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Suspect in YouTube Shooting Angry That Her Videos Had Been 'De-Monetized'

201 points by uptown 9y ago

sqdbps 9y ago
The media’s part in this: For whatever reason they started scouring youtube for “controversial” videos checking if they had ads (no matter how little views they had) then they would contact the advertisers for comment. Advertisers would initiate damage control and pull their ads from youtube. Youtube would explain that the numbers and views in question are insignificant and that this type of complex system can never be 100% error free but they reluctantly imposed restrictions. After successfully manufacturing a story and gaining attention and traffic reporters continued scouring and contacting advertisers forcing youtube to enact tougher restrictions. They then would extended the coverage to the anger in the youtube community and how it’s tough for them out there with all the latest policy changes. Rinse, repeat; keep reporting on any video you find disagreeable no matter how little views it has. . . . Be sure to remind youtube of their power and responsibility after tragedy strikes.
- hliyan 9y ago
  The irony is that reporters themselves are driven by advertising pressure. I'm fond of saying that "any premise that can attract eyeballs will eventually appear as an article on an ad-revenue-driven website".
  - NetOpWibby 9y ago
    Hah! Ain’t that the truth.
  - amelius 9y ago
    > The irony is that reporters themselves are driven by advertising pressure. I don't see the irony. Perhaps they are just saying "my content is better, that ad-money belongs to me!"
  - Kattywumpus 9y ago
    I will cite this as "Hliyan's Law" from now on.
  - tootie 9y ago
    That law is not absolute since reporter's value is ostensibly tied to their reputation and credibility.
- Simulacra 9y ago
  That's a very good analysis. You could apply that to just about anything in the news these days. What would you say are the worst organizations at manufacturing news?
  - guelo 9y ago
    Breitbart, Infowars, The Blaze, Fox News, Drudge.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      You forgot the Whitehouse.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - bmarquez 9y ago
      Drudge is simply an aggregator that links to sites like CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, Fox, AP, etc. Better to name the individual sites directly.
    - NeonVice 9y ago
      The bad actors are only on one side of the political debate?
  - banned1 9y ago
    CNN, MSNBC, mainly
    - timkpaine 9y ago
      that sweet, sweet koolaid
      - nailer 9y ago
        I dislike Donald Trump, but, for example the CNN fish feeding story (CNN zoomed into an existing video, to obscure the Japanese president dumping their box of fish food, then zoomed out to show Trump dumping his, and made up a story about Trump commiting a faux pas by dumping his first) is provably false, and still up on CNN's site with no retraction or apology. Likewise The Gaurdian's headline about the 'unarmed' guy with a gun is his car, which they were forced to retract by the PCC.
- Klathmon 9y ago
  This is absolutely a "no-win" situation in my mind. Everyone is acting in their best interests, and in many cases are acting benevolently, but the outcome is still awful. Obviously YouTube is going to cave to advertiser pressure and start to restrict what videos can have ads, their whole existence depends on it, and if I worked at YouTube i'd see demonetizing some videos as a welcome alternative to closing the whole thing down. I don't blame the advertisers one bit from wanting to remove their ads from many videos. Once the media starts playing the game that "an ad on the video == the advertiser agrees with the message" I too would want to do everything I can to ensure that I'm not associated with bad things. Media outlets are (in many cases) just trying to report on things. They are (correctly) pointing out how many users and creators are upset with YouTube's moves in this case, and how many advertisers are upset about being associated with "bad" videos. Obviously there are things that each group can do better (YouTube could stand up to the Advertisers a bit more, Advertisers could push back on the notion that "an ad == approval", and the media could stop trying to "stir up" controversy), but in each case the thing that is better for society is worse for that group (at least in the short term). I can absolutely see an alternate universe where people are boycotting Coke because they allow their ads to run on gun videos, or where YouTube ends up losing out to even more money because they won't enact more strict rules about which videos can have ads. I don't know the answer here, but it's obvious that the current "solutions" aren't working.
  - DanAndersen 9y ago
    Scott Alexander's essay "Meditations on Moloch" is relevant here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ The no-win situation you describe is a prime example of "Moloch."
    - hvass 9y ago
      This is fantastic. Thanks for sharing.
  - ep103 9y ago
    Everyone is acting in their best interest, except youtube. Youtube has a product team, its their job to come up with solutions to problems like these. If they haven't found a solution, they haven't done their job. Full stop.
- SlowRobotAhead 9y ago
  >For whatever reason Anyone that’s been paying attention knows the reason. If you can’t attack free speech, make that speech too expensive. All of the recent controversial issues have one side scrambling to publicly list advertisers - see the March Against Guns tweets about who has deals with NRA or advertises on Fox News. It’s a horrible tactic that’s very much mob censorship.
  - rhcom2 9y ago
    They don't have the right to talk about who is supporting groups they disagree with?
    - twoodfin 9y ago
      Of course they have the right to, but they also should value the open exchange of ideas in society, regardless of what's written in the Federal constitution. That open exchange is hard to have when folks on one side attempt to destroy the livelihood of the folks on the other side rather than argue their ideas directly.
    - bilbo0s 9y ago
      It's a little humorous, as it really does indicate that the people who are complaining that their free speech is being attacked, are themselves, attacking free speech. I'm not sure any of the people arguing points and counterpoints in our society's current free speech debate really value free speech? I think it'd be a bit more accurate to say that these people value THEIR speech and freedom, not really the speech and freedom of others.
      - banned1 9y ago
        Bingo! Think Antifa or the students protesting someone at school and not letting them speak.
        bilbo0s 9y ago
        Your comment does illustrate my point. YOU value the free speech of whoever is speaking, but not that of the counter protesters. Who themselves value THEIR free speech, but not that of whoever is speaking. It's an intractable problem really.
- alexc05 9y ago
  > Be sure to remind youtube of their power and responsibility after tragedy strikes. To be clear - they aren't actually responsible for an active shooter showing up on campus. It sounds like you're saying they could have some responsibility in someone coming to their office with a gun.
  - ivl 9y ago
    I'm fairly certain they were including that in the media's reaction and participation in this.
  - sqdbps 9y ago
    Of course not. I'm referring to hints of victim blaming in the media: https://www.recode.net/2018/4/4/17196704/youtube-susan-wojcicki-controversial-monetization-changes-shooter https://www.recode.net/2018/4/4/17196704/youtube-susan-wojci...
  - deftnerd 9y ago
    While they're not directly responsible, the problem was entirely of their making. They created a whole new profession (even my 8-year-old son wants to grow up to be a "professional youtubber") and then arbitrarily destroy careers. The created an environment where people could work hard to create their own destiny while giving themselves the ability to destroy those destinies without cause or recourse. It was only a matter of time until one of those furious victims took up a gun to get revenge.
    - tclancy 9y ago
      >It was only a matter of time until one of those furious victims took up a gun to get revenge. [citation needed, God help us all]
    - danso 9y ago
      So basically every company who has ever laid off or fired an employee should expect at some point to fall victim to a mass shooting?
- bertil 9y ago
  I get how that gets some channel into trouble: politics, guns. Than channel was apparently a Iranian-American vegan animal rights activist. I’m not a vegan, but I don’t see the point in opposing them. Other than the banter about how in-your-face they can be, do people violently oppose vegans, or animal rights activists? She was upset over a workout video being age-gated: who would oppose that video?
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    There is something very ironic about a person that is supposedly so careful about animal rights that they will change their diet to relieve the pressure who at the same time has no problems in bringing a gun into the offices of a free service and shooting random strangers.
    - patcheudor 9y ago
      Not really. It's common to support animal rights while despising humans. This is especially true amongst those who subscribe to the more fringe animal activism groups that as an example free animals used for medical or cosmetic testing from their 'evil human captors'.
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        They'll be shocked when they realize we too are animals.
        gowld 9y ago
        Jacques, you are smarter than that. WWII Allies killed Nazis to save humans. They weren't shocked to realize that Nazis were humans.
        jacquesm 9y ago
        The de-humanization of both Nazi's from the allied perspective and the Jews from the Nazi perspective is well documented. So yes, that's exactly how it was.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Sure the media played some part but really it seems to fall more on youtube to me. Youtube used to be a steady source of basically reliable income if you had 'made it.' So people flock to the platform, start producing tons of content and basically link their lives not just to the platform of youtube but to the job of video maker. This works out great for youtube, no real competition ever rises up because it can't buy away the big hitters, then once youtube has true, lasting dominance they begin to squeeze the people that got them there, they pay less, they start restricting content and worse as a content creator you can see other big channels getting away with what is prohibited to you. Youtube basically becomes the worst, most arbitrary boss at a piece work, gig economy crap job. And the creators have nowhere to go because all the competition was crushed long ago. That type of systematic degradation always pushes some people beyond the edge but because internet companies are disconnected from their users/workers they've mostly been able to ignore these side effects. This woman's act is horrific but it's also illustrative of the effects these companies actually have on people's lives.
- watwut 9y ago
  > Be sure to remind youtube of their power and responsibility after tragedy strikes. I don't think they have any responsibility for the shooting. None at all. Whether the videos were demonetized rightfully or not.
- clairity 9y ago
  that's a plausible narrative but where is the research thst shows this is an actual problem?
- DanAndersen 9y ago
