10 ms·

YouTube employees say violent threats from creators have been going on for years

101 points by unclebucknasty 9y ago

mschuster91 9y ago
Basically the article confirms what I wrote back when the shooting occurred (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16754438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16754438): Youtube (and the other social networks!) desperately need a customer support that actually deserves to be called a support. When you have a service where people's livings depend on, and you take away their income source (in corp doublespeak: demonetize them) AND at the same time offer them only canned responses or, worse, no contact at all, some of them WILL be driven to desperation. Hell, the inhumanity actually IS the word "demonetization": it sounds harmless but it is everything else than that. And even worse: Youtube has recognized that there is a problem with the consequences their non-existence of a support has, but, typical for US culture, they head for fighting the symptoms (increasing "security") instead of fixing the problem (hire support staff with a decent bit of leeway).
- RunningRabbit 9y ago
  hear hear!! All those big (tech) whales with no way to normally contact them, it is insane.
- spondyl 9y ago
  I always wondered why tech companies had such an impenetrable inward communication until I came across the following insight: "If you have a billion users, and 0.1% of them have an issue that requires support on a given day (an average of one support issue per person every three years), and each issue takes 10 minutes on average for a human to personally resolve, then you'd spend 19 person-years handling support issues every day. If each support person works an eight-hour shift each day then you'd need 20,833 support people on permanent staff just to keep up. Amazing."[0] It's not necessarily the exact same source that I discovered back then but the idea is the same. Even a tiny portion of customer service would still soak up a large amount of money, perhaps rightfully so, but at the scale some of these companies are, it quickly becomes unsustainable. [0]: https://plus.google.com/+DeWittClinton/posts/1hRWj489oEz https://plus.google.com/+DeWittClinton/posts/1hRWj489oEz
  - pavlov 9y ago
    It's a misleading estimate because it doesn't define "user". In the case of YouTube, there are a billion users but only creators would require support. Maybe there are 100,000 YouTube creators who get paid anything meaningful? (I have no idea, just guessing.) If 0.1% of them require support, that's 100 requests per day. Any moderately successful mom-and-pop SaaS gets that much. There's no financial reason for Alphabet not to provide personal support to YouTube creators. They just don't want to.
    - polishTar 9y ago
      What you're suggesting is how it already works. Partnered creators all have access to a creator support email (with a 1 business day SLO). Top partnered creators (aka the "creators who get paid anything meaningful") will also have a partner manager they can contact for 1-1 advice/support/etc.
      - pavlov 9y ago
        Great. So maybe the bar for support is set too high? Someone making $50 / month on YouTube is meaningless to Google but may spend an enormous amount of time on that content in the hope of a breakout. Those are probably the people whose mental health is most at risk. It’s Alphabet’s community, they own it. Extending more support to dedicated members may not make direct business sense but it could be the right thing for long-term community health.
        ci5er 9y ago
        > ... for long-term community health I understand words like books and bricks and apples, because these words have physical referents. I have no idea what "long-term community health" means. What does that mean? And why would anyone invest more in it than in barricades and highly weaponized security guards? (I'm not actually promoting an armed response to whatever a 'community' is, I'm just using it as a rhetorical foil to try to understand the pros and cons of investing in whatever a 'community' is)
- JKCalhoun 9y ago
  Am I being crass to also suggest that YouTube, perhaps more than any other platform, is a magnet for unstable people? I'm not trying to make a blanket claim regarding mentally unhealthy people (who I have heard are less violent as a group than the general population) and not trying to absolve YouTube of their role in this with their "marketing decisions" but it seems that YouTube specifically should maybe tread more carefully than other platforms. Besides the monetary angle there is the dangling chance at fame, an audience, acceptance that draws, in some cases, maybe more fragile people.
senectus1 9y ago
this is totally unsurprising.
rqs 9y ago
Off-topic, but "creators"? It's funny to think that some people think they can be called "creator" just because they're making and uploading video to the Internet. Yes, some of those videos are fun to watch, maybe informative, but to be honest, I don't think they "created" anything more than other media did, so why give them that title? "Producers" maybe better?
- onion2k 9y ago
  It differentiates them from "consumers" who watch the videos. When you have two different groups of users you need two words. Also, I think you underestimate how much work goes in to some popular channels. People with millions of subscribers often have production teams that would rival a well funded TV show. It's something I find a little saddening when kids say they want to be a YouTuber as a career choice; they think it's a guy in his bedroom with a camera and a laptop. It really isn't.
  - rqs 9y ago
    > It differentiates them from "consumers" who watch the videos. When you have two different groups of users you need two words. So the "consumer" is the viewer, and "creator" is the video maker/uploader. Well, that make more sense when you put those two words inside the YouTube circle. Thank you and corobo for explaining.
- corobo 9y ago
  Of course someone that makes something can be called a creator.. that's the definition of the word I think you may be underestimating the content on YouTube, some of these channels bring in more views and cash than the smaller legacy TV companies do
- dschuetz 9y ago
  That sounds really condescending, to be honest.
- rsynnott 9y ago
  A producer is essentially a management position; it'd make little sense to talk about a producer in a team of one. "Creator" is as good a term as any.
dschuetz 9y ago
It's a two-sided coin actually. You cannot blame Youtube for people's choices to go fully dependent on viewer count revenues, it's irresponsible to say the least. But, you can blame Youtube for changing the rules whenever and however they sit fit without considering such grave consequences. This thing with Youtube demonetization is pretty messed up. In any case, would you rather invest in a Ponzi scheme? No, who would be that stupid, right? Right?
- manicdee 9y ago
  I am fully dependent on my employer’s ability to find repeat business. I have personally suffered when one of the principals of a business that employed me upset one of their main suppliers/licensors and our ability to run the business was withdrawn overnight. The same holds true for retailers in malls, or property managers. There are many lines of work where you are entirely reliant on things that you can’t reasonably have second sources for. Blaming people for deriving significant income from YouTube is putting the cart well and truly before the horse.
  - dschuetz 9y ago
    You cannot compare "content creation" on Youtube with entrepreneurship. There are different sets of rules. Youtube does not employ "creators". Creators suffering from anxiety because of endangered income should first get help and then get a real job. Youtube is just another "get rich quick" scheme if done irresponsibly.
    - iforgotpassword 9y ago
      What!? How the heck do you think YouTube even makes money? It's exclusively through the content their users create, so they should treat them with some fucking decency. Not communicating with your users, or sending some canned responses at best is not. Just because they don't sign a formal work contract doesn't mean they can treat the users like complete shit.
    - onion2k 9y ago
      Youtube is just another "get rich quick" scheme if done irresponsibly. Most non-professional YouTube channels start as a side project. Someone thinks of something they'd like to make videos about, starts in their spare time, and grows a following. Then the money starts to come in, and eventually it's enough for them to quit their day job and work on their YouTube channel full time. Sometimes they start a business and employ people to help along the way. If that was a SaaS app instead of a video channel there'd be no question about whether or not it's entrepreneurial. The fact they're making videos instead of code doesn't change anything.
dawnerd 9y ago
I suspect Twitch has/will have the same problems as more creators move over to live shows to fill the gap left by Youtube.
rajacombinator 9y ago
YouTube and Google are brutalistically antihuman companies. It would be trivially easy for them to solve these problems, but they don’t care.
- UncleMeat 9y ago
  Trivially easy to solve violent threats?
post_break 9y ago
This is what happens when you promise ad revenue, and then slowly, without any information, begin shadow banning channels and videos, meanwhile YouTube still runs ads and gets the cut. You will get crazy people who depend on YouTube for income, and then without any warning your income is slashed. Did you break the terms? No. Did you get banned? No. You just get 1/8th the views because who knows why? Well you say to yourself, just go somewhere else. Where? There is no video platform that offers the ability to advertise like YouTube that has even close the amount of eye balls. Well then just use Patreon! Yeah good luck getting people to sign up unless you're wildly popular and do this as your day job. You're basically squeezed into this hole where you were making money, enjoying what you were doing, and trying to build something with YouTube, and now you're trying to read between the lines of what is advertiser friendly and won't get your shadow banned. It's an abusive relationship that people who have money think you should just do something else.
Density 9y ago
so much for "don't be evil"
- draw_down 9y ago
  What?
- UncleMeat 9y ago
  Ridiculous. I work in security. Public facing security names often get threats from organized crime. I'm not at Google, but is what I do evil? The existence of threats does not mean what you are doing is evil.
captainbland 9y ago
"Speed of your thrusts?" Somebody's gonna get injured.

