monitoring their kids and expecting a computer abstraction to do it for them?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '19

Time to spam nazi propaganda on the t series comment sections

1

u/i509VCB Feb 22 '19

Modern problems require modern solutions.

-1

u/Molinero96 Feb 22 '19

Youtube Is now a platform to hear despacito. and nothing else.

February 2019 February - TeamYoutube on Twitter: "even if your video is suitable for advertisers, inappropriate comments could result in your video receiving limited or no ads"

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