  One possible way out of the trap is for regulation to acknowledge and classify these massive social media and content delivery platforms like YouTube and Facebook as the new version of the public square. One of the big issues with the demonetization on YouTube is that it's a binary flag -- either "acceptable content for advertisers" or "unacceptable for advertisers." As if advertisers were a single block with a single set of values! When YouTube is not under an obligation to act as the virtual-public-square (because "they're a private company"), then they are especially vulnerable to defining that "acceptability" either by internal ideological conformity, or by external ideological pressure. Part of the concept of "free speech" (as a doctrine, not just as 1A legal structure) is that it allows for a society where the distinction of "I don't agree with this but someone out there might and so it's OK for it to exist" is a distinction that is possible. Without that, we're left with a world in which expression has to be mediated by the approval/whims of external forces for it to be present. Whatever strange, fringe things this person was having as YouTube videos, I'd be willing to guess there's some fringe company out there who wouldn't care if they were advertised on those videos. Think of the kinds of advertisers 4chan, Infowars, or adult websites get. Their standards don't fit into a generic mold of "acceptability." But if someone was a video creator who wanted to court such advertisers, what kind of audience would they even be able to build without access to the de-facto public-square that YouTube is? I don't know how to get there from here. But I think a more healthy ad-revenue model would somehow have YouTube saying "OK, these mainstream videos are able to be monetized by mainstream ads from companies A B and C, while these fringe/controversial videos can be monetized by whatever companies X Y and Z want to."
  - speeder 9y ago
    This person videos weren't even strange or fringe... The attacker videos seemly were mostly about exercising, vegan diet, and some lighthearted videos... AFTER demonetization, seemly some videos with criticism about Youtube and US, saying that Iran (her home country) had more free speech than US, showed up.
    - wwwdonohue 9y ago
      From saved screenshots of her YouTube channel, she'd put up/shared videos of really violent animal cruelty. Animals being skinned alive/boiled, etc. Somehow I don't think it was the workout videos that were the most offensive to YouTube.
- simion314 9y ago
  YouTube is not transparent about it's algorithm, this produces a lot of frustration because of uncertainty. The algorithm also seems very poor implemented, like it should give the benefit of the doubt, like if I have 10 wrongly flagged videos that a human decided it is advertising friendly then mark my channel as "trusted" and don't allow the AI to de-monitize the video , flag it and have a human check it. In the present the algorithm is favorable to YouTube and advertisers and creators suffer.
- amelius 9y ago
  The words "demonetize" and "demonize" look remarkably similar.
- meddlepal 9y ago
  21st century reporters or "journalists" as they like to be called seem to be the equivalent of schoolyard tattletales. The death of traditional media and "news" cannot happen soon enough.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Be careful what you wish for.
- blarneystun 9y ago
  It's interesting how algorithmic the process of fabricating ( real or fake ) news has become.
- rdtsc 9y ago
  At the end of the day it is still a private company and if it wants to censor or otherwise supress certain types of content it is free to do so. Everyone is also free of course to criticize it for bias and/or use another video sharing site. Also I don't see the last part about their responsibility in the shooting. Had this been a gun (2nd Amendment) fanatic whose gun demo videos were banned, like many on Reddit prematurely guessed, I don't think anyone would be saying " youtube is responsible for this". Now that it is a woman and she was pro-animal rights suddenly the blame is starting to shift towards YouTube, gun laws, society in general.
- orasis 9y ago
  What’s with all of the conspiracy theory type comments on HN lately?
- nullifidian 9y ago
  I'm not an American. The fact that a targeted online advertisement shown before the video is associated with the video and not with the platform, and requires damage control is perplexing and unexplainable to me... "There is no direct relationship between the video and the ad - It's matched by the machinery to the viewer, not to the video." should be the official answer and the end of the story. Is an ad exposure before a "controversial" video any different in its effect compared to "acceptable" video exposure? It shouldn't be. I presume ad-to-video strong association is some kind of established US norm, where you pressure companies to "pull ads" when something offends you. Not being able to pull ads in a targeted manner is unacceptable I suppose, and that great American institution of pulling ads is "ought to be preserved". Also I don't understand why Youtube went with advertisers' demands -- they have near-monopoly, big coffers and can impose their own rules. Like "You can't dictate at the start of which particular video your ads are shown, only the demographics and some keywords". The current set of rules is giving advertizers the power they shouldn't really have. It's as if the ogranization is willing to implement what equals to advertizers moralistic/political policing of content.
  - jmull 9y ago
    Here's the rationale: The advertisement pays for the video. Without the ads to provide money for a given type of video, there will be less of them and they will be less sophisticated. Thus, whether an advertiser likes it or not, they are supporting the video content, albeit indirectly. Also, I don't think advertisers care at all to engage in moralistic or political policing of content. They just want to sell stuff. Being associated with controversial content offends people, which drives away what could otherwise be good paying customers. So they just want to avoid it.
    - nullifidian 9y ago
      >The advertisement pays for the video. Advertisers pay for ad exposures on this platfrom, not for the video. The fact that some money goes not only for infrastructure but also to the creators, should be considered just a side effect of the need to increase viewcounts, and as a result ad exposures. Any attempt to associate particuilar algorithmically matched ads to videos and vice versa should be considered as a powergrab and an attempt at speech policing, IMO. Which is exactly what media fishing for unsightly associations is doing. >Being associated with controversial content offends people, which drives away what could otherwise be good paying customers. I doubt that a controversial video after youtube ads has any significant effect on driving away or attracting paying customers. Your statement requires proof. If viewers willingly choose to watch a video with a controversial topic, it's their choice, and their taste. As for media fishing expeditions "this company's algorithmically matched ad was shown before this controversial video" -- I doubt anyone reads or takes this seriously. At least at youtube video scale. >Also, I don't think advertisers care at all to engage in moralistic or political policing of content. Are you telling me people don't want power? Are you telling me ad and silicon valley companies workforce are not all elite college educated and espause particular political views? Are you telling me humanities departments are not basically training political activists?
- ensignro2340 9y ago
  It’s not the media’s fault. If you’re going to blame anyone - blame the advertisers. They are the ones with the money everyone (YouTube and YouTubers alike) is trying to get their hands on. Unfortunately they are the ones who hold the cards at the end of the day when it comes to their money.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  It wasn't the media that pulled the trigger.
- untog 9y ago
  I guess I'm not seeing where the media's part in this is bad. They're raising legitimate questions about programmatic advertising.
mschuster91 9y ago
I don't sympathize with shooting up a company's headquarters at all, but I feel that this could have been avoided by forcing Youtube (and, for that matter, all other social networks!) to have a way to reach an actual human support. In the end, this is one of the "externalities" that get forced upon society when the big companies decide to cut corners on support. Some will... take matters into their own hands. Be it by spraying racist tweets as graffiti in front of the Hamburg Twitter office or by running amok, when they feel desperate enough. Desperation, especially perceived desperation, drives people to really horrible decisions - and demonetizing all videos of someone who depends on YT income for life is certainly enough to seriously mess with people.
- jimmies 9y ago
  But she said she talked to the support team...
  - meri_dian 9y ago
    She was crazy. I don't think attempts to walk through her thought processes will bear fruit
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
      Everyone can be crazy if pushed in just the right way.
    - aninhumer 9y ago
      Whenever something like this happens, people like to dismiss the situation by saying we can't possibly understand "crazy" people. It avoids having to consider the systemic reasons why something like this can happen. I'd imagine a significant part of it is that we live a society where some people can have their livelihood yanked away from them, with no support structure to help them, leaving them desperate and angry.
      - meri_dian 9y ago
arenaninja 9y ago
Man, I wanted to have a go at making a YouTube competitor, I think there's room for one, but SESTA makes me wary to have any platform that hosts user-generated content EDIT weary -> wary. Thanks wccrawford
- wccrawford 9y ago
  I think you man "wary".
  - sidyapa 9y ago
    I think you meant "meant".
    - wccrawford 9y ago
      Haha. Wow. Yeah, I meant "mean". Ouch.
- bscanlan 9y ago
  Yeh, how hard could it be? Pesky regulation.
- matte_black 9y ago
  Require videos to be approved by a human before being available to the public.
  - sodafountan 9y ago
    I don't think there's enough man hours in the world to accomplish this believe it or not, do you know how many hours of videos per day get uploaded to youtube? edit: Just looked it up because I was curious, 300 hours of video get uploaded per minute to Youtube. That's 18,000 hours of content per hour meaning you'd have to hire that many people to work 24/7 365 days a year non stop just to view every piece of content uploaded to Youtube.
    - 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
detaro 9y ago
earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16751608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16751608
alex_young 9y ago
The monetization of YouTube has created a perverse set of incentives which have in turn driven noise up and signal down. A few years ago videos were generally interesting, or at least authentic, ads were mostly uncommon for non-commercial content, and comments were a cesspool. Today the comments are marginally better, the content is worse, and there are ads everywhere. The focus of many creators isn't creating useful content, but tricking people into watching or playing on the notoriety of making money itself. This unfortunate event probably wouldn't have happened if the system wasn't designed to incentivise controversial posts in the first place.
- daemin 9y ago
  I kind of think/feel that YouTube is turning into regular TV in terms of the content that is on it, if not the delivery. There's a reason that normal TV is bland and mediocre (for the most part), and that's because it has to be inoffensive for the advertisers to put ads next to. Any sort of risque content has very low-value ads next to it, i.e. gambling and penis pills. So for YouTube to profit it has to be seen as having mostly inoffensive content, which will inevitably drive out any interesting and non-mainstream stuff, for better or worse.
wehadfun 9y ago
Zucerberg Hospital http://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-general-hospital-will-be-named-after-mark-zuckerberg-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-general-hospita...
trisimix 9y ago
When the media attacks you for doing something, you should question the repercussions of changing that thing before you do it. Obviously you cant have perfect hindsight, but use some common sense.
- danso 9y ago
  You don't think any thought was put into these decisions?
mtgx 9y ago
The YouTube ad-pocalypse was a set of terrible policy decisions from Google. They demonetized a ton of legitimate YouTube channels in a rush to appease their advertisers. Only after much outcry, did they re-enable the monetization for some of those more popular channels. But many channels remained affected by it. You would think that with all of this talk about "human-beating AI" lately, these things would be better and more precise by now. But they're not. It's almost looks like they've gotten worse. Unwarranted censorship on social media platforms is just as rampant as fake news and manipulation is.
- ensignro2340 9y ago
  “They demonetized a ton of legitimate YouTube channels in a rush to appease their advertisers.” It’s almost as if the money those channels felt entitled to came from advertisers. /s
simonsarris 9y ago
I can't help but think of of the Tunisian guy who was trying to eke out a living, faced his own Arbitrary Machine (the state in this case) and lost, getting de-monetized. Then set himself on fire, more or less starting the "Arab Spring." If you never read of the Tunisian man, from wiki: > Twenty-six-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi had been the sole income earner in his extended family of eight. He operated a vegetable or apple cart (the contents of the cart are disputed) for seven years in Sidi Bouzid 190 miles (300 km) south of Tunis. On 17 December 2010, a female officer confiscated his cart and produce. Bouazizi, who had had such an event happen to him before, tried to pay the 10-dinar fine (a day's wages, equivalent to 7USD). In response the policewoman insulted his deceased father and slapped him. The officer, Faida Hamdi, stated that she was not even a policewoman, but a city employee who had been tasked that morning with confiscating produce from vendors without licenses. When she tried to do so with Bouazizi a scuffle ensued. Hamdi says she called the police who then beat Bouazizi.[35] A humiliated Bouazizi then went to the provincial headquarters in an attempt to complain to local municipality officials and to have his produce returned. He was refused an audience. Without alerting his family, at 11:30 am and within an hour of the initial confrontation, Bouazizi returned to the headquarters, doused himself with a flammable liquid and set himself on fire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisian_Revolution#Mohamed_Bouazizi_and_Sidi_Bouzid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisian_Revolution#Mohamed_Bo... They are obviously not the same, and the Mohamed didn't attack other people, but as people earn a monetary (or just a social) living on more arbitrary platforms, they are conjoining their own fates to these platforms, for better or worse. If you ask Fukuyama, Niall Ferguson, or many historians how to build a non-dysfunctional state, they will tell you that rule of law and property rights matter. Systems that can easily and arbitrarily take away one's living (monetary or social) are not good for society.
- morley 9y ago
  Self-immolation is nowhere near in the same ballpark as taking a gun into an office and murdering a bunch of people. I really don't like the parent article's line of thinking of explaining or justifying this person's act. There are plenty of ways of protesting that don't involve hurting others. And it's mind-boggling that we have to point that out at all today.
elvinyung 9y ago
It's very interesting to me that the shooter was basically a disgruntled user who complained that the platform discriminated against her and filtered her content. I think this and Cambridge Analytica means that we're finally entering an era in which the public is conscientious of the fact that the massive power wielded by "big data" platforms, combined with the lack of transparency, has tangible adverse effects. Hopefully this paves the way for more transparent (and beneficent) visibility into how such data is consumed and used, possibly by using public utility-like regulation [1][2]. [1] https://datasociety.net/events/databite-no-105-k-sabeel-rahman/ https://datasociety.net/events/databite-no-105-k-sabeel-rahm... [2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2986387 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2986387
alehul 9y ago
> "The night before Nasim Aghdam opened fire in a courtyard at YouTube's headquarters Tuesday afternoon, Mountain View police found the San Diego woman sleeping in her car. She had been reported missing by her family in Southern California, and her father Ismail Aghdam told police she might be going to YouTube because she 'hated' the company. Police called the family at 2 a.m. Tuesday to say she'd been found and that everything was 'under control,' her father said." The most noteworthy part of the article to me, granted that this excerpt is taken from a different San Jose news source. Could this have been prevented? Should the father's comments have been enough reasonable suspicion to arrest her, or at least search her for firearms and confiscate them, given her threat level to society? Edit: The replies do offer good points, so thank you! I'm personally a supporter of the Second Amendment as well; it's just heartbreaking, especially if any of the victims die, to know just how close we were to stopping it.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Lone wolf crazies are the hardest to protect against as an open society. Say she was arrested and her gun confiscated. Nothing actually happened, so she'd be out on the street two days later and could go and buy another gun for a retry.
  - salgernon 9y ago
    A mentally ill relative of mine in another state (us citizens here) threatened “to shoot” me in an email and asserted he had a gun. I contacted law enforcement in his area and they picked him up and based on his behavior and statements he was put in a 72 hour psych hold. During this, the police and mental health workers were able to convince him to give up his gun. This was about 6 years ago and as far as anyone knows, he hasn’t re-armed himself. I guess my point: If you have a gun, you may feel justified in using it to solve your problems with violence (suicide or other). If you don’t have a gun, the friction of acquiring one could be sufficient to deter you from trying to get one.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      That's about the best possible outcome. Unfortunately there are also plenty of counter examples where law enforcement was alerted and nothing happened.
jacquesm 9y ago
'De-Monetized' suggests that someone who produces a video has an automatic right to income. That's bonkers, it's already quite a service that Youtube allows you to upload your videos to reach an audience that you'd be hard pressed to serve from your own server. They do this for free. In the previous iteration of such platforms all the ad income would go to the owner of the website, not to the rights owners of the videos. The company then decided to cut the producers of the content in on the advertising income. Some of those have apparently taken this to mean that they have an inalienable right to this income, to the point where they will take out their entitlement complexes on the employees of the company. The terms of service are pretty clear about all this too. If you want control over your content and you want to get all the advertising income associated with your content set up your own bloody server and leave youtube and it's employees alone. On another note: I hate fanatics, no matter of what plumage. Edit: And I hate their apologists as well.
- _delirium 9y ago
  I don't think this kind of reaction is about philosophical "right" to an income from a particular company, more about sudden changes. It's similar to being fired: you previously got an income from this company, then they decided not to give you an income. Some people get angry at that, and sometimes feel desperate, worried about ending up homeless etc. depending on how much they relied on this income and what kinds of safety nets they have access to. Which is all true even if the company was within its rights to fire you. Of course most people who get angry about being laid off don't shoot anyone, but it's unfortunately not really a new story in the US (Google for something like, [laid off employee shooting], and there's dozens of hits).
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Mark Ames wrote a whole book (which I admit I didn't quite finish) with the thesis that you could tie the rise of workplace shootings to an increase in worker precarity.
    - mistersquid 9y ago
stareatgoats 9y ago
Funny how a very complex situation can be synthesized into a single perspective. Is this heading what will become the lasting impression of this tragedy? I can imagine a few other possible and maybe more valid interpretations, none of them exclusive though. (I don't have all the facts so this list should probably balloon, or have items removed as facts unfold): An example of how some people are so triggered by advocacy groups (in this case PETA) that it just takes a slight economic misfortune to bring out the guns? An example of how when the shooter is a woman she is not really demonized the way guys are (even when being an immigrant)? An example of immigrants in the US being pushed over the edge in view of current anti-immigrant policies? An example of how the mentally unstable have ready access to guns in the US? An example of how the final solution to personal insignificance in the US is to shoot innocents? The media will oblige with full page analysis of you, your childhood, family and neighborhood and make sure you are granted long lasting and global fame. There are surely many more that has to be part of the full narrative. That last one is often forgotten though.
- spraak 9y ago
  Are you just extrapolating assumptions here? Because you're saying a lot that hasn't been said. E.g. > An example of how some people are so triggered by advocacy groups (in this case PETA) that it just takes a slight economic misfortune to bring out the guns? They said she was a vegan activist [1], not part of PETA. > An example of how when the shooter is a woman she is not really demonized the way guys are (even when being an immigrant)? Where did it say she's an immigrant? Her parents maybe. [1] I really hope the media doesn't spin the vegan part.
  - stareatgoats 9y ago
    Yes, those are just assumptions more or less, although I'm guessing all those points could be valid aspects of the narrative. Primarily it's just annoying that a complex situation is condensed down to "it's because her videos were 'de-monetized'". It seems you take offense with me singling out the PETA connection however. But it was just an example of how certain advocacy groups are not afraid to stir up hate, PETA is not alone there. I honestly do think it needs to be included in the analysis of these shootings however, but as I said in the original post, not as a single explaining factor and finally; not sure at this point if it is really applicable here.
morley 9y ago
I'm really surprised at how many of these HN comments are so sympathetic to this murderer's cause. To me, this illustrates how dangerous this type of reporting is, this media obsession with the perpetrators of mass shooting. This is the problem that I feel utterly powerless against. You can make more mental health programs, pass more gun control legislation, pay more for security, but what can you do when the culture around you lionizes these sorts of people?
- walshemj 9y ago
  probably shows how concerned people are getting about the monopoly power a tiny number of companies.
- arkades 9y ago
  I largely agree with you. But, about 1% of me, can't help but note that... well, I think there's a reason for people's tendency to give the perpetrator some sympathy. The thing is, we abstract this away into things like "it's not censorship if a private organization declines to monetize the content you freely publish with them," but... let's be clear about what happens here, at the granular ground level: 1) Company creates a space for people to do work that pays their bills. This is for company's benefit as much as theirs. 2) People do that work, pay their bills. Mutual joy. 3) Company suddenly, and apparently arbitrarily, and without adequate communication, yanks people's ability to pay their bills away from them Most people that suddenly and apparently arbitrarily go from "paying my bills" to "holy fuck not paying my bills" flip the hell out. It's like a lay-off, but even more inscrutable and un-appealable. Whatever abstraction is laid upon this at the 10k-foot view, I think people are sympathetic to the fact that YT basically did a really shitty thing to a lot of people (or maybe did a totally not shitty thing in a really shitty way). And, if you do something really shitty to a large number of people, yeah, you run the risk of having done something really shitty to a nutjob. The nutjob isn't a black swan, though: they're an extreme version of the response that a lot of people are having. So, yes, "organization that did really shitty thing to a lot of people accidentally included violent nutjob on list of shit-receivers," doesn't really merit any lionization of the nutjob, but it's hard to ignore the "really shitty thing" aspect of it. Because it's not a black swan - it's just a (much more) extreme version of the same feelings we'd have if we were in their shoes.
ensignro2340 9y ago
I’ve been getting increasingly more annoyed by the entitlement some YouTube creators have shown towards Adsense dollars. And I’m perplexed at some of the comments on this story (“YouTube was her main source of income”). Yeah, she hedged her bet and put all her content on a platform she didn’t own or control, then thought it’d be a good idea to be financially dependent on them facilitating ad deals for her. Many of ya favorite youtubers complain about demonetization - I get it sucks and cuts out cashflow they were expecting but they’re not entitled to money from advertisers. This is like me demanding Facebook pay me for allowing me to put up a profile and running ads in my friends’ newsfeeds. That’s not how the real world works, kiddo. I think way back when YouTube opened up their “partner” program - that was their big mistake. It allowed far too many people to start viewing Adsense $ as earned income.
INTPenis 9y ago
Americans in the comment section are reacting about this woman being a disgruntled user, angry about perceived discrimination from Youtube, down on her luck, suicidal. Me, a european, I'm reacting to how easily she found a gun. I hate to bring up this very toxic debate, my comment will seem like fishing for trouble. Yet you have to understand our perspective. Not every lunatic where I live can find a gun when they need one so to me it's clear as day that the issue is the availability of firearms. There are always going to be disgruntled or unbalanced people but they can't be allowed to find a deadly firearm as easy as it is in the US.
- post_break 9y ago
  If it wasn't a gun it could have been a knife. Or like the epidemic over seas, a bunch of acid thrown on peoples faces. We don't know how she got the gun, but in America, if you have no criminal background, haven't done anything crazy, and they do a background check, you can purchase a weapon. You can't ban crazy, and until we have some way of seeing into the future, you can't stop all crimes. Also, our gun ownership in America has absolutely exploded. Like doubled. And have shootings and killings doubled? Nope.
  - INTPenis 9y ago
    I can't comment on the acid attacks, I doubt they're common. But the knife vs gun argument is also very clear cut to me. It takes very little effort or training to point a barrel and pull a trigger from across several meters or a courtyard. While a knife is actually not so easy to get into an expecting person. The knife would be most effective against unsuspecting persons but once a struggle breaks out it's down to physical strength and training. The knife vs gun thing hits close to home too because one of the very few school rampages performed here by an unbalanced student was actually performed with a sword because that's the only weapon the student was able to put their hands on. Despite being relatively far north in the country where there are more people with hunting licenses. And sure enough I believe they did manage to murder at least one person, it was a teacher or a teacher's aide who defended the other students. But that's where it ended. It requires significant strength and training to go on a killing spree with melee weapons, compared to firearms.
jokoon 9y ago
If monopolies are allowed, the bigger a company is, the increased responsibility it should have. Many of large IT companies deliver free products and services, yet they still make the rules because they are in a monopoly nobody can compete with, because they give it for free. Since it's not their data, they should have tougher restrictions the more data they handle. It's weird because those online platform are thriving thanks to the ideal of free speech, but they are not public entities so free speech doesn't apply to them. It is very frustrating to see private interests seize the tools people use to express themselves. As long as online data rests on private servers which are tied to lucrative interests, the internet will not be a platform where you can freely express yourself. I have always thought that the whole online advertisement model is unhealthy and not a good system to make the internet cheaper for consumers. Ad blockers are a proof of this. If tomorrow firefox or any browser decide to not display ads and consumers go along with it, it would create a big mess.
- pitaj 9y ago
  I am off the opinion that it is precisely because of the backwards copyright policies, namely the DMCA, that YouTube ever became a monopolistic force on the internet.
deleted 9y ago
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zelon88 9y ago
To be fair, it is bullshit that they demonetized peoples accounts without paying them out. Most small YouTubers that monetized their accounts have no other revenue streams with adSense. So when YouTube cancelled their YouTube Partner Program these people wound up with stagnant adSense accounts that were probably below the payout threshold. I tried in vain to get YT to pay out my adSense account because there would be no way for me to ever hit the payout threshold. I tried to explain that there is no difference between holding my money in escrow forever and stealing my money, but the YT reps (who were very unhelpful when I asked for resources to cancel YT Red) largely blew me off and insisted that the money was mine without recognizing that they would never let it out of their possession. It really was a sly trick and not at all in keeping with the "Don't be evil" mantra.
deleted 9y ago
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_bxg1 9y ago
No sane person would argue that what she did was okay. With that disclaimer, I can't help but feel sorry for her. In the unregulated gig/"creator" economy, someone's entire career - not just their livelihood but their life's work - can be wiped out in an instant. In her case it doesn't even sound like it was intentional. An algorithmic blip. That kind of hopeless, pointless loss would make anybody's mental health take a nosedive. It's time the government stops treating the tech giants as neutral, private platforms, and acknowledges how big the pieces of society are which they underpin.
- pg_bot 9y ago
  Explain what you mean by your last sentence.
  - _bxg1 9y ago
    I'm no expert in these matters so I'm not very qualified to give specifics, but roughly: 1) Something modelled after employment regulation to protect people whose full-time income comes from these platforms. There are tons of rules designed to protect employees which services like YouTube and Uber have been dodging (and actively fighting) for years. 2) Something like common-carrier status to protect the users of the most critical platforms (Google search, Facebook, etc.).
    - _bxg1 9y ago
      Regulation comes in when it's necessary to acknowledge, as a society, that the natural forces at play (from the market or otherwise) in some context aren't enough to guard against sufficiently large risks to society's members or ability to function. It has less to do with the nature of the thing being regulated and more to do with the impact it has/can have on society. With that perspective in mind, these platforms have (intentionally) maneuvered themselves into a position where millions or billions of people depend on them for some combination of livelihood and/or basic connection with the world around them. That is what makes them good candidates for regulation.
panzagl 9y ago
So what exactly is the difference between a disgruntled youtuber and a coal miner fighting Pinkertons trying to break their strike? While I'm being facetious, the attitude of 'Oh well, they took away your livelihood sucks to be you' in this thread is kind of how US labor rights have been eroded for the last 40 years.
throw2016 9y ago
This is a weird event, a tragedy even that perhaps could have been averted if someone had spoken to her and calmed her down. But perhaps even then the outcome would have been the same. We can't know. And so must put this down to an individual failing and resist the temptation to seek answers in something larger. No one can deny there is anger and frustration but the sheer scale and volume of content being uploaded hourly means it's simply not viable or even possible for humans to vet with proper support mechanisms, and automated systems are a big hammer that will inevitably leave people feeling helpless and dehumanized.
ekianjo 9y ago
> Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital not on topic, but did not know that the hospital changed name after Zuckerberg made a donation.
bsenftner 9y ago
People need to realize that YouTube and all social media are "person farms" that use the public to create their platform's attractiveness and value. The only purpose of you being on social media is to generate money for the platform, through any means the company can devise with the information you (un)knowingly give them for free. Any platform claiming to pay you (real money or virtual currencies or "likes/points/karma") for activities on their site are creating dependent persons, and for those with less (less economic opportunity, less experience, and less experience with fraud) become unnaturally dependent upon these platforms. It is a shameful scam that moral persons should recognize on sight and shun. But our lack of critical thought today has people wholly unaware of these predators in our society, and the dependent persons they are collecting as economically disadvantaged and unaware slaves.
nearmuse 9y ago
This reminds me of the moment in the earlier years of YT when I realized that production of a lot of the content there I would not even care to scoff at is a real job for those people and "youtuber" is actually their full time job. Now it is a given obviously.
patientplatypus 9y ago
Well... My opinion is going to be unpopular, but...frankly I empathize with the woman. YouTube controls the entire streaming market and there are no legal controls in place to treat their streamers like employees - they're contractors so YouTube can skirt employment laws. Same way Silicon Valley has been making money for years with things like Task Rabbit and Uber - they're not being innovative they're breaking the social contract for profit. And what's the alternative here, other than violence? SV has successfully shown that they can make products that find loopholes in laws faster than laws can be made, and frankly, our political system is broken. I'm not saying the woman was rational in what she did...probably she was acting out of sadness and despair. However, it's not like there exists a rational way of fixing the kinds of problems she has. Like, what is she going to do, sue for lost income? Appeal to the labor relations board? This is what happens when we don't look out for the despairing - they shoot up schools and workplaces.
alexburciu 9y ago
AI kills again.
analognoise 9y ago
If you were silly enough to go "all in" on being a "pro YouTuber" and it failed, do what other businesses do: stop crying, move on. Nobody cares about your need for a platform - nobody owes you a platform for your videos. Can't make a living at it? Get a real job. I can't believe how ridiculous and entitled a lot of these comments are.

