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Advertisers, youtubers, users, brands - everyone was happy prior to the era of demonetization. What killed the golden goose was an extremely small set of activi

Advertisers, youtubers, users, brands - everyone was happy prior to the era of demonetization. What killed the golden goose was an extremely small set of activists and journalists (specifically Media Matters and Vox) methodically threatening brands with publication of screenshots of their "support" for controversial niche videos. And just enough brand marketing and YouTube employees were cowed, or at least ideologically sympathetic.

Pxtl 6y ago
I know, everything was fine when the YouTube recommendation engine accidentally radicalized half English-speaking world and created a profitable fascist political movement.
- CGamesPlay 6y ago
  Surely there's some space between "Recommend" and "Ban"?
  - Filligree 6y ago
    Why should people be allowed to watch anything except what's best for them? /s
    - uniqueid 6y ago
      I don't care if what you watch is good or bad for you. I care if what you watch turns you into a threat to me. Based on the past few years, it looks like maybe 20% of the general population is suggestible enough to endanger the rest of us.
      - TheCraiggers 6y ago
        The problem is that the other guy is saying the same thing you are. The radical left and the radical right both think each other's points are dangerous. And the moderates are pointing at both sides and claiming the same thing. From their respective viewpoints, they're in the "right", just as you think you are. There's a slippery slope here, and I feel it's one so large that we can't even tell we're already sliding on it. The obvious answer is a well-informed populace that isn't easily swayed by emotion and fear, and has the time and inclination to do their own fact checking. Trouble is, that's obviously a pipe dream. Other ideas, such as Facebook's new governing body are interesting, but I fear will be troublesome in other ways. Still, it's an experiment in the right direction I believe.
        uniqueid 6y ago
        The problem is that the other guy is saying the same thing you are. Then I hope I win. Cause the other guy really likes firearms and believes Bill Gates is some sort of satanic reptilian timelord. Facebook's new governing body are interesting, but I fear will be troublesome in other ways. I don't see that model making anyone happy because I believe true impartiality is impossible. The honest and less bureaucratic approach for FB to take is to admit the process is subjective.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        nicky0 6y ago
        Essentually you are saying: "The other side is wrong, and my side is right." It's not really a nuanced point about the broader issue of speech.
        bryanrasmussen 6y ago
        Yes, as a general thing saying the other side is wrong and my side is right is just silly, because the other side is saying they're right and your side is wrong, but in the specific case where one side is demonstrably wrong then it isn't silly anymore.
        nicky0 6y ago
        But the other side believes they are demonstrably right too, just as strongly as you do. The way to "win" is to argue against the opponent's viewpoint and persuade the general population of the strength of your argument. To do that you need a platform for open speech. This is Democracy 101. What you are arguing for is not democracy but "safetyism". You seek a shortcut whereby you can persuade a powerful gatekeeper to silence your oppositon and make you feel better.
        TomSwirly 6y ago
        I'm not on either side. I don't even live in the United States. But one side, the Republican side, is batshitinsane and believes things that are provably untrue - Obama is a Muslim, climate change is a Chinese hoax, COVID-19 is the flu, that sort of thing. The Democrats are just run-of-the-mill, low-energy centrist politicians.
      - narrator 6y ago
        The Soviets put their dissidents into mental hospitals, because obviously they were crazy and dangerous to oppose socialism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_...
        uniqueid 6y ago
        A more accurate analogy would be 'the Soviets didn't give them airtime on All Union Radio'
        onlydeadheroes 6y ago
        You are a shining example of your ideology.
        crististm 6y ago
        How is that accurate? More, like, exaggerated to make a point but missing it by a mile. Soviets did not give airtime to pro-party ideologues to validate their position. There was no competition between ideologues to get more airtime. The program was _dictated_ by the powers that be.
        uniqueid 6y ago
        How is that accurate? It's still a bad analogy, but it puts fewer words in my mouth. If there is a line from 'Youtube deleted my video' to 'the government rounded me up and threw me in a sanitarium' it's not a direct one.
        crististm 6y ago
        Yes but that won't stop you from drawing/rationalizing _any_ conclusions from a set of facts. Not all of them will be right and fewer even will make any sense. Which is indeed your prerogative until you mess with the laws of physics and start believing that because you move your arms very quickly you can fly, and that will stop you from falling off of a cliff. There is a five-whys strategy to go to some bottom of an issue but even this strategy will fail you when you cherry-pick the answers to your convenience.
      - imtringued 6y ago
        I don't need uniqueid as my dictator.
        uniqueid 6y ago
        I don't need crazies to organize a coup on social media and install an authoritarian.
      - mlang23 6y ago
        Sounds like the typical 80/20 story. I submit the "other" 20% likely have a very similar story to yours, only with the numbers reversed.
      - crististm 6y ago
        What should we do about the 20%?
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - foepys 6y ago
    Everytime this is coming up, I wonder why people were always okay with banning nudity but now that hate speech (that undeniably agitates people and leads to hate crime) gets banned, they oppose content blocking.
    - Judgmentality 6y ago
      Who was okay with banning nudity? I think the only thing I've seen universally agreed upon to be bad is child pornography.
      - LordDragonfang 6y ago
        Nudity is banned on television, youtube, facebook, twitch, and any public place in the US. None of those had significant outcry when it was banned, and people bat an eye so little at that status quo that I apparently had to write this comment to remind you.
        Judgmentality 6y ago
        Whenever nudity is banned I remember there being an outcry. I also think banning nudity is dumb, so maybe it's just an issue of confirmation bias.
        notahacker 6y ago
        Please feel free to point us to the evidence of HN howling with outrage about the chilling consequences of our digital overlords succumbing to activist and advertiser presssure to ban porn (and presumed porn) on their platforms. When Tumblr banned porn, the general reaction was "lol, they're not going to have any audience left" and the one person that raised it as a speech violation (as opposed to a bit of a shame for kinky people) was downvoted to nothingness.[1] Compare and contrast with how this thread, instead of focusing on "lol, algorithms and context!" has turned into questioning whether the real problem is advertisers signalling they don't want to attach their brand to racist videos (and let's not get started on how angry much of HN was when companies decided to manually enforce policies against hate speech). It's difficult to conclude that most US "free speech" advocates don't believe that banning [perceived] racial hatred is somehow more dangerous to humanity than banning [perceived] adult content (which parallels Supreme Court rulings on what speech does and doesn't deserve protection). Given the respective consequences of racial hatred and pornography, I see this simultaneous presumption in favour of the former and against the latter as very hard to justify. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26218476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26218476
gurumeditations 6y ago
This started long before. Remember when outlets like Bloomberg made a big deal because ads were running on random 5-view YouTube videos with objectionable content? It’s about money, not your culture war.
chii 6y ago
It's stupid, because in the era of television, people understood that the advertising commercial breaks in programmes were distinct from the actual content of the programme, and that the advertisers are _not_ endorsing the contents of the programme at all! How this somehow translated, in the era of online youtube videos, to the exact opposite is still a mystery to me. So what if your ad appeared next to something radical on youtube? So what if your ads appeared next to some weird sex segment of youtube? People who see it aren't going to confuse the ads with the video, just the same as people watching television isn't confusing the ads with the programme.
- _nalply 6y ago
  It's because ads online are targeted.
- slg 6y ago
  >It's stupid, because in the era of television, people understood that the advertising commercial breaks in programmes were distinct from the actual content of the programme, and that the advertisers are _not_ endorsing the contents of the programme at all! This is simply not true. If you go back long enough shows were often sponsored by specific advertisers making the link even stronger than traditional preroll YouTube ads (this practice goes back to radio, so it is even older than TV). It also ended up with bizarre pairings like "'The Flinstones' brought to you by Winston Cigarettes."[1] Eventually cable TV came along and it didn't have the type of FCC oversight that broadcast TV does. However you generally only see swearing and nudity on premium cable and not basic cable despite no official rules preventing it. The primary reason for this is that basic cable still relies and advertisers while premium cable does not. Basic cable channels still fear advertisers dropping out if their ads are paired with objectionable content. And that is really all that is happening on YouTube. GM doesn't doesn't want their latest car ad to appear in front of a racist manifesto. I don't think that is a particularly unreasonable desire for an advertiser. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVRO6GAfvzA&t=69 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVRO6GAfvzA&t=69
  - status_quo69 6y ago
    Another example of this is Transformers, which is/was beloved by kids and was easy advertising for Hasbro.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
_fizz_buzz_ 6y ago
Advertisers were definitely not happy. https://venturebeat.com/2017/03/23/verizon-and-att-latest-to-suspend-google-ads-over-controversial-videos/ https://venturebeat.com/2017/03/23/verizon-and-att-latest-to...
mschuster91 6y ago
> What killed the golden goose was an extremely small set of activists and journalists (specifically Media Matters and Vox) methodically threatening brands with publication of screenshots of their "support" for controversial niche videos. Wrong. There are multiple points that come in play here, none of which are as simple as "the activists are protesting against Nazi and conspiracy crap": First of all, linear TV, radio and newspapers had human reviews in the loop at every stage: client, producer, ad broker, station/paper. That meant that the chance of valuable ads appearing next to bullshit was somewhat next to zero - and also, that "fringe content" was restricted to unscrupulous (or from the same niche) advertisers. Essentially, there was a feedback loop: content that was not mainstream-worthy had no chance of being financed. Internet advertising and especially social networks with monetization and targeted advertising however, turned up all of that. Suddenly, a Nestle ad could run as a front-roll of Alex Jones lunacy. The result was that an awful lot of really awful content creators had both the technical capability to reach out to millions of people (thanks to the Internet, which eliminated the traditional gatekeepers) and the advertising income that was previously reserved to mainstream-able content. The result of that, in turn, was an explosion in numbers of these "content creators" and their content (simply because many of them could now actually afford to quit regular jobs)... and thus, combined with the explosion of followers of such content, meant minorities had to suffer from a constant barrage of both online hate speech and real world violence - including many acts of terrorism that claimed human lives, and culminating in the events of January 6th 2021. What the "extremely small set of activists and journalists" is doing is attempting to rein in the hate and the violence that results of it. And yes, making brands and their advertising agencies aware of what is going on and where their money ends up is a good thing.
- refenestrator 6y ago
  FWIW, I agree with your entire analysis here yet still resent the "extremely small set of activists" and think they go way too far. There's probably room in the middle somewhere.
  - uncletaco 6y ago
    Is there somewhere in the middle because you resent these activists and crave even more reasons to be mad at them? Because these extremely small set of activists include the UK’s government and the newspaper The Guardian who pulled their ads due to YouTube placing them next to “extremist content”. Not to mention the numerous US government watchdogs who have been sniffing out a way to thwart google and Facebook for years now.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
doublekill 6y ago
An Israeli had build a tool to detect anti-semitism in videos and comments. Not being able to sell to YouTube, they pivoted to targeting advertisers ("make sure your advertisements do not appear next to racist content"). Part of this was a PR campaign, where they would mail journalists "scoops" with videos with lots of views, anti-semetic content, and no moderation of YouTube. With every such news article, YouTube stepped up its game. It culminated with PewdiePie making an "anti-semetic" joke, and this resulted in the Adpocalypse. So I'd say it was more commercial interests than activism interests, but at times these align.
- fortran77 6y ago
  What a bizarre made-up story you presented here! Of course, one always finds conspiracy theories blaming the Jews. (And it's seeming OK with the management, even though they've professed to the New Yorker that they take an active role keeping the community in-line.)
chrisrhoden 6y ago
This isn't true. I am sure that you believe it's true, but advertisers have been used to being able to control what content they were put next to for a long time. I don't know whether it matters, or is valuable, but I do know that they have cared for long enough that it has been one of the largest influences on literally what television programs got made (even if this influence appears oblique, it has been one of the primary motivations of the folks making these decisions). You can make an argument that the Internet allows things to work differently, but I think it was simply a matter of what was practical - once it became ~ practical to start exercising some control over what you're associating your brand with, of course folks would jump to pull that lever.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  Your response isn't true. I'm sure you believe it's true, but prior to YouTube we didn't see demonitization happen - TV series were paid for ahead of time. While organizations like OneMillionMoms would harass advertisers to get content pulled, that's not a very effective strategy - they just usually got the spot price reduced. Things did actually work differently. YouTube doesn't pay for content before it airs, and large amounts of the income for a show happen as it's left up. When YouTube demonitizes - and it can do this for an entire channel - it's not just a single episode either. Nor can the content be shopped around to other platforms as easily. Even if the station wanted to take down your content, you at least got a station manager calling your production staff and not just a "We're sorry, but you violated our vague ToS." message with no response mechanism in it. It had some element of human review and wasn't susceptible to brigading.
  - r_c_a_d 6y ago
    One example springs to mind. The racism controversy on Celebrity Big Brother in 2007 led to the sponsor and several advertisers withdrawing. The show was "rested" the following year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_Big_Brother_(British_series_5)_racism_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_Big_Brother_(British...
  - tehwebguy 6y ago
    You are missing the point that for years advertisers were accidentally putting commercials in front of garbage (multi-hour long videos that were only used as pacifiers for toddlers, with dozens of ad breaks) or scum (algorithm scammers getting billions of views from children on unlicensed, sexual content like Spider-man groping Elsa or worse). These videos did very well in both view counts and watch time, driving perceived value (and thus CPM) straight up. Your complaints about the specifics of the process are valid, and the dogshit content I’m referring to is absolutely YouTube’s fault. Massively popular channels called this content out for years but Wojcicki didn’t make a move until a newspaper called out PewDiePie for some jokes, go figure. But the scale of what many advertisers would probably call click fraud was enormous. Further, this is probably the result of another YouTube decision to favor outside sales teams (such as Google) bundling views and selling them to advertisers like subprime mortgages. Facebook is dealing with some fallout over misrepresenting (or maybe outright lying about) ad performance, YouTube has a parallel reckoning that may never come because the average business user on YT has never posted an ad. The other side of the coin is that many of the YouTube channels that get unjustly punished here presumably have a multi-social network audience that they can complain to. Obviously advertisers also deserve blame for going along with ad spend that did not include a full breakdown of every video they spent money on, too.
deleted 6y ago
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inopinatus 6y ago
Our monkey brains are not evolved to deal with the satisfaction barrage, the microdosed dopamine of incremental reputation tallies and continually met expectations. Social media platforms weaponise the limbic system in support of commerce, and once habituated, regrettably few people display a reflexive defiance when the same mechanisms are hijacked by hostile actors & propagandists. As any student of history knows, this is hardly a new phenomenon, but it was never before so globally industrialised or automated. > everyone was happy "Everyone" ... except for all the people whose lives are made materially worse by the subsequent ease of disseminating hate material & misinformation. Also unhappy: anyone possessing the humanity to feel for others in distress. > cowed or [...] ideologically sympathetic Intentional or not, this came across dripping with derision, but it falls flat: the only "ideological sympathy" here is that of being a decent human being. > an extremely small set of activists and journalists This ratifies the well-known aphorism that a small group of dedicated individuals can change the world. It does not undermine the necessity for showing assholes the door.
- mancerayder 6y ago
  >> an extremely small set of activists and journalists >This ratifies the well-known aphorism that a small group of dedicated individuals can change the world. It does not undermine the necessity for showing assholes the door. Wonderful. And the "asshole" designation that these Elect ("extremely small set of ..." as was put above) - how do they get to decide who's an asshole and gets shown the door, what are their criteria and what is the procedure for the rest of us to appeal or ratify their decision-making? Can we at least agree that censors can make mistakes, or have their own biases? And shouldn't censors be policed as well, so they are accountable to the public?
  - inopinatus 6y ago
    > these Elect Again, a statement dripping with derision, that is actually just sticking up for the rights of assholes. > how do they get to decide who's an asshole Peddling a message harmful to others. > what is the procedure for the rest of us to appeal "appeal" is for crooks, not wankers being thrown out of the pub

Pxtl 6y ago

I know, everything was fine when the YouTube recommendation engine accidentally radicalized half English-speaking world and created a profitable fascist political movement.

CGamesPlay 6y ago
Surely there's some space between "Recommend" and "Ban"?
- Filligree 6y ago
  Why should people be allowed to watch anything except what's best for them? /s
  - uniqueid 6y ago
    I don't care if what you watch is good or bad for you. I care if what you watch turns you into a threat to me. Based on the past few years, it looks like maybe 20% of the general population is suggestible enough to endanger the rest of us.
    - TheCraiggers 6y ago
      The problem is that the other guy is saying the same thing you are. The radical left and the radical right both think each other's points are dangerous. And the moderates are pointing at both sides and claiming the same thing. From their respective viewpoints, they're in the "right", just as you think you are. There's a slippery slope here, and I feel it's one so large that we can't even tell we're already sliding on it. The obvious answer is a well-informed populace that isn't easily swayed by emotion and fear, and has the time and inclination to do their own fact checking. Trouble is, that's obviously a pipe dream. Other ideas, such as Facebook's new governing body are interesting, but I fear will be troublesome in other ways. Still, it's an experiment in the right direction I believe.
      - uniqueid 6y ago
        The problem is that the other guy is saying the same thing you are. Then I hope I win. Cause the other guy really likes firearms and believes Bill Gates is some sort of satanic reptilian timelord. Facebook's new governing body are interesting, but I fear will be troublesome in other ways. I don't see that model making anyone happy because I believe true impartiality is impossible. The honest and less bureaucratic approach for FB to take is to admit the process is subjective.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        nicky0 6y ago
        Essentually you are saying: "The other side is wrong, and my side is right." It's not really a nuanced point about the broader issue of speech.
        bryanrasmussen 6y ago
        Yes, as a general thing saying the other side is wrong and my side is right is just silly, because the other side is saying they're right and your side is wrong, but in the specific case where one side is demonstrably wrong then it isn't silly anymore.
        nicky0 6y ago
        But the other side believes they are demonstrably right too, just as strongly as you do. The way to "win" is to argue against the opponent's viewpoint and persuade the general population of the strength of your argument. To do that you need a platform for open speech. This is Democracy 101. What you are arguing for is not democracy but "safetyism". You seek a shortcut whereby you can persuade a powerful gatekeeper to silence your oppositon and make you feel better.
        TomSwirly 6y ago
        I'm not on either side. I don't even live in the United States. But one side, the Republican side, is batshitinsane and believes things that are provably untrue - Obama is a Muslim, climate change is a Chinese hoax, COVID-19 is the flu, that sort of thing. The Democrats are just run-of-the-mill, low-energy centrist politicians.
    - narrator 6y ago
      The Soviets put their dissidents into mental hospitals, because obviously they were crazy and dangerous to oppose socialism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_...
      - uniqueid 6y ago
        A more accurate analogy would be 'the Soviets didn't give them airtime on All Union Radio'
        onlydeadheroes 6y ago
        You are a shining example of your ideology.
        crististm 6y ago
        How is that accurate? More, like, exaggerated to make a point but missing it by a mile. Soviets did not give airtime to pro-party ideologues to validate their position. There was no competition between ideologues to get more airtime. The program was _dictated_ by the powers that be.
        uniqueid 6y ago
        How is that accurate? It's still a bad analogy, but it puts fewer words in my mouth. If there is a line from 'Youtube deleted my video' to 'the government rounded me up and threw me in a sanitarium' it's not a direct one.
        crististm 6y ago
        Yes but that won't stop you from drawing/rationalizing _any_ conclusions from a set of facts. Not all of them will be right and fewer even will make any sense. Which is indeed your prerogative until you mess with the laws of physics and start believing that because you move your arms very quickly you can fly, and that will stop you from falling off of a cliff. There is a five-whys strategy to go to some bottom of an issue but even this strategy will fail you when you cherry-pick the answers to your convenience.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      I don't need uniqueid as my dictator.
      - uniqueid 6y ago
        I don't need crazies to organize a coup on social media and install an authoritarian.
    - mlang23 6y ago
      Sounds like the typical 80/20 story. I submit the "other" 20% likely have a very similar story to yours, only with the numbers reversed.
    - crististm 6y ago
      What should we do about the 20%?
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- foepys 6y ago
  Everytime this is coming up, I wonder why people were always okay with banning nudity but now that hate speech (that undeniably agitates people and leads to hate crime) gets banned, they oppose content blocking.
  - Judgmentality 6y ago
    Who was okay with banning nudity? I think the only thing I've seen universally agreed upon to be bad is child pornography.
    - LordDragonfang 6y ago
      Nudity is banned on television, youtube, facebook, twitch, and any public place in the US. None of those had significant outcry when it was banned, and people bat an eye so little at that status quo that I apparently had to write this comment to remind you.
      - Judgmentality 6y ago
        Whenever nudity is banned I remember there being an outcry. I also think banning nudity is dumb, so maybe it's just an issue of confirmation bias.
        notahacker 6y ago
        Please feel free to point us to the evidence of HN howling with outrage about the chilling consequences of our digital overlords succumbing to activist and advertiser presssure to ban porn (and presumed porn) on their platforms. When Tumblr banned porn, the general reaction was "lol, they're not going to have any audience left" and the one person that raised it as a speech violation (as opposed to a bit of a shame for kinky people) was downvoted to nothingness.[1] Compare and contrast with how this thread, instead of focusing on "lol, algorithms and context!" has turned into questioning whether the real problem is advertisers signalling they don't want to attach their brand to racist videos (and let's not get started on how angry much of HN was when companies decided to manually enforce policies against hate speech). It's difficult to conclude that most US "free speech" advocates don't believe that banning [perceived] racial hatred is somehow more dangerous to humanity than banning [perceived] adult content (which parallels Supreme Court rulings on what speech does and doesn't deserve protection). Given the respective consequences of racial hatred and pornography, I see this simultaneous presumption in favour of the former and against the latter as very hard to justify. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26218476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26218476

