6 ms·

YouTube Demonetizing Brand Over MeToo Allegations sets dangerous precedent

13 points by Bostonian 3y ago

mrkeen 3y ago
> As a private company, YouTube has the right, of course, to platform and deplatform anyone it wishes. He's still there. All his stuff is still there. All his content is still searchable. It's free from any kind of trigger warnings, fact checking, or scale-tipping. The free market has simply decided that, while it's worth paying money to an ignorant attention-whore to be wrong about vaccines, it doesn't make fiscal sense to pay an alleged rapist to do so.
- throwaway5959 3y ago
  “Won’t someone think of the rapists?!” is basically what these people are saying. It’s insane.
- Canada 3y ago
  I think it's just a financial decision. If enough people were highly offended by the purveyors of kitten videos that ad buyers wouldn't want to be associated with that they'd demonitize all of those too. Kitten lovers will watch other videos anyway. Of nobody if cared at all about the content of whatever video they sold an ad over I'm sure YouTube would love it. One less hassle for them. But that just ain't so. They could introduce some system to deal with it in a more granular way, but I doubt enough advertisers would want that as opting in would make them appear to take a side. Way better for business to to just keep things non controversial and be done with it.
gbanfalvi 3y ago
Pretty sure that the allegations just brought attention to his channel and he got demonetized for other dangerous messaging in his content. They’ve (reluctantly) demonetized anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists before when their content got the wrong kind of attention from advertisers.
Canada 3y ago
I don't think it does. Not judging him either way, but YouTube is selling ads. Advertisers generally don't want to buy ads on anything controversial. So YouTube stops the flow of ads shown on his videos. That's it. He can still publish videos and YouTube will still pay for all the delivery costs of whoever wants to watch them. I would do exactly the same. If someone brought me $1m in revenue, and I've got $1b in revenue overall, and if selling you would piss off $100m worth of revenue generating customers and there's any chance they mignt buy less from me to avoid you, I'll just drop you. Maybe you become acceptable to my customers again, maybe not, I don't care, I'm going to take the safe path to protect my revenue. If you don't like that post elsewhere. Watch him elsewhere. Send him money elsewhere, what do I care? It's that all the way down. If I'm selling something probably I don't want to be seen to be giving money to anything that upsets even 10% of people. I'd rather them see my ads on other videos instead.
throwaway5959 3y ago
No it doesn’t. The guy is a douchebag who pedals conspiracy theories. He should be glad he can still post on the platform at all.
pixelatedindex 3y ago
Worth noting that reason.com is biased center-right, and right-wing politics in the US these days seem to very hospitable to defending anti-vaccination stances. > Will any prominent figure accused of sexual misconduct anonymously face similar sanction, prior to any criminal action taking place? Yes, they should. If there is sufficient proof for the company to make a decision (or insufficient proof to refrain from making it), then yes. Sexual misconduct needs to be handled seriously, regardless of who perpetrated it.
- amanaplanacanal 3y ago
  I always thought of Reason as libertarian adjacent. I’m kind of surprised they aren’t fully supporting the right of a private company to not do business with anyone they don’t want to.
  - pixelatedindex 3y ago
    You’re right, they are libertarian adjacent. I just get the sense that it’s “GOP Lite” these days, in terms of the policies and figureheads they support. There is a left-libertarian aspect but I don’t see much of that in the US today.

13 points by Bostonian 3y ago

> As a private company, YouTube has the right, of course, to platform and deplatform anyone it wishes. He's still there. All his stuff is still there. All his content is still searchable. It's free from any kind of trigger warnings, fact checking, or scale-tipping. The free market has simply decided that, while it's worth paying money to an ignorant attention-whore to be wrong about vaccines, it doesn't make fiscal sense to pay an alleged rapist to do so.

throwaway5959 3y ago
“Won’t someone think of the rapists?!” is basically what these people are saying. It’s insane.
Canada 3y ago
I think it's just a financial decision. If enough people were highly offended by the purveyors of kitten videos that ad buyers wouldn't want to be associated with that they'd demonitize all of those too. Kitten lovers will watch other videos anyway. Of nobody if cared at all about the content of whatever video they sold an ad over I'm sure YouTube would love it. One less hassle for them. But that just ain't so. They could introduce some system to deal with it in a more granular way, but I doubt enough advertisers would want that as opting in would make them appear to take a side. Way better for business to to just keep things non controversial and be done with it.

gbanfalvi 3y ago

Pretty sure that the allegations just brought attention to his channel and he got demonetized for other dangerous messaging in his content. They’ve (reluctantly) demonetized anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists before when their content got the wrong kind of attention from advertisers.

Canada 3y ago

I don't think it does. Not judging him either way, but YouTube is selling ads. Advertisers generally don't want to buy ads on anything controversial. So YouTube stops the flow of ads shown on his videos. That's it. He can still publish videos and YouTube will still pay for all the delivery costs of whoever wants to watch them. I would do exactly the same. If someone brought me $1m in revenue, and I've got $1b in revenue overall, and if selling you would piss off $100m worth of revenue generating customers and there's any chance they mignt buy less from me to avoid you, I'll just drop you. Maybe you become acceptable to my customers again, maybe not, I don't care, I'm going to take the safe path to protect my revenue. If you don't like that post elsewhere. Watch him elsewhere. Send him money elsewhere, what do I care? It's that all the way down. If I'm selling something probably I don't want to be seen to be giving money to anything that upsets even 10% of people. I'd rather them see my ads on other videos instead.

throwaway5959 3y ago

No it doesn’t. The guy is a douchebag who pedals conspiracy theories. He should be glad he can still post on the platform at all.

pixelatedindex 3y ago

Worth noting that reason.com is biased center-right, and right-wing politics in the US these days seem to very hospitable to defending anti-vaccination stances. > Will any prominent figure accused of sexual misconduct anonymously face similar sanction, prior to any criminal action taking place? Yes, they should. If there is sufficient proof for the company to make a decision (or insufficient proof to refrain from making it), then yes. Sexual misconduct needs to be handled seriously, regardless of who perpetrated it.

amanaplanacanal 3y ago
I always thought of Reason as libertarian adjacent. I’m kind of surprised they aren’t fully supporting the right of a private company to not do business with anyone they don’t want to.
- pixelatedindex 3y ago
  You’re right, they are libertarian adjacent. I just get the sense that it’s “GOP Lite” these days, in terms of the policies and figureheads they support. There is a left-libertarian aspect but I don’t see much of that in the US today.