4 ms·

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 whi

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.
concinds 4y ago
This is a self-inflicted problem for YouTube, and with each move they make in this direction, they more indelibly associate themselves with the idea that they endorse each and every ad on their platform, as well as where it's shown. They could have told Sleeping Giants to go fuck themselves back in 2016 and avoided the whole adpocalypse timeline; but now they started and can't stop. People only see it as "YT funding sex-related content" because YouTube repeatedly endorsed that way of reframing and redefining video ad revenues. Imagine if instead, it was framed as: "YouTube makes money off YouTubers' content; their 45% cut is entirely parasitic, YouTube is price-gouging and rent-seeking due to stronger network effects than any other platform on Earth; and YouTube creators are entitled to keep 100% (or, let's say 90% after hosting and fees) of the revenue they generate, not 55%." (yeah, Google's cut is 45%, not 30%, hah. 30% is practically a gift.) See how bad that would be for Google? So they go all in on the colorful, bubbly, "we care about you"-teddy-bear, 'Sleeping Giants' train, because they'd rather have progressivism than "Marxism." I just wonder how it's been so effective, and why they garner so much less criticism than the App Store for doing far worse (there's no "video platform duopoly" unlike App Stores, it's just a monopoly).

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.

concinds 4y ago

This is a self-inflicted problem for YouTube, and with each move they make in this direction, they more indelibly associate themselves with the idea that they endorse each and every ad on their platform, as well as where it's shown. They could have told Sleeping Giants to go fuck themselves back in 2016 and avoided the whole adpocalypse timeline; but now they started and can't stop. People only see it as "YT funding sex-related content" because YouTube repeatedly endorsed that way of reframing and redefining video ad revenues. Imagine if instead, it was framed as: "YouTube makes money off YouTubers' content; their 45% cut is entirely parasitic, YouTube is price-gouging and rent-seeking due to stronger network effects than any other platform on Earth; and YouTube creators are entitled to keep 100% (or, let's say 90% after hosting and fees) of the revenue they generate, not 55%." (yeah, Google's cut is 45%, not 30%, hah. 30% is practically a gift.) See how bad that would be for Google? So they go all in on the colorful, bubbly, "we care about you"-teddy-bear, 'Sleeping Giants' train, because they'd rather have progressivism than "Marxism." I just wonder how it's been so effective, and why they garner so much less criticism than the App Store for doing far worse (there's no "video platform duopoly" unlike App Stores, it's just a monopoly).