gurumeditations 6y ago

This started long before. Remember when outlets like Bloomberg made a big deal because ads were running on random 5-view YouTube videos with objectionable content? It’s about money, not your culture war.

chii 6y ago

It's stupid, because in the era of television, people understood that the advertising commercial breaks in programmes were distinct from the actual content of the programme, and that the advertisers are _not_ endorsing the contents of the programme at all! How this somehow translated, in the era of online youtube videos, to the exact opposite is still a mystery to me. So what if your ad appeared next to something radical on youtube? So what if your ads appeared next to some weird sex segment of youtube? People who see it aren't going to confuse the ads with the video, just the same as people watching television isn't confusing the ads with the programme.

_nalply 6y ago
It's because ads online are targeted.
slg 6y ago
>It's stupid, because in the era of television, people understood that the advertising commercial breaks in programmes were distinct from the actual content of the programme, and that the advertisers are _not_ endorsing the contents of the programme at all! This is simply not true. If you go back long enough shows were often sponsored by specific advertisers making the link even stronger than traditional preroll YouTube ads (this practice goes back to radio, so it is even older than TV). It also ended up with bizarre pairings like "'The Flinstones' brought to you by Winston Cigarettes."[1] Eventually cable TV came along and it didn't have the type of FCC oversight that broadcast TV does. However you generally only see swearing and nudity on premium cable and not basic cable despite no official rules preventing it. The primary reason for this is that basic cable still relies and advertisers while premium cable does not. Basic cable channels still fear advertisers dropping out if their ads are paired with objectionable content. And that is really all that is happening on YouTube. GM doesn't doesn't want their latest car ad to appear in front of a racist manifesto. I don't think that is a particularly unreasonable desire for an advertiser. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVRO6GAfvzA&t=69 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVRO6GAfvzA&t=69
- status_quo69 6y ago
  Another example of this is Transformers, which is/was beloved by kids and was easy advertising for Hasbro.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