201 points by uptown 9y ago

The media’s part in this: For whatever reason they started scouring youtube for “controversial” videos checking if they had ads (no matter how little views they had) then they would contact the advertisers for comment. Advertisers would initiate damage control and pull their ads from youtube. Youtube would explain that the numbers and views in question are insignificant and that this type of complex system can never be 100% error free but they reluctantly imposed restrictions. After successfully manufacturing a story and gaining attention and traffic reporters continued scouring and contacting advertisers forcing youtube to enact tougher restrictions. They then would extended the coverage to the anger in the youtube community and how it’s tough for them out there with all the latest policy changes. Rinse, repeat; keep reporting on any video you find disagreeable no matter how little views it has. . . . Be sure to remind youtube of their power and responsibility after tragedy strikes.

hliyan 9y ago
The irony is that reporters themselves are driven by advertising pressure. I'm fond of saying that "any premise that can attract eyeballs will eventually appear as an article on an ad-revenue-driven website".
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  Hah! Ain’t that the truth.
- amelius 9y ago
  > The irony is that reporters themselves are driven by advertising pressure. I don't see the irony. Perhaps they are just saying "my content is better, that ad-money belongs to me!"
- Kattywumpus 9y ago
  I will cite this as "Hliyan's Law" from now on.
- tootie 9y ago
  That law is not absolute since reporter's value is ostensibly tied to their reputation and credibility.
Simulacra 9y ago
That's a very good analysis. You could apply that to just about anything in the news these days. What would you say are the worst organizations at manufacturing news?
- guelo 9y ago
  Breitbart, Infowars, The Blaze, Fox News, Drudge.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    You forgot the Whitehouse.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - bmarquez 9y ago
    Drudge is simply an aggregator that links to sites like CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, Fox, AP, etc. Better to name the individual sites directly.
  - NeonVice 9y ago
    The bad actors are only on one side of the political debate?
- banned1 9y ago
  CNN, MSNBC, mainly
  - timkpaine 9y ago
    that sweet, sweet koolaid
    - nailer 9y ago
      I dislike Donald Trump, but, for example the CNN fish feeding story (CNN zoomed into an existing video, to obscure the Japanese president dumping their box of fish food, then zoomed out to show Trump dumping his, and made up a story about Trump commiting a faux pas by dumping his first) is provably false, and still up on CNN's site with no retraction or apology. Likewise The Gaurdian's headline about the 'unarmed' guy with a gun is his car, which they were forced to retract by the PCC.
Klathmon 9y ago
This is absolutely a "no-win" situation in my mind. Everyone is acting in their best interests, and in many cases are acting benevolently, but the outcome is still awful. Obviously YouTube is going to cave to advertiser pressure and start to restrict what videos can have ads, their whole existence depends on it, and if I worked at YouTube i'd see demonetizing some videos as a welcome alternative to closing the whole thing down. I don't blame the advertisers one bit from wanting to remove their ads from many videos. Once the media starts playing the game that "an ad on the video == the advertiser agrees with the message" I too would want to do everything I can to ensure that I'm not associated with bad things. Media outlets are (in many cases) just trying to report on things. They are (correctly) pointing out how many users and creators are upset with YouTube's moves in this case, and how many advertisers are upset about being associated with "bad" videos. Obviously there are things that each group can do better (YouTube could stand up to the Advertisers a bit more, Advertisers could push back on the notion that "an ad == approval", and the media could stop trying to "stir up" controversy), but in each case the thing that is better for society is worse for that group (at least in the short term). I can absolutely see an alternate universe where people are boycotting Coke because they allow their ads to run on gun videos, or where YouTube ends up losing out to even more money because they won't enact more strict rules about which videos can have ads. I don't know the answer here, but it's obvious that the current "solutions" aren't working.
- DanAndersen 9y ago
  Scott Alexander's essay "Meditations on Moloch" is relevant here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ The no-win situation you describe is a prime example of "Moloch."
  - hvass 9y ago
    This is fantastic. Thanks for sharing.
- ep103 9y ago
  Everyone is acting in their best interest, except youtube. Youtube has a product team, its their job to come up with solutions to problems like these. If they haven't found a solution, they haven't done their job. Full stop.
SlowRobotAhead 9y ago
>For whatever reason Anyone that’s been paying attention knows the reason. If you can’t attack free speech, make that speech too expensive. All of the recent controversial issues have one side scrambling to publicly list advertisers - see the March Against Guns tweets about who has deals with NRA or advertises on Fox News. It’s a horrible tactic that’s very much mob censorship.
- rhcom2 9y ago
  They don't have the right to talk about who is supporting groups they disagree with?
  - twoodfin 9y ago
    Of course they have the right to, but they also should value the open exchange of ideas in society, regardless of what's written in the Federal constitution. That open exchange is hard to have when folks on one side attempt to destroy the livelihood of the folks on the other side rather than argue their ideas directly.
  - bilbo0s 9y ago
    It's a little humorous, as it really does indicate that the people who are complaining that their free speech is being attacked, are themselves, attacking free speech. I'm not sure any of the people arguing points and counterpoints in our society's current free speech debate really value free speech? I think it'd be a bit more accurate to say that these people value THEIR speech and freedom, not really the speech and freedom of others.
    - banned1 9y ago
      Bingo! Think Antifa or the students protesting someone at school and not letting them speak.
      - bilbo0s 9y ago
        Your comment does illustrate my point. YOU value the free speech of whoever is speaking, but not that of the counter protesters. Who themselves value THEIR free speech, but not that of whoever is speaking. It's an intractable problem really.
alexc05 9y ago
> Be sure to remind youtube of their power and responsibility after tragedy strikes. To be clear - they aren't actually responsible for an active shooter showing up on campus. It sounds like you're saying they could have some responsibility in someone coming to their office with a gun.
- ivl 9y ago
  I'm fairly certain they were including that in the media's reaction and participation in this.
- sqdbps 9y ago
  Of course not. I'm referring to hints of victim blaming in the media: https://www.recode.net/2018/4/4/17196704/youtube-susan-wojcicki-controversial-monetization-changes-shooter https://www.recode.net/2018/4/4/17196704/youtube-susan-wojci...
- deftnerd 9y ago
  While they're not directly responsible, the problem was entirely of their making. They created a whole new profession (even my 8-year-old son wants to grow up to be a "professional youtubber") and then arbitrarily destroy careers. The created an environment where people could work hard to create their own destiny while giving themselves the ability to destroy those destinies without cause or recourse. It was only a matter of time until one of those furious victims took up a gun to get revenge.
  - tclancy 9y ago
    >It was only a matter of time until one of those furious victims took up a gun to get revenge. [citation needed, God help us all]
  - danso 9y ago
    So basically every company who has ever laid off or fired an employee should expect at some point to fall victim to a mass shooting?
bertil 9y ago
I get how that gets some channel into trouble: politics, guns. Than channel was apparently a Iranian-American vegan animal rights activist. I’m not a vegan, but I don’t see the point in opposing them. Other than the banter about how in-your-face they can be, do people violently oppose vegans, or animal rights activists? She was upset over a workout video being age-gated: who would oppose that video?
- jacquesm 9y ago
  There is something very ironic about a person that is supposedly so careful about animal rights that they will change their diet to relieve the pressure who at the same time has no problems in bringing a gun into the offices of a free service and shooting random strangers.
  - patcheudor 9y ago
    Not really. It's common to support animal rights while despising humans. This is especially true amongst those who subscribe to the more fringe animal activism groups that as an example free animals used for medical or cosmetic testing from their 'evil human captors'.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      They'll be shocked when they realize we too are animals.
      - gowld 9y ago
        Jacques, you are smarter than that. WWII Allies killed Nazis to save humans. They weren't shocked to realize that Nazis were humans.
        jacquesm 9y ago
        The de-humanization of both Nazi's from the allied perspective and the Jews from the Nazi perspective is well documented. So yes, that's exactly how it was.
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Sure the media played some part but really it seems to fall more on youtube to me. Youtube used to be a steady source of basically reliable income if you had 'made it.' So people flock to the platform, start producing tons of content and basically link their lives not just to the platform of youtube but to the job of video maker. This works out great for youtube, no real competition ever rises up because it can't buy away the big hitters, then once youtube has true, lasting dominance they begin to squeeze the people that got them there, they pay less, they start restricting content and worse as a content creator you can see other big channels getting away with what is prohibited to you. Youtube basically becomes the worst, most arbitrary boss at a piece work, gig economy crap job. And the creators have nowhere to go because all the competition was crushed long ago. That type of systematic degradation always pushes some people beyond the edge but because internet companies are disconnected from their users/workers they've mostly been able to ignore these side effects. This woman's act is horrific but it's also illustrative of the effects these companies actually have on people's lives.
watwut 9y ago
> Be sure to remind youtube of their power and responsibility after tragedy strikes. I don't think they have any responsibility for the shooting. None at all. Whether the videos were demonetized rightfully or not.
clairity 9y ago
that's a plausible narrative but where is the research thst shows this is an actual problem?
DanAndersen 9y ago
One possible way out of the trap is for regulation to acknowledge and classify these massive social media and content delivery platforms like YouTube and Facebook as the new version of the public square. One of the big issues with the demonetization on YouTube is that it's a binary flag -- either "acceptable content for advertisers" or "unacceptable for advertisers." As if advertisers were a single block with a single set of values! When YouTube is not under an obligation to act as the virtual-public-square (because "they're a private company"), then they are especially vulnerable to defining that "acceptability" either by internal ideological conformity, or by external ideological pressure. Part of the concept of "free speech" (as a doctrine, not just as 1A legal structure) is that it allows for a society where the distinction of "I don't agree with this but someone out there might and so it's OK for it to exist" is a distinction that is possible. Without that, we're left with a world in which expression has to be mediated by the approval/whims of external forces for it to be present. Whatever strange, fringe things this person was having as YouTube videos, I'd be willing to guess there's some fringe company out there who wouldn't care if they were advertised on those videos. Think of the kinds of advertisers 4chan, Infowars, or adult websites get. Their standards don't fit into a generic mold of "acceptability." But if someone was a video creator who wanted to court such advertisers, what kind of audience would they even be able to build without access to the de-facto public-square that YouTube is? I don't know how to get there from here. But I think a more healthy ad-revenue model would somehow have YouTube saying "OK, these mainstream videos are able to be monetized by mainstream ads from companies A B and C, while these fringe/controversial videos can be monetized by whatever companies X Y and Z want to."
- speeder 9y ago
  This person videos weren't even strange or fringe... The attacker videos seemly were mostly about exercising, vegan diet, and some lighthearted videos... AFTER demonetization, seemly some videos with criticism about Youtube and US, saying that Iran (her home country) had more free speech than US, showed up.
  - wwwdonohue 9y ago
    From saved screenshots of her YouTube channel, she'd put up/shared videos of really violent animal cruelty. Animals being skinned alive/boiled, etc. Somehow I don't think it was the workout videos that were the most offensive to YouTube.
simion314 9y ago
YouTube is not transparent about it's algorithm, this produces a lot of frustration because of uncertainty. The algorithm also seems very poor implemented, like it should give the benefit of the doubt, like if I have 10 wrongly flagged videos that a human decided it is advertising friendly then mark my channel as "trusted" and don't allow the AI to de-monitize the video , flag it and have a human check it. In the present the algorithm is favorable to YouTube and advertisers and creators suffer.
amelius 9y ago
The words "demonetize" and "demonize" look remarkably similar.
meddlepal 9y ago
21st century reporters or "journalists" as they like to be called seem to be the equivalent of schoolyard tattletales. The death of traditional media and "news" cannot happen soon enough.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Be careful what you wish for.
blarneystun 9y ago
It's interesting how algorithmic the process of fabricating ( real or fake ) news has become.
rdtsc 9y ago
At the end of the day it is still a private company and if it wants to censor or otherwise supress certain types of content it is free to do so. Everyone is also free of course to criticize it for bias and/or use another video sharing site. Also I don't see the last part about their responsibility in the shooting. Had this been a gun (2nd Amendment) fanatic whose gun demo videos were banned, like many on Reddit prematurely guessed, I don't think anyone would be saying " youtube is responsible for this". Now that it is a woman and she was pro-animal rights suddenly the blame is starting to shift towards YouTube, gun laws, society in general.
orasis 9y ago
What’s with all of the conspiracy theory type comments on HN lately?
nullifidian 9y ago
I'm not an American. The fact that a targeted online advertisement shown before the video is associated with the video and not with the platform, and requires damage control is perplexing and unexplainable to me... "There is no direct relationship between the video and the ad - It's matched by the machinery to the viewer, not to the video." should be the official answer and the end of the story. Is an ad exposure before a "controversial" video any different in its effect compared to "acceptable" video exposure? It shouldn't be. I presume ad-to-video strong association is some kind of established US norm, where you pressure companies to "pull ads" when something offends you. Not being able to pull ads in a targeted manner is unacceptable I suppose, and that great American institution of pulling ads is "ought to be preserved". Also I don't understand why Youtube went with advertisers' demands -- they have near-monopoly, big coffers and can impose their own rules. Like "You can't dictate at the start of which particular video your ads are shown, only the demographics and some keywords". The current set of rules is giving advertizers the power they shouldn't really have. It's as if the ogranization is willing to implement what equals to advertizers moralistic/political policing of content.
- jmull 9y ago
  Here's the rationale: The advertisement pays for the video. Without the ads to provide money for a given type of video, there will be less of them and they will be less sophisticated. Thus, whether an advertiser likes it or not, they are supporting the video content, albeit indirectly. Also, I don't think advertisers care at all to engage in moralistic or political policing of content. They just want to sell stuff. Being associated with controversial content offends people, which drives away what could otherwise be good paying customers. So they just want to avoid it.
  - nullifidian 9y ago
    >The advertisement pays for the video. Advertisers pay for ad exposures on this platfrom, not for the video. The fact that some money goes not only for infrastructure but also to the creators, should be considered just a side effect of the need to increase viewcounts, and as a result ad exposures. Any attempt to associate particuilar algorithmically matched ads to videos and vice versa should be considered as a powergrab and an attempt at speech policing, IMO. Which is exactly what media fishing for unsightly associations is doing. >Being associated with controversial content offends people, which drives away what could otherwise be good paying customers. I doubt that a controversial video after youtube ads has any significant effect on driving away or attracting paying customers. Your statement requires proof. If viewers willingly choose to watch a video with a controversial topic, it's their choice, and their taste. As for media fishing expeditions "this company's algorithmically matched ad was shown before this controversial video" -- I doubt anyone reads or takes this seriously. At least at youtube video scale. >Also, I don't think advertisers care at all to engage in moralistic or political policing of content. Are you telling me people don't want power? Are you telling me ad and silicon valley companies workforce are not all elite college educated and espause particular political views? Are you telling me humanities departments are not basically training political activists?
ensignro2340 9y ago
It’s not the media’s fault. If you’re going to blame anyone - blame the advertisers. They are the ones with the money everyone (YouTube and YouTubers alike) is trying to get their hands on. Unfortunately they are the ones who hold the cards at the end of the day when it comes to their money.
jacquesm 9y ago
It wasn't the media that pulled the trigger.
untog 9y ago
I guess I'm not seeing where the media's part in this is bad. They're raising legitimate questions about programmatic advertising.

