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This is disappointing, and while there might be some unknown factors here, it does seem to follow a concerning trend. While demonetization isn’t technically ce

This is disappointing, and while there might be some unknown factors here, it does seem to follow a concerning trend. While demonetization isn’t technically censorship, it is discouragement and disincentivizing, which can have a similar effect as censorship without its messiness.

DoItToMe81 4y ago
I have no idea if it's still the case, but demonetized videos used to appear lower, or not at all, in the search.
threatofrain 4y ago
According to the video, YT is demonetizing all sex-related content. That's likely to be a popular move regardless of whether people understand the full implications of that decision. It's in YT's interest to make money, but they have to balance that desire with perceived threats from legislature or public sentiment.
- defrost 4y ago
  "sex related content" is broad ill defined brush. The recent case of the father sending groin region photographs to doctor via google (?) services and being flagged for "inapropriate child content" is one example of where exceptions should be made. I'm now aware of this channel - I have no issue with its content and feel it should have as much access to income streams as any other vlogger. There are audiences for all manner of content, surgeons have an interest in "gore" videos that relates to injury, treatment, and things often pixelated out. Those in the social sciences want to see stories such as these in this channel to better understand issues and impacts of policy. This is an area that needs better human judgement and oversight, if youtube wants to deter OnlyFansOG style videos then they should do so in a manner that doesn't also swat channels such as this example.
  - threatofrain 4y ago
    YouTube has more reason to be afraid of false positives than false negatives. By refusing to monetize all sex-related content, they now won't make a mistake which the public or government might punish them for. I think the public is far more okay with the idea that YT doesn't fund sex-related content than vice versa, and therein lies the source of risk for YT.
    - sureglymop 4y ago
      But what I don't get is... What's wrong with funding sex-related content? And what legislature is against that? Personally i was just under the impression that YouTube is doing that to keep the content family friendly for their advertisers. Instead of all this, if we all collectively normalized this type of subjectively normal content, it would cease to be a problem. It's also difficult, because what's considered as "sexual" changes over time. It's even a little mind boggling to me that female breasts are still so sexualized but that's a topic for another day.
      - tinus_hn 4y ago
        What’s wrong with it is that advertisers, who are YouTube’s customers, don’t want to advertise next to anything that has to do with sex. They will get very angry if YouTube shows their ads next to a video that has to do with sex. To avoid making their customers angry, YouTube doesn’t show any ads next to videos that have anything to do with sex. Next, because these videos don’t provide any revenue for YouTube they don’t have a big incentive to keep them online. In fact they do have an incentive to be quick at pulling them down.
      - admax88qqq 4y ago
        > if we all collectively... Aye there's the rub. Not everyone thinks the way you do.
      - Test0129 4y ago
        You're reducing this too far. It's simple. Advertisers may have several reasons to not be shown on sex-related content. Regardless of how mundane that content may be. The first and most obvious reason is demographic. People who tend to be sex positive (or whatever the term is now) tend to have certain purchase patterns associated with certain lifestyles, political ideologies, and age groups. They may not sell a product and don't want to pay for ad space. Next, it may be off-brand for them to do so anyway. It might make sense for Trojan to place an ad on a video about the proper use of condoms, but not Cheerios. Third is political neutrality. Since our current society is on a perpetual witchhunt and reduces people and entire companies into the sum of their political views it's often easier to simply take no stance. It's better to not do anything then do something and then tomorrow it's "bad" or wrongthink. Finally, sex-related content is a hot button issue related to children. One "sex positive" state, California, just passed a law to come up with yet another way to "protect the children". If you demonetize all of the content with broad strokes you can go to the states and say you comply with their rules. It's far, far more complicated than "collective normalization". One could even argue that could have blowback that we can't measure. Sex-related content extends far beyond a simple female breast or a tutorial on using a condom.
roenxi 4y ago
It goes to a weird microcosm situation where typing in http://not-youtube.com http://not-youtube.com is somewhere between an insurmountable hurdle and an impossible feat. I remember that Fran woman [0] who was on HN a few weeks ago who just wasn't interested in moving off YouTube under thematically similar conditions, she flat out refused to consider Odysee in her video. If YouTube's advertisers don't want to be funding more arty or niche content, then there needs to be a 2nd platform that caters to arty content and has niche advertisers. This stuff that is getting demonitised all looks pretty interesting, there has to be a market here that YouTube is giving up. Even if maybe it is small. [0] https://www.youtube.com/c/FranBlanche/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/FranBlanche/videos
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
that_guy_iain 4y ago
Honestly, I don't think Google cares per se. They just don't want the hassle of another adpocalypse. The issue comes from advertisers not wanting to be seen promoting certain things. Like if you're advertising insurance you don't want some group of self rightous people to not use your service just because you advertised on YouTube and they showed that video next to a stripper talking about doing coke in the bathroom.
- concinds 4y ago
  > Honestly, I don't think Google cares per se. They just don't want the hassle of another adpocalypse. The issue comes from advertisers not wanting to be seen promoting certain things. I think it's important to be very clear on the correct timeline. Tiny activist groups like "Sleeping Giants" put pressure on advertisers, and got a hashtag trending (back when it was easy to get hashtags trending, before Twitter changed it so that they had to manually approve each hashtag before it showed up on the right-hand sidebar). A few advertisers listened, and pulled their ads from YouTube. It was obviously absolutely incredibly insanely obvious that they were bluffing. YouTube is the most-visited site in the world after Google Search. But YouTube folded instead of calling their bluff; now here we are. This isn't something anybody really wanted. Advertisers did it to look good for a few days on Twitter, in a very low-ad-spend period anyway (didn't cost them anything). They were planning on letting YouTube make a tiny concession, and resuming their ads. YouTube didn't have to fold; they just panicked. They could have given Fortune 500 advertisers the ability to blacklist channels their ads appear on, and it would have gone away. They mismanaged that crisis completely (and it was far from the last).
  - retcore 4y ago
    I'm fascinated to learn more specifically about this sequence of events. Can you suggest any good sources? >They could have given Fortune 500 advertisers the ability to blacklist channels their ads appear on That's just... I don't have words to describe,but the sheer laziness in failing to write what any non expert outsider would probably write down among the first few obvious requirements for a advertising platform, is stunning.
greenthrow 4y ago
Demonetization is effectively censorship on Youtube. If your video is demonetized Youtube won't recommend it and will deprioritize it in search results. It's almost a shadowban.
- SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago
  Full-time YouTuber here. This is unfortunately true. YouTube's official position is that the monetization status of a video is not a factor in search and discovery, and that is probably true. But according to YouTube, all of the factors that impact advertiser friendliness (read: monetization) are factors in search and discovery.

DoItToMe81 4y ago

I have no idea if it's still the case, but demonetized videos used to appear lower, or not at all, in the search.

threatofrain 4y ago

According to the video, YT is demonetizing all sex-related content. That's likely to be a popular move regardless of whether people understand the full implications of that decision. It's in YT's interest to make money, but they have to balance that desire with perceived threats from legislature or public sentiment.

defrost 4y ago
"sex related content" is broad ill defined brush. The recent case of the father sending groin region photographs to doctor via google (?) services and being flagged for "inapropriate child content" is one example of where exceptions should be made. I'm now aware of this channel - I have no issue with its content and feel it should have as much access to income streams as any other vlogger. There are audiences for all manner of content, surgeons have an interest in "gore" videos that relates to injury, treatment, and things often pixelated out. Those in the social sciences want to see stories such as these in this channel to better understand issues and impacts of policy. This is an area that needs better human judgement and oversight, if youtube wants to deter OnlyFansOG style videos then they should do so in a manner that doesn't also swat channels such as this example.
- threatofrain 4y ago
  YouTube has more reason to be afraid of false positives than false negatives. By refusing to monetize all sex-related content, they now won't make a mistake which the public or government might punish them for. I think the public is far more okay with the idea that YT doesn't fund sex-related content than vice versa, and therein lies the source of risk for YT.
  - sureglymop 4y ago
    But what I don't get is... What's wrong with funding sex-related content? And what legislature is against that? Personally i was just under the impression that YouTube is doing that to keep the content family friendly for their advertisers. Instead of all this, if we all collectively normalized this type of subjectively normal content, it would cease to be a problem. It's also difficult, because what's considered as "sexual" changes over time. It's even a little mind boggling to me that female breasts are still so sexualized but that's a topic for another day.
    - tinus_hn 4y ago
      What’s wrong with it is that advertisers, who are YouTube’s customers, don’t want to advertise next to anything that has to do with sex. They will get very angry if YouTube shows their ads next to a video that has to do with sex. To avoid making their customers angry, YouTube doesn’t show any ads next to videos that have anything to do with sex. Next, because these videos don’t provide any revenue for YouTube they don’t have a big incentive to keep them online. In fact they do have an incentive to be quick at pulling them down.
    - admax88qqq 4y ago
      > if we all collectively... Aye there's the rub. Not everyone thinks the way you do.
    - Test0129 4y ago
      You're reducing this too far. It's simple. Advertisers may have several reasons to not be shown on sex-related content. Regardless of how mundane that content may be. The first and most obvious reason is demographic. People who tend to be sex positive (or whatever the term is now) tend to have certain purchase patterns associated with certain lifestyles, political ideologies, and age groups. They may not sell a product and don't want to pay for ad space. Next, it may be off-brand for them to do so anyway. It might make sense for Trojan to place an ad on a video about the proper use of condoms, but not Cheerios. Third is political neutrality. Since our current society is on a perpetual witchhunt and reduces people and entire companies into the sum of their political views it's often easier to simply take no stance. It's better to not do anything then do something and then tomorrow it's "bad" or wrongthink. Finally, sex-related content is a hot button issue related to children. One "sex positive" state, California, just passed a law to come up with yet another way to "protect the children". If you demonetize all of the content with broad strokes you can go to the states and say you comply with their rules. It's far, far more complicated than "collective normalization". One could even argue that could have blowback that we can't measure. Sex-related content extends far beyond a simple female breast or a tutorial on using a condom.