_fizz_buzz_ 6y ago

Advertisers were definitely not happy. https://venturebeat.com/2017/03/23/verizon-and-att-latest-to-suspend-google-ads-over-controversial-videos/ https://venturebeat.com/2017/03/23/verizon-and-att-latest-to...

mschuster91 6y ago

> What killed the golden goose was an extremely small set of activists and journalists (specifically Media Matters and Vox) methodically threatening brands with publication of screenshots of their "support" for controversial niche videos. Wrong. There are multiple points that come in play here, none of which are as simple as "the activists are protesting against Nazi and conspiracy crap": First of all, linear TV, radio and newspapers had human reviews in the loop at every stage: client, producer, ad broker, station/paper. That meant that the chance of valuable ads appearing next to bullshit was somewhat next to zero - and also, that "fringe content" was restricted to unscrupulous (or from the same niche) advertisers. Essentially, there was a feedback loop: content that was not mainstream-worthy had no chance of being financed. Internet advertising and especially social networks with monetization and targeted advertising however, turned up all of that. Suddenly, a Nestle ad could run as a front-roll of Alex Jones lunacy. The result was that an awful lot of really awful content creators had both the technical capability to reach out to millions of people (thanks to the Internet, which eliminated the traditional gatekeepers) and the advertising income that was previously reserved to mainstream-able content. The result of that, in turn, was an explosion in numbers of these "content creators" and their content (simply because many of them could now actually afford to quit regular jobs)... and thus, combined with the explosion of followers of such content, meant minorities had to suffer from a constant barrage of both online hate speech and real world violence - including many acts of terrorism that claimed human lives, and culminating in the events of January 6th 2021. What the "extremely small set of activists and journalists" is doing is attempting to rein in the hate and the violence that results of it. And yes, making brands and their advertising agencies aware of what is going on and where their money ends up is a good thing.

refenestrator 6y ago
FWIW, I agree with your entire analysis here yet still resent the "extremely small set of activists" and think they go way too far. There's probably room in the middle somewhere.
- uncletaco 6y ago
  Is there somewhere in the middle because you resent these activists and crave even more reasons to be mad at them? Because these extremely small set of activists include the UK’s government and the newspaper The Guardian who pulled their ads due to YouTube placing them next to “extremist content”. Not to mention the numerous US government watchdogs who have been sniffing out a way to thwart google and Facebook for years now.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

doublekill 6y ago

An Israeli had build a tool to detect anti-semitism in videos and comments. Not being able to sell to YouTube, they pivoted to targeting advertisers ("make sure your advertisements do not appear next to racist content"). Part of this was a PR campaign, where they would mail journalists "scoops" with videos with lots of views, anti-semetic content, and no moderation of YouTube. With every such news article, YouTube stepped up its game. It culminated with PewdiePie making an "anti-semetic" joke, and this resulted in the Adpocalypse. So I'd say it was more commercial interests than activism interests, but at times these align.

fortran77 6y ago
What a bizarre made-up story you presented here! Of course, one always finds conspiracy theories blaming the Jews. (And it's seeming OK with the management, even though they've professed to the New Yorker that they take an active role keeping the community in-line.)

chrisrhoden 6y ago

This isn't true. I am sure that you believe it's true, but advertisers have been used to being able to control what content they were put next to for a long time. I don't know whether it matters, or is valuable, but I do know that they have cared for long enough that it has been one of the largest influences on literally what television programs got made (even if this influence appears oblique, it has been one of the primary motivations of the folks making these decisions). You can make an argument that the Internet allows things to work differently, but I think it was simply a matter of what was practical - once it became ~ practical to start exercising some control over what you're associating your brand with, of course folks would jump to pull that lever.

