Youtube’s terms of service update is every social justice warrior’s wet dream

ThestigGT999

ThestigGT999

ThestigGT999

Soldato
Joined
30 Aug 2009
Posts
8,130
Location
one nation under sony
YouTube just updated their terms of service, and there’s no telling what bad news may come from it. In the new “Advertiser-Friendly content guideline“, the video sharing site enumerates new rules and guideline that are set to take effect immediately (You automatically agree to these guideline when you create a channel on YouTube). The page describes what is meant by Advertiser Friendly content:

“Advertiser-friendly content is content that’s appropriate for all audiences. It has little to no inappropriate or mature content in the video stream, thumbnail, or metadata (such as in the video title). If the video does contain inappropriate content, the context is usually newsworthy or comedic and the creator’s intent is to inform or entertain (not offend or shock)”

The page goes on to list some content that may be considered inappropriate for advertising. Most of them are vague, arbitrary and could easily be abused:

“Content that is considered “not advertiser-friendly” includes, but is not limited to:

  • Sexually suggestive content, including partial nudity and sexual humor
  • Violence, including display of serious injury and events related to violent extremism
  • Inappropriate language, including harassment, profanity and vulgar language
  • Promotion of drugs and regulated substances, including selling, use and abuse of such items
  • Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown
”

Here’s the penalty that YouTube hands out if you are found guilty of any of these:

“If any of the above describes any portion of your video, then the video may not be approved for monetization. If monetization is approved, your video may not be eligible for all available ad formats. YouTube reserves the right to not monetize a video, as well as suspend monetization features on channels that repeatedly submit videos violating our policies.”

YouTuber Philip DeFranco has already been hit at least 12 times in the past 24 hours alone:

5DMojUt.png


VcNDBRH.png


YouTuber MrRepzion had at least 40 of his videos affected by this(So far):

Vynopje.png


7F5WOVv.jpg


Another YouTuber, Idubbbz, was also hit:

YJ1dyQE.png
Click to expand...

More with this pussifcation of the internet :mad:
 
This won't last, this kind of heavy censorship will see so many videos being flagged and youtube will lose a lot of money. There will be a lot of protest and controversy about this.
 
I'm against this for a couple of reasons, it depends on how far you go down the line..

Can I put up a perfectly fine GTA5 playthrough, or does the violence count as non-advertiser friendly. I can see what they are trying to do, but it's just open to abuse now.
 
Ammo1337 said:
This won't last, this kind of heavy censorship will see so many videos being flagged and youtube will lose a lot of money. There will be a lot of protest and controversy about this.
Click to expand...

Let's hope so

Kuros said:
I'm against this for a couple of reasons, it depends on how far you go down the line..

Can I put up a perfectly fine GTA5 playthrough, or does the violence count as non-advertiser friendly. I can see what they are trying to do, but it's just open to abuse now.
Click to expand...

yep exactly
 
I can see why advertisers wouldn't want to be associated with some of the content on YouTube. Some of these "crappy" videos don't deserve to make money so it's no big deal as they can still post them.
 
The issue with this is its application. It is lazy and too generalised when heavy handed censorship is thrown at people so that it suits the needs of all people looking to advertise. Controversial and 'off putting' subjects have always been avoided in advertising where appropriate and sometimes used when appropriate. I have no issue with the policy if it was applied correctly, where there would be maturity bands for channels and adverts and the ones considered more controversial would only show brands that approve it. Much like they target adult adverts around adult shows/programs.

This lazy method of 'make all videos appropriate for everything' undermines the point of advertising. There must be a balance where the audiences content is balanced with the need for funding through advertising. If you start censoring the content, then you lose audience and therefore will lose funding from advertisement.

Youtube have been doing everything backwards recently. The youtube red thing is stupid. It is the cost of hosting which is expensive and for most users generates nothing for youtube. Yet they decide to try to charge the audience for youtube red, so they can pay for this hosting of videos that dont generate money, despite the audience being the target of advertising which generates the most amount of money. The simply answer to the cost of hosting is subscription cost for hosts with very low views and no adverts.


If they keep targeting their audience and their primary content creators, rather than the real costs, then they will make less and less money.
 
Be interesting to see what happens, the internet has a keen eye for things like this and it will not go unchallenged if simply "controversial" content start getting pulled.

Seems a very broad brush. Inciting violence and uploading information that aids criminal activity I can understand but the terms as they are displayed above are a bit of a worry.
 
Last edited:
It's as if people think that Youtube is a public service or something :confused:


It's a business which people can use free of charge, which means you either use it on their terms or use something else. It's not hard, is it?
 
Diddums said:
It's as if people think that Youtube is a public service or something :confused:


It's a business which people can use free of charge, which means you either use it on their terms or use something else. It's not hard, is it?
Click to expand...

That's ok then. No need for folks to be concerned that their entertainment options may be diminished by the change.
 
Diddums said:
It's as if people think that Youtube is a public service or something :confused:


It's a business which people can use free of charge, which means you either use it on their terms or use something else. It's not hard, is it?
Click to expand...

While i agree, their approach to encouraging advertisers is stupid and will just cost them money in the end.

Advertising and censorship should be targeted, punishing content creators and audiences will cost more money than they will gain out of it.
 
Avenged7Fold said:
While i agree, their approach to encouraging advertisers is stupid and will just cost them money in the end.

Advertising and censorship should be targeted, punishing content creators and audiences will cost more money than they will gain out of it.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but that's their problem, not ours. Anyone can start a website nowadays, or even use one of the thousands of alternatives, they can do it any way they like and treat it however they want. Youtube might be shooting themselves in the foot with this but at the end of the day it's their business, not ours.
 
So the big video game channels, which i understand make youtube a pretty penny, are now going to have their (and youtubes) funding cut off because they feature violence?

That's going to go down well with youtubes accountants
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom