“Can”… just, you know, “won’t”. Because of “engagement.”
It’s hard to combat these towering monopolies on anything approaching equal footing. Especially when they are as entrenched as YouTube. Trying to boycott them is futile, they’re too damned big and a destination for too many people for an individual’s efforts to be noticed. I mean…
YouTube’s revenue now exceeds $15 billion annually and is growing at up to 40 percent a year.
How do you fight that? I really don’t know. But I’m pretty sure that the huge increase in the number of ads that I see on most YouTube videos is the driving force behind their revenue. That, and people who watch enough videos that they are willing to pay YouTube directly to not have to see the ads.
That leads me to my weak attempt at fighting back. I found out that if I watch YouTube videos on the Brave browser it blocks all of the interstitial and opening video ads.
On the one hand I feel guilty for doing that because there are a number of content creators whose videos I enjoy and I’m depriving them of revenue.
On the other hand, to hell with Youtube from now until the day they clean up their act and find a way not to be abhorrent.
I’ll find ways to support the creators I enjoy most that don’t involve trickling ad revenue through YouTube’s coffers, even if I have to contact them and mail them a check directly.
They’re not an open platform, they’re a privately owned, privately run, for-profit business. Just like a retail store that says “no shirt, no shoes, no service”, they should bounce this clown for being a naked asshole.
What they are really showing is that that have principles, dammit, and they will defend those principles—unless it’s inconvenient, or a bully stares them down, then they’ll cower in a corner.
Start a channel where every slur and personal attack of this bigot is recast to the You Tube CEO a la “Susan Wojcicki is a fag” with a closer urging viewers to subscribe and to email said CEO urging You Tube to ban hate according to their own policies?
“But YouTube is never going to actually enforce its policies. Because Crowder has 3 million YouTube subscribers, and enforcing their rules would get them accused on anti-conservative bias.”
He’s right, that will be the perception. What is frustrating is - one can be a conservative and talk about conservative view points with out homophobic or racial slurs or mocking. So many conservatives have turned into the parodies people have been accused them of for so long. And it is hilarious hypocrisy they keep characterizing the left as running on emotions, when they get their feels in a wad just as quick if not quicker, and resort to ad hominem faster than two shakes of a lamb’s tail.
I am sure Crowder will just counter with “I’m an entertainer, we’re putting on a show.”
Apparently Crowder is more “blessed” than Jones. At least so far.
The trick to that is in order to pull it off you have to have a few million followers that will make them hesitate to pull your plug. Without the fear of negatively impacting their revenue stream, they won’t hesitate to ban.
Hopefully this story gets enough traction that they will finally do the right thing, but I’m not betting on it.
I read YouTube’s content policy as disallowing hurtful content against individuals. So general racist, homophobic, sexist, etc… content is unfortuantely fine.
Knowingly making fraudulent DMCA claims is a federal crime. Broken content ID systems don’t intentionally make false claims, they make inaccurate claims.
Nobody’s ever once been prosecuted for it. And youtube’s system is actually arbitration outside the DMCA anyway.
As long as corporations like youtube won’t make exceptions for things like fair use. Or even fraudulently flagging legit content, I see no ethical or moral problem using shitty broken systems to flag this kind of fuckwagon
Looks like Gizmodo got an explanation “on background” too, but whoever emailed them forgot to actually get an agreement to go on background before sending them the explanation, so Gizmodo just posted the whole email:
Apparently using homophobic slurs as a debate tactic is perfectly legitimate, and YouTube will leave your content alone. It’s only if you upload a video exclusively screaming slurs and obscenities that YouTube will give a shit.