vorpalhex 6y ago
Your response isn't true. I'm sure you believe it's true, but prior to YouTube we didn't see demonitization happen - TV series were paid for ahead of time. While organizations like OneMillionMoms would harass advertisers to get content pulled, that's not a very effective strategy - they just usually got the spot price reduced. Things did actually work differently. YouTube doesn't pay for content before it airs, and large amounts of the income for a show happen as it's left up. When YouTube demonitizes - and it can do this for an entire channel - it's not just a single episode either. Nor can the content be shopped around to other platforms as easily. Even if the station wanted to take down your content, you at least got a station manager calling your production staff and not just a "We're sorry, but you violated our vague ToS." message with no response mechanism in it. It had some element of human review and wasn't susceptible to brigading.
- r_c_a_d 6y ago
  One example springs to mind. The racism controversy on Celebrity Big Brother in 2007 led to the sponsor and several advertisers withdrawing. The show was "rested" the following year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_Big_Brother_(British_series_5)_racism_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_Big_Brother_(British...
- tehwebguy 6y ago
  You are missing the point that for years advertisers were accidentally putting commercials in front of garbage (multi-hour long videos that were only used as pacifiers for toddlers, with dozens of ad breaks) or scum (algorithm scammers getting billions of views from children on unlicensed, sexual content like Spider-man groping Elsa or worse). These videos did very well in both view counts and watch time, driving perceived value (and thus CPM) straight up. Your complaints about the specifics of the process are valid, and the dogshit content I’m referring to is absolutely YouTube’s fault. Massively popular channels called this content out for years but Wojcicki didn’t make a move until a newspaper called out PewDiePie for some jokes, go figure. But the scale of what many advertisers would probably call click fraud was enormous. Further, this is probably the result of another YouTube decision to favor outside sales teams (such as Google) bundling views and selling them to advertisers like subprime mortgages. Facebook is dealing with some fallout over misrepresenting (or maybe outright lying about) ad performance, YouTube has a parallel reckoning that may never come because the average business user on YT has never posted an ad. The other side of the coin is that many of the YouTube channels that get unjustly punished here presumably have a multi-social network audience that they can complain to. Obviously advertisers also deserve blame for going along with ad spend that did not include a full breakdown of every video they spent money on, too.

deleted 6y ago

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inopinatus 6y ago

Our monkey brains are not evolved to deal with the satisfaction barrage, the microdosed dopamine of incremental reputation tallies and continually met expectations. Social media platforms weaponise the limbic system in support of commerce, and once habituated, regrettably few people display a reflexive defiance when the same mechanisms are hijacked by hostile actors & propagandists. As any student of history knows, this is hardly a new phenomenon, but it was never before so globally industrialised or automated. > everyone was happy "Everyone" ... except for all the people whose lives are made materially worse by the subsequent ease of disseminating hate material & misinformation. Also unhappy: anyone possessing the humanity to feel for others in distress. > cowed or [...] ideologically sympathetic Intentional or not, this came across dripping with derision, but it falls flat: the only "ideological sympathy" here is that of being a decent human being. > an extremely small set of activists and journalists This ratifies the well-known aphorism that a small group of dedicated individuals can change the world. It does not undermine the necessity for showing assholes the door.

mancerayder 6y ago
>> an extremely small set of activists and journalists >This ratifies the well-known aphorism that a small group of dedicated individuals can change the world. It does not undermine the necessity for showing assholes the door. Wonderful. And the "asshole" designation that these Elect ("extremely small set of ..." as was put above) - how do they get to decide who's an asshole and gets shown the door, what are their criteria and what is the procedure for the rest of us to appeal or ratify their decision-making? Can we at least agree that censors can make mistakes, or have their own biases? And shouldn't censors be policed as well, so they are accountable to the public?
- inopinatus 6y ago
  > these Elect Again, a statement dripping with derision, that is actually just sticking up for the rights of assholes. > how do they get to decide who's an asshole Peddling a message harmful to others. > what is the procedure for the rest of us to appeal "appeal" is for crooks, not wankers being thrown out of the pub