mschuster91 9y ago

I don't sympathize with shooting up a company's headquarters at all, but I feel that this could have been avoided by forcing Youtube (and, for that matter, all other social networks!) to have a way to reach an actual human support. In the end, this is one of the "externalities" that get forced upon society when the big companies decide to cut corners on support. Some will... take matters into their own hands. Be it by spraying racist tweets as graffiti in front of the Hamburg Twitter office or by running amok, when they feel desperate enough. Desperation, especially perceived desperation, drives people to really horrible decisions - and demonetizing all videos of someone who depends on YT income for life is certainly enough to seriously mess with people.

jimmies 9y ago
But she said she talked to the support team...
- meri_dian 9y ago
  She was crazy. I don't think attempts to walk through her thought processes will bear fruit
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Everyone can be crazy if pushed in just the right way.
  - aninhumer 9y ago
    Whenever something like this happens, people like to dismiss the situation by saying we can't possibly understand "crazy" people. It avoids having to consider the systemic reasons why something like this can happen. I'd imagine a significant part of it is that we live a society where some people can have their livelihood yanked away from them, with no support structure to help them, leaving them desperate and angry.
    - meri_dian 9y ago

arenaninja 9y ago

Man, I wanted to have a go at making a YouTube competitor, I think there's room for one, but SESTA makes me wary to have any platform that hosts user-generated content EDIT weary -> wary. Thanks wccrawford

wccrawford 9y ago
I think you man "wary".
- sidyapa 9y ago
  I think you meant "meant".
  - wccrawford 9y ago
    Haha. Wow. Yeah, I meant "mean". Ouch.
bscanlan 9y ago
Yeh, how hard could it be? Pesky regulation.
matte_black 9y ago
Require videos to be approved by a human before being available to the public.
- sodafountan 9y ago
  I don't think there's enough man hours in the world to accomplish this believe it or not, do you know how many hours of videos per day get uploaded to youtube? edit: Just looked it up because I was curious, 300 hours of video get uploaded per minute to Youtube. That's 18,000 hours of content per hour meaning you'd have to hire that many people to work 24/7 365 days a year non stop just to view every piece of content uploaded to Youtube.
  - 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

detaro 9y ago

earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16751608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16751608

alex_young 9y ago

The monetization of YouTube has created a perverse set of incentives which have in turn driven noise up and signal down. A few years ago videos were generally interesting, or at least authentic, ads were mostly uncommon for non-commercial content, and comments were a cesspool. Today the comments are marginally better, the content is worse, and there are ads everywhere. The focus of many creators isn't creating useful content, but tricking people into watching or playing on the notoriety of making money itself. This unfortunate event probably wouldn't have happened if the system wasn't designed to incentivise controversial posts in the first place.

daemin 9y ago
I kind of think/feel that YouTube is turning into regular TV in terms of the content that is on it, if not the delivery. There's a reason that normal TV is bland and mediocre (for the most part), and that's because it has to be inoffensive for the advertisers to put ads next to. Any sort of risque content has very low-value ads next to it, i.e. gambling and penis pills. So for YouTube to profit it has to be seen as having mostly inoffensive content, which will inevitably drive out any interesting and non-mainstream stuff, for better or worse.

wehadfun 9y ago

Zucerberg Hospital http://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-general-hospital-will-be-named-after-mark-zuckerberg-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-general-hospita...

trisimix 9y ago

When the media attacks you for doing something, you should question the repercussions of changing that thing before you do it. Obviously you cant have perfect hindsight, but use some common sense.