Basically the article confirms what I wrote back when the shooting occurred (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16754438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16754438): Youtube (and the other social networks!) desperately need a customer support that actually deserves to be called a support. When you have a service where people's livings depend on, and you take away their income source (in corp doublespeak: demonetize them) AND at the same time offer them only canned responses or, worse, no contact at all, some of them WILL be driven to desperation. Hell, the inhumanity actually IS the word "demonetization": it sounds harmless but it is everything else than that. And even worse: Youtube has recognized that there is a problem with the consequences their non-existence of a support has, but, typical for US culture, they head for fighting the symptoms (increasing "security") instead of fixing the problem (hire support staff with a decent bit of leeway).

RunningRabbit 9y ago
hear hear!! All those big (tech) whales with no way to normally contact them, it is insane.
spondyl 9y ago
I always wondered why tech companies had such an impenetrable inward communication until I came across the following insight: "If you have a billion users, and 0.1% of them have an issue that requires support on a given day (an average of one support issue per person every three years), and each issue takes 10 minutes on average for a human to personally resolve, then you'd spend 19 person-years handling support issues every day. If each support person works an eight-hour shift each day then you'd need 20,833 support people on permanent staff just to keep up. Amazing."[0] It's not necessarily the exact same source that I discovered back then but the idea is the same. Even a tiny portion of customer service would still soak up a large amount of money, perhaps rightfully so, but at the scale some of these companies are, it quickly becomes unsustainable. [0]: https://plus.google.com/+DeWittClinton/posts/1hRWj489oEz https://plus.google.com/+DeWittClinton/posts/1hRWj489oEz
- pavlov 9y ago
  It's a misleading estimate because it doesn't define "user". In the case of YouTube, there are a billion users but only creators would require support. Maybe there are 100,000 YouTube creators who get paid anything meaningful? (I have no idea, just guessing.) If 0.1% of them require support, that's 100 requests per day. Any moderately successful mom-and-pop SaaS gets that much. There's no financial reason for Alphabet not to provide personal support to YouTube creators. They just don't want to.
  - polishTar 9y ago
    What you're suggesting is how it already works. Partnered creators all have access to a creator support email (with a 1 business day SLO). Top partnered creators (aka the "creators who get paid anything meaningful") will also have a partner manager they can contact for 1-1 advice/support/etc.
    - pavlov 9y ago
      Great. So maybe the bar for support is set too high? Someone making $50 / month on YouTube is meaningless to Google but may spend an enormous amount of time on that content in the hope of a breakout. Those are probably the people whose mental health is most at risk. It’s Alphabet’s community, they own it. Extending more support to dedicated members may not make direct business sense but it could be the right thing for long-term community health.
      - ci5er 9y ago
        > ... for long-term community health I understand words like books and bricks and apples, because these words have physical referents. I have no idea what "long-term community health" means. What does that mean? And why would anyone invest more in it than in barricades and highly weaponized security guards? (I'm not actually promoting an armed response to whatever a 'community' is, I'm just using it as a rhetorical foil to try to understand the pros and cons of investing in whatever a 'community' is)
JKCalhoun 9y ago
Am I being crass to also suggest that YouTube, perhaps more than any other platform, is a magnet for unstable people? I'm not trying to make a blanket claim regarding mentally unhealthy people (who I have heard are less violent as a group than the general population) and not trying to absolve YouTube of their role in this with their "marketing decisions" but it seems that YouTube specifically should maybe tread more carefully than other platforms. Besides the monetary angle there is the dangling chance at fame, an audience, acceptance that draws, in some cases, maybe more fragile people.

senectus1 9y ago

this is totally unsurprising.

rqs 9y ago

Off-topic, but "creators"? It's funny to think that some people think they can be called "creator" just because they're making and uploading video to the Internet. Yes, some of those videos are fun to watch, maybe informative, but to be honest, I don't think they "created" anything more than other media did, so why give them that title? "Producers" maybe better?