roenxi 4y ago

It goes to a weird microcosm situation where typing in http://not-youtube.com http://not-youtube.com is somewhere between an insurmountable hurdle and an impossible feat. I remember that Fran woman [0] who was on HN a few weeks ago who just wasn't interested in moving off YouTube under thematically similar conditions, she flat out refused to consider Odysee in her video. If YouTube's advertisers don't want to be funding more arty or niche content, then there needs to be a 2nd platform that caters to arty content and has niche advertisers. This stuff that is getting demonitised all looks pretty interesting, there has to be a market here that YouTube is giving up. Even if maybe it is small. [0] https://www.youtube.com/c/FranBlanche/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/FranBlanche/videos

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

that_guy_iain 4y ago

Honestly, I don't think Google cares per se. They just don't want the hassle of another adpocalypse. The issue comes from advertisers not wanting to be seen promoting certain things. Like if you're advertising insurance you don't want some group of self rightous people to not use your service just because you advertised on YouTube and they showed that video next to a stripper talking about doing coke in the bathroom.

concinds 4y ago
> Honestly, I don't think Google cares per se. They just don't want the hassle of another adpocalypse. The issue comes from advertisers not wanting to be seen promoting certain things. I think it's important to be very clear on the correct timeline. Tiny activist groups like "Sleeping Giants" put pressure on advertisers, and got a hashtag trending (back when it was easy to get hashtags trending, before Twitter changed it so that they had to manually approve each hashtag before it showed up on the right-hand sidebar). A few advertisers listened, and pulled their ads from YouTube. It was obviously absolutely incredibly insanely obvious that they were bluffing. YouTube is the most-visited site in the world after Google Search. But YouTube folded instead of calling their bluff; now here we are. This isn't something anybody really wanted. Advertisers did it to look good for a few days on Twitter, in a very low-ad-spend period anyway (didn't cost them anything). They were planning on letting YouTube make a tiny concession, and resuming their ads. YouTube didn't have to fold; they just panicked. They could have given Fortune 500 advertisers the ability to blacklist channels their ads appear on, and it would have gone away. They mismanaged that crisis completely (and it was far from the last).
- retcore 4y ago
  I'm fascinated to learn more specifically about this sequence of events. Can you suggest any good sources? >They could have given Fortune 500 advertisers the ability to blacklist channels their ads appear on That's just... I don't have words to describe,but the sheer laziness in failing to write what any non expert outsider would probably write down among the first few obvious requirements for a advertising platform, is stunning.

greenthrow 4y ago

Demonetization is effectively censorship on Youtube. If your video is demonetized Youtube won't recommend it and will deprioritize it in search results. It's almost a shadowban.

SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago
Full-time YouTuber here. This is unfortunately true. YouTube's official position is that the monetization status of a video is not a factor in search and discovery, and that is probably true. But according to YouTube, all of the factors that impact advertiser friendliness (read: monetization) are factors in search and discovery.