danso 9y ago
You don't think any thought was put into these decisions?

mtgx 9y ago

The YouTube ad-pocalypse was a set of terrible policy decisions from Google. They demonetized a ton of legitimate YouTube channels in a rush to appease their advertisers. Only after much outcry, did they re-enable the monetization for some of those more popular channels. But many channels remained affected by it. You would think that with all of this talk about "human-beating AI" lately, these things would be better and more precise by now. But they're not. It's almost looks like they've gotten worse. Unwarranted censorship on social media platforms is just as rampant as fake news and manipulation is.

ensignro2340 9y ago
“They demonetized a ton of legitimate YouTube channels in a rush to appease their advertisers.” It’s almost as if the money those channels felt entitled to came from advertisers. /s

simonsarris 9y ago

I can't help but think of of the Tunisian guy who was trying to eke out a living, faced his own Arbitrary Machine (the state in this case) and lost, getting de-monetized. Then set himself on fire, more or less starting the "Arab Spring." If you never read of the Tunisian man, from wiki: > Twenty-six-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi had been the sole income earner in his extended family of eight. He operated a vegetable or apple cart (the contents of the cart are disputed) for seven years in Sidi Bouzid 190 miles (300 km) south of Tunis. On 17 December 2010, a female officer confiscated his cart and produce. Bouazizi, who had had such an event happen to him before, tried to pay the 10-dinar fine (a day's wages, equivalent to 7USD). In response the policewoman insulted his deceased father and slapped him. The officer, Faida Hamdi, stated that she was not even a policewoman, but a city employee who had been tasked that morning with confiscating produce from vendors without licenses. When she tried to do so with Bouazizi a scuffle ensued. Hamdi says she called the police who then beat Bouazizi.[35] A humiliated Bouazizi then went to the provincial headquarters in an attempt to complain to local municipality officials and to have his produce returned. He was refused an audience. Without alerting his family, at 11:30 am and within an hour of the initial confrontation, Bouazizi returned to the headquarters, doused himself with a flammable liquid and set himself on fire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisian_Revolution#Mohamed_Bouazizi_and_Sidi_Bouzid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisian_Revolution#Mohamed_Bo... They are obviously not the same, and the Mohamed didn't attack other people, but as people earn a monetary (or just a social) living on more arbitrary platforms, they are conjoining their own fates to these platforms, for better or worse. If you ask Fukuyama, Niall Ferguson, or many historians how to build a non-dysfunctional state, they will tell you that rule of law and property rights matter. Systems that can easily and arbitrarily take away one's living (monetary or social) are not good for society.

morley 9y ago
Self-immolation is nowhere near in the same ballpark as taking a gun into an office and murdering a bunch of people. I really don't like the parent article's line of thinking of explaining or justifying this person's act. There are plenty of ways of protesting that don't involve hurting others. And it's mind-boggling that we have to point that out at all today.

elvinyung 9y ago

It's very interesting to me that the shooter was basically a disgruntled user who complained that the platform discriminated against her and filtered her content. I think this and Cambridge Analytica means that we're finally entering an era in which the public is conscientious of the fact that the massive power wielded by "big data" platforms, combined with the lack of transparency, has tangible adverse effects. Hopefully this paves the way for more transparent (and beneficent) visibility into how such data is consumed and used, possibly by using public utility-like regulation [1][2]. [1] https://datasociety.net/events/databite-no-105-k-sabeel-rahman/ https://datasociety.net/events/databite-no-105-k-sabeel-rahm... [2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2986387 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2986387

alehul 9y ago

> "The night before Nasim Aghdam opened fire in a courtyard at YouTube's headquarters Tuesday afternoon, Mountain View police found the San Diego woman sleeping in her car. She had been reported missing by her family in Southern California, and her father Ismail Aghdam told police she might be going to YouTube because she 'hated' the company. Police called the family at 2 a.m. Tuesday to say she'd been found and that everything was 'under control,' her father said." The most noteworthy part of the article to me, granted that this excerpt is taken from a different San Jose news source. Could this have been prevented? Should the father's comments have been enough reasonable suspicion to arrest her, or at least search her for firearms and confiscate them, given her threat level to society? Edit: The replies do offer good points, so thank you! I'm personally a supporter of the Second Amendment as well; it's just heartbreaking, especially if any of the victims die, to know just how close we were to stopping it.

jacquesm 9y ago
Lone wolf crazies are the hardest to protect against as an open society. Say she was arrested and her gun confiscated. Nothing actually happened, so she'd be out on the street two days later and could go and buy another gun for a retry.
- salgernon 9y ago
  A mentally ill relative of mine in another state (us citizens here) threatened “to shoot” me in an email and asserted he had a gun. I contacted law enforcement in his area and they picked him up and based on his behavior and statements he was put in a 72 hour psych hold. During this, the police and mental health workers were able to convince him to give up his gun. This was about 6 years ago and as far as anyone knows, he hasn’t re-armed himself. I guess my point: If you have a gun, you may feel justified in using it to solve your problems with violence (suicide or other). If you don’t have a gun, the friction of acquiring one could be sufficient to deter you from trying to get one.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    That's about the best possible outcome. Unfortunately there are also plenty of counter examples where law enforcement was alerted and nothing happened.

jacquesm 9y ago

'De-Monetized' suggests that someone who produces a video has an automatic right to income. That's bonkers, it's already quite a service that Youtube allows you to upload your videos to reach an audience that you'd be hard pressed to serve from your own server. They do this for free. In the previous iteration of such platforms all the ad income would go to the owner of the website, not to the rights owners of the videos. The company then decided to cut the producers of the content in on the advertising income. Some of those have apparently taken this to mean that they have an inalienable right to this income, to the point where they will take out their entitlement complexes on the employees of the company. The terms of service are pretty clear about all this too. If you want control over your content and you want to get all the advertising income associated with your content set up your own bloody server and leave youtube and it's employees alone. On another note: I hate fanatics, no matter of what plumage. Edit: And I hate their apologists as well.

_delirium 9y ago
I don't think this kind of reaction is about philosophical "right" to an income from a particular company, more about sudden changes. It's similar to being fired: you previously got an income from this company, then they decided not to give you an income. Some people get angry at that, and sometimes feel desperate, worried about ending up homeless etc. depending on how much they relied on this income and what kinds of safety nets they have access to. Which is all true even if the company was within its rights to fire you. Of course most people who get angry about being laid off don't shoot anyone, but it's unfortunately not really a new story in the US (Google for something like, [laid off employee shooting], and there's dozens of hits).
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Mark Ames wrote a whole book (which I admit I didn't quite finish) with the thesis that you could tie the rise of workplace shootings to an increase in worker precarity.
  - mistersquid 9y ago

stareatgoats 9y ago

Funny how a very complex situation can be synthesized into a single perspective. Is this heading what will become the lasting impression of this tragedy? I can imagine a few other possible and maybe more valid interpretations, none of them exclusive though. (I don't have all the facts so this list should probably balloon, or have items removed as facts unfold): An example of how some people are so triggered by advocacy groups (in this case PETA) that it just takes a slight economic misfortune to bring out the guns? An example of how when the shooter is a woman she is not really demonized the way guys are (even when being an immigrant)? An example of immigrants in the US being pushed over the edge in view of current anti-immigrant policies? An example of how the mentally unstable have ready access to guns in the US? An example of how the final solution to personal insignificance in the US is to shoot innocents? The media will oblige with full page analysis of you, your childhood, family and neighborhood and make sure you are granted long lasting and global fame. There are surely many more that has to be part of the full narrative. That last one is often forgotten though.

spraak 9y ago
Are you just extrapolating assumptions here? Because you're saying a lot that hasn't been said. E.g. > An example of how some people are so triggered by advocacy groups (in this case PETA) that it just takes a slight economic misfortune to bring out the guns? They said she was a vegan activist [1], not part of PETA. > An example of how when the shooter is a woman she is not really demonized the way guys are (even when being an immigrant)? Where did it say she's an immigrant? Her parents maybe. [1] I really hope the media doesn't spin the vegan part.
- stareatgoats 9y ago
  Yes, those are just assumptions more or less, although I'm guessing all those points could be valid aspects of the narrative. Primarily it's just annoying that a complex situation is condensed down to "it's because her videos were 'de-monetized'". It seems you take offense with me singling out the PETA connection however. But it was just an example of how certain advocacy groups are not afraid to stir up hate, PETA is not alone there. I honestly do think it needs to be included in the analysis of these shootings however, but as I said in the original post, not as a single explaining factor and finally; not sure at this point if it is really applicable here.

morley 9y ago

I'm really surprised at how many of these HN comments are so sympathetic to this murderer's cause. To me, this illustrates how dangerous this type of reporting is, this media obsession with the perpetrators of mass shooting. This is the problem that I feel utterly powerless against. You can make more mental health programs, pass more gun control legislation, pay more for security, but what can you do when the culture around you lionizes these sorts of people?