onion2k 9y ago
It differentiates them from "consumers" who watch the videos. When you have two different groups of users you need two words. Also, I think you underestimate how much work goes in to some popular channels. People with millions of subscribers often have production teams that would rival a well funded TV show. It's something I find a little saddening when kids say they want to be a YouTuber as a career choice; they think it's a guy in his bedroom with a camera and a laptop. It really isn't.
- rqs 9y ago
  > It differentiates them from "consumers" who watch the videos. When you have two different groups of users you need two words. So the "consumer" is the viewer, and "creator" is the video maker/uploader. Well, that make more sense when you put those two words inside the YouTube circle. Thank you and corobo for explaining.
corobo 9y ago
Of course someone that makes something can be called a creator.. that's the definition of the word I think you may be underestimating the content on YouTube, some of these channels bring in more views and cash than the smaller legacy TV companies do
dschuetz 9y ago
That sounds really condescending, to be honest.
rsynnott 9y ago
A producer is essentially a management position; it'd make little sense to talk about a producer in a team of one. "Creator" is as good a term as any.

dschuetz 9y ago

It's a two-sided coin actually. You cannot blame Youtube for people's choices to go fully dependent on viewer count revenues, it's irresponsible to say the least. But, you can blame Youtube for changing the rules whenever and however they sit fit without considering such grave consequences. This thing with Youtube demonetization is pretty messed up. In any case, would you rather invest in a Ponzi scheme? No, who would be that stupid, right? Right?

manicdee 9y ago
I am fully dependent on my employer’s ability to find repeat business. I have personally suffered when one of the principals of a business that employed me upset one of their main suppliers/licensors and our ability to run the business was withdrawn overnight. The same holds true for retailers in malls, or property managers. There are many lines of work where you are entirely reliant on things that you can’t reasonably have second sources for. Blaming people for deriving significant income from YouTube is putting the cart well and truly before the horse.
- dschuetz 9y ago
  You cannot compare "content creation" on Youtube with entrepreneurship. There are different sets of rules. Youtube does not employ "creators". Creators suffering from anxiety because of endangered income should first get help and then get a real job. Youtube is just another "get rich quick" scheme if done irresponsibly.
  - iforgotpassword 9y ago
    What!? How the heck do you think YouTube even makes money? It's exclusively through the content their users create, so they should treat them with some fucking decency. Not communicating with your users, or sending some canned responses at best is not. Just because they don't sign a formal work contract doesn't mean they can treat the users like complete shit.
  - onion2k 9y ago
    Youtube is just another "get rich quick" scheme if done irresponsibly. Most non-professional YouTube channels start as a side project. Someone thinks of something they'd like to make videos about, starts in their spare time, and grows a following. Then the money starts to come in, and eventually it's enough for them to quit their day job and work on their YouTube channel full time. Sometimes they start a business and employ people to help along the way. If that was a SaaS app instead of a video channel there'd be no question about whether or not it's entrepreneurial. The fact they're making videos instead of code doesn't change anything.

dawnerd 9y ago

I suspect Twitch has/will have the same problems as more creators move over to live shows to fill the gap left by Youtube.

rajacombinator 9y ago

YouTube and Google are brutalistically antihuman companies. It would be trivially easy for them to solve these problems, but they don’t care.

UncleMeat 9y ago
Trivially easy to solve violent threats?

post_break 9y ago

This is what happens when you promise ad revenue, and then slowly, without any information, begin shadow banning channels and videos, meanwhile YouTube still runs ads and gets the cut. You will get crazy people who depend on YouTube for income, and then without any warning your income is slashed. Did you break the terms? No. Did you get banned? No. You just get 1/8th the views because who knows why? Well you say to yourself, just go somewhere else. Where? There is no video platform that offers the ability to advertise like YouTube that has even close the amount of eye balls. Well then just use Patreon! Yeah good luck getting people to sign up unless you're wildly popular and do this as your day job. You're basically squeezed into this hole where you were making money, enjoying what you were doing, and trying to build something with YouTube, and now you're trying to read between the lines of what is advertiser friendly and won't get your shadow banned. It's an abusive relationship that people who have money think you should just do something else.

Density 9y ago

so much for "don't be evil"

draw_down 9y ago
What?
UncleMeat 9y ago
Ridiculous. I work in security. Public facing security names often get threats from organized crime. I'm not at Google, but is what I do evil? The existence of threats does not mean what you are doing is evil.

captainbland 9y ago

"Speed of your thrusts?" Somebody's gonna get injured.