walshemj 9y ago
probably shows how concerned people are getting about the monopoly power a tiny number of companies.
arkades 9y ago
I largely agree with you. But, about 1% of me, can't help but note that... well, I think there's a reason for people's tendency to give the perpetrator some sympathy. The thing is, we abstract this away into things like "it's not censorship if a private organization declines to monetize the content you freely publish with them," but... let's be clear about what happens here, at the granular ground level: 1) Company creates a space for people to do work that pays their bills. This is for company's benefit as much as theirs. 2) People do that work, pay their bills. Mutual joy. 3) Company suddenly, and apparently arbitrarily, and without adequate communication, yanks people's ability to pay their bills away from them Most people that suddenly and apparently arbitrarily go from "paying my bills" to "holy fuck not paying my bills" flip the hell out. It's like a lay-off, but even more inscrutable and un-appealable. Whatever abstraction is laid upon this at the 10k-foot view, I think people are sympathetic to the fact that YT basically did a really shitty thing to a lot of people (or maybe did a totally not shitty thing in a really shitty way). And, if you do something really shitty to a large number of people, yeah, you run the risk of having done something really shitty to a nutjob. The nutjob isn't a black swan, though: they're an extreme version of the response that a lot of people are having. So, yes, "organization that did really shitty thing to a lot of people accidentally included violent nutjob on list of shit-receivers," doesn't really merit any lionization of the nutjob, but it's hard to ignore the "really shitty thing" aspect of it. Because it's not a black swan - it's just a (much more) extreme version of the same feelings we'd have if we were in their shoes.

ensignro2340 9y ago

I’ve been getting increasingly more annoyed by the entitlement some YouTube creators have shown towards Adsense dollars. And I’m perplexed at some of the comments on this story (“YouTube was her main source of income”). Yeah, she hedged her bet and put all her content on a platform she didn’t own or control, then thought it’d be a good idea to be financially dependent on them facilitating ad deals for her. Many of ya favorite youtubers complain about demonetization - I get it sucks and cuts out cashflow they were expecting but they’re not entitled to money from advertisers. This is like me demanding Facebook pay me for allowing me to put up a profile and running ads in my friends’ newsfeeds. That’s not how the real world works, kiddo. I think way back when YouTube opened up their “partner” program - that was their big mistake. It allowed far too many people to start viewing Adsense $ as earned income.

INTPenis 9y ago

Americans in the comment section are reacting about this woman being a disgruntled user, angry about perceived discrimination from Youtube, down on her luck, suicidal. Me, a european, I'm reacting to how easily she found a gun. I hate to bring up this very toxic debate, my comment will seem like fishing for trouble. Yet you have to understand our perspective. Not every lunatic where I live can find a gun when they need one so to me it's clear as day that the issue is the availability of firearms. There are always going to be disgruntled or unbalanced people but they can't be allowed to find a deadly firearm as easy as it is in the US.

post_break 9y ago
If it wasn't a gun it could have been a knife. Or like the epidemic over seas, a bunch of acid thrown on peoples faces. We don't know how she got the gun, but in America, if you have no criminal background, haven't done anything crazy, and they do a background check, you can purchase a weapon. You can't ban crazy, and until we have some way of seeing into the future, you can't stop all crimes. Also, our gun ownership in America has absolutely exploded. Like doubled. And have shootings and killings doubled? Nope.
- INTPenis 9y ago
  I can't comment on the acid attacks, I doubt they're common. But the knife vs gun argument is also very clear cut to me. It takes very little effort or training to point a barrel and pull a trigger from across several meters or a courtyard. While a knife is actually not so easy to get into an expecting person. The knife would be most effective against unsuspecting persons but once a struggle breaks out it's down to physical strength and training. The knife vs gun thing hits close to home too because one of the very few school rampages performed here by an unbalanced student was actually performed with a sword because that's the only weapon the student was able to put their hands on. Despite being relatively far north in the country where there are more people with hunting licenses. And sure enough I believe they did manage to murder at least one person, it was a teacher or a teacher's aide who defended the other students. But that's where it ended. It requires significant strength and training to go on a killing spree with melee weapons, compared to firearms.

jokoon 9y ago

If monopolies are allowed, the bigger a company is, the increased responsibility it should have. Many of large IT companies deliver free products and services, yet they still make the rules because they are in a monopoly nobody can compete with, because they give it for free. Since it's not their data, they should have tougher restrictions the more data they handle. It's weird because those online platform are thriving thanks to the ideal of free speech, but they are not public entities so free speech doesn't apply to them. It is very frustrating to see private interests seize the tools people use to express themselves. As long as online data rests on private servers which are tied to lucrative interests, the internet will not be a platform where you can freely express yourself. I have always thought that the whole online advertisement model is unhealthy and not a good system to make the internet cheaper for consumers. Ad blockers are a proof of this. If tomorrow firefox or any browser decide to not display ads and consumers go along with it, it would create a big mess.

pitaj 9y ago
I am off the opinion that it is precisely because of the backwards copyright policies, namely the DMCA, that YouTube ever became a monopolistic force on the internet.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

zelon88 9y ago

To be fair, it is bullshit that they demonetized peoples accounts without paying them out. Most small YouTubers that monetized their accounts have no other revenue streams with adSense. So when YouTube cancelled their YouTube Partner Program these people wound up with stagnant adSense accounts that were probably below the payout threshold. I tried in vain to get YT to pay out my adSense account because there would be no way for me to ever hit the payout threshold. I tried to explain that there is no difference between holding my money in escrow forever and stealing my money, but the YT reps (who were very unhelpful when I asked for resources to cancel YT Red) largely blew me off and insisted that the money was mine without recognizing that they would never let it out of their possession. It really was a sly trick and not at all in keeping with the "Don't be evil" mantra.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

_bxg1 9y ago

No sane person would argue that what she did was okay. With that disclaimer, I can't help but feel sorry for her. In the unregulated gig/"creator" economy, someone's entire career - not just their livelihood but their life's work - can be wiped out in an instant. In her case it doesn't even sound like it was intentional. An algorithmic blip. That kind of hopeless, pointless loss would make anybody's mental health take a nosedive. It's time the government stops treating the tech giants as neutral, private platforms, and acknowledges how big the pieces of society are which they underpin.

pg_bot 9y ago
Explain what you mean by your last sentence.
- _bxg1 9y ago
  I'm no expert in these matters so I'm not very qualified to give specifics, but roughly: 1) Something modelled after employment regulation to protect people whose full-time income comes from these platforms. There are tons of rules designed to protect employees which services like YouTube and Uber have been dodging (and actively fighting) for years. 2) Something like common-carrier status to protect the users of the most critical platforms (Google search, Facebook, etc.).
  - _bxg1 9y ago
    Regulation comes in when it's necessary to acknowledge, as a society, that the natural forces at play (from the market or otherwise) in some context aren't enough to guard against sufficiently large risks to society's members or ability to function. It has less to do with the nature of the thing being regulated and more to do with the impact it has/can have on society. With that perspective in mind, these platforms have (intentionally) maneuvered themselves into a position where millions or billions of people depend on them for some combination of livelihood and/or basic connection with the world around them. That is what makes them good candidates for regulation.

panzagl 9y ago

So what exactly is the difference between a disgruntled youtuber and a coal miner fighting Pinkertons trying to break their strike? While I'm being facetious, the attitude of 'Oh well, they took away your livelihood sucks to be you' in this thread is kind of how US labor rights have been eroded for the last 40 years.

throw2016 9y ago

This is a weird event, a tragedy even that perhaps could have been averted if someone had spoken to her and calmed her down. But perhaps even then the outcome would have been the same. We can't know. And so must put this down to an individual failing and resist the temptation to seek answers in something larger. No one can deny there is anger and frustration but the sheer scale and volume of content being uploaded hourly means it's simply not viable or even possible for humans to vet with proper support mechanisms, and automated systems are a big hammer that will inevitably leave people feeling helpless and dehumanized.

ekianjo 9y ago

> Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital not on topic, but did not know that the hospital changed name after Zuckerberg made a donation.

bsenftner 9y ago

People need to realize that YouTube and all social media are "person farms" that use the public to create their platform's attractiveness and value. The only purpose of you being on social media is to generate money for the platform, through any means the company can devise with the information you (un)knowingly give them for free. Any platform claiming to pay you (real money or virtual currencies or "likes/points/karma") for activities on their site are creating dependent persons, and for those with less (less economic opportunity, less experience, and less experience with fraud) become unnaturally dependent upon these platforms. It is a shameful scam that moral persons should recognize on sight and shun. But our lack of critical thought today has people wholly unaware of these predators in our society, and the dependent persons they are collecting as economically disadvantaged and unaware slaves.

nearmuse 9y ago

This reminds me of the moment in the earlier years of YT when I realized that production of a lot of the content there I would not even care to scoff at is a real job for those people and "youtuber" is actually their full time job. Now it is a given obviously.

patientplatypus 9y ago

Well... My opinion is going to be unpopular, but...frankly I empathize with the woman. YouTube controls the entire streaming market and there are no legal controls in place to treat their streamers like employees - they're contractors so YouTube can skirt employment laws. Same way Silicon Valley has been making money for years with things like Task Rabbit and Uber - they're not being innovative they're breaking the social contract for profit. And what's the alternative here, other than violence? SV has successfully shown that they can make products that find loopholes in laws faster than laws can be made, and frankly, our political system is broken. I'm not saying the woman was rational in what she did...probably she was acting out of sadness and despair. However, it's not like there exists a rational way of fixing the kinds of problems she has. Like, what is she going to do, sue for lost income? Appeal to the labor relations board? This is what happens when we don't look out for the despairing - they shoot up schools and workplaces.

alexburciu 9y ago

AI kills again.

analognoise 9y ago

If you were silly enough to go "all in" on being a "pro YouTuber" and it failed, do what other businesses do: stop crying, move on. Nobody cares about your need for a platform - nobody owes you a platform for your videos. Can't make a living at it? Get a real job. I can't believe how ridiculous and entitled a lot of these comments are.