YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/19/arts/russell-brand-youtube.html

by mhb • 3 years ago

425 844 3 years ago

It's a telling sign really.

For everybody in here who is building a startup and is unsure about going tpe to toe with a tech giant. Do not be intimidated, these big organizations are afraid of everything .

Favorable press and 'feel good statements' like this become more important than making money.

This is true for companies buying ads too, the big automotive companies would absolutely make a fortune both in terms of money and advertisement by having their officially licensed cars in the Grand Theft Auto series, but they are afraid because oohhh the car would be shown with damage, protagonists can shoot at it and from it, they can drive like maniacs killing pedestrians...

code_runner• 3 years ago

ah, the classic car-companies-dont-allow-officially-licensed-cars-in-old-violent-videogame argument for entrepreneurship. tough to argue with!

vuln5• 3 years ago

ChatGPT seems to agree. What are we missing?

Automotive companies choose to license their cars in racing games like Forza or Gran Turismo for several reasons, while being more hesitant about the Grand Theft Auto series:

1. *Positive Representation*: Racing games are primarily about the celebration of cars, driving, and motorsport. Cars are shown in a positive light, focusing on their performance, design, and history. This aligns well with the image that car manufacturers wish to project.

2. *Brand Image*: Grand Theft Auto, while immensely popular, has themes of crime, violence, and other mature content. Car manufacturers might be hesitant about associating their brands with such content.

3. *Damage and Misuse*: In the GTA series, vehicles can be stolen, damaged extensively, used in criminal activities, or even destroyed. Such depictions might be unappealing to car manufacturers who want to maintain a certain prestige or image for their vehicles.

4. *Target Audience*: Racing games appeal to car enthusiasts and people interested in the automotive world, making them a fitting platform for car manufacturers to showcase their vehicles.

5. *Historical Precedence*: Racing games have a long history of featuring licensed cars, dating back many years. This has established a tradition and trust between game developers and car manufacturers.

6. *Feedback from Fans*: Fans of racing games often expect and appreciate the realism that comes with using licensed cars, whereas the GTA audience might not prioritize this as much.

While the potential exposure in a game like GTA might be vast, automotive companies must weigh the benefits against the possible damage to their brand image.

Synaesthesia• 3 years ago

Advertising companies hate controversy.

yellow_postit• 3 years ago

Nit: Advertisers, or at least those with deep pockets, hate controversy. That drives advertising platforms to hate it. Though the fact that X hasn’t hemorrhaged even more money seems to be finding where that argument intercepts the value for views advertisers will place.

Overtonwindow• 3 years ago

Nay: The Vox Populi hate controversy. Like any cancellation, the masses bombard something demanding a pound of flesh. To avoid controversy and pacify the masses, platforms cave. There is no downside for YouTube demonetizing someone that has been accused of anything. If it turns out to be completely false, then YouTube will say they were acting out of an abundance of caution. If then the exonerated person seeks redress, YouTube can just shrug and say where else are you going to host content?

lern_too_spel• 3 years ago

The only ads I see on X these days are from Apple. There used to be more variety.

nvm0n22• 3 years ago

That isn't it. Advertisers have repeatedly shown a huge willingness to court severe controversy. They use obese people to advertise swimwear, they run ads that tell men that they're toxic and terrible.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/gillette-woke-now-when-...

“These are smart people, they do so much research. They know they’re taking on a topic that could be controversial," said Rob Baiocco, co-founder and chief creative officer of BAM Connection, a New York-based marketing firm.

The actual thing motivating these people is simply hatred towards anyone who doesn't bend the knee to their new religion. That's it, that's all there is to it. Beyond that, there is no motivation.

yowzadave• 3 years ago

I think Google still sells ads against his videos, they just don't give him the money they make.

throw3108223• 3 years ago

"Controversy" == "media campaigns accusing advertisers of doing something nefarious". Let's not pretend that the "controversy" is some grassroot movement in which many people, independently of one another, decide they're offended by a brand advertising alongside a content they don't even watch.

im3w1l• 3 years ago

That's clearly not true. Advertising companies currently love attaching themselves to progressive causes.

A more accurate statement is that advertising companies hate some people and factions.

keiferkif• 3 years ago

most unsurprising cancelation ever. His whole schtick was being an impulsive, out-of-control drug and sex fiend.

engineer_222• 3 years ago

That's not what he does on Youtube. His channel is focused on political and social commentary

jahsome7• 3 years ago

What are you saying here?

badcppdev• 3 years ago

The rape allegations are from before he was on Youtube. Some allegations date back to 2003.

sleepybrett6• 3 years ago

his channel is focused on woo and conspiracy.

hermannj314• 3 years ago

His YouTube channel had a bit too much JAQing for me, but definitely was not based on the characters he plays in movies.

MuffinFlavored• 3 years ago

JAQing
Just asking questions (also known as JAQing off, or as emojis: ""[1]) is a way of attempting to make wild accusations acceptable (and hopefully not legally actionable) by framing them as questions rather than statements. It shifts the burden of proof to one's opponent; rather than laboriously having to prove that all politicians are reptoid scum, one can pull out one single odd piece of evidence and force the opponent to explain why the evidence is wrong.

djohnston• 3 years ago

I think he talks about sobriety a lot, pretty sure he’s clean. Have you looked at any of his content or are you just emerging from 2007?

matthewfelgate• 3 years ago

Oh god he's going end up broadcasting on Twitter isn't he.

throwaway1281282• 3 years ago

He's already on Rumble, getting paid by Peter Thiel.

https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1634153760149602307

somenameforme3• 3 years ago

So has the internet completely done away with innocent until proven guilty?

The primary benefit of things like MeToo was supposed to be people being able to take action against individuals who otherwise would have been expected to squash things due to undue influence on law enforcement, the media, and politics - like Harvey Weinstein.

But in cases like this, it seems quite dystopic that a D-list celeb, likely with little to no major influence, is suddenly getting completely cancelled across an entire swath of avenues and platforms, based solely on accusations.

JohnMakin4• 3 years ago

"innocent until proven guilty" only applies in a court of law. Similar to when people cite the 1st amendment in situations where a private company is taking action, this phrase is meaningless here. A private company can do what it wants within the bounds of the law.

Nextgrid• 3 years ago

Maybe this should be reconsidered when a "private company" controls a large majority of humanity's social fabric and/or popular culture?

efitz• 3 years ago

Then let’s change the law. It’s obvious over the past few years that companies can’t be trusted with freedom of association or freedom of speech. Let’s strip them of both.

If you are incorporated (and therefore benefit from government-provided protection from liability and lower tax rates) then you no longer get to choose your customers; you’re a common carrier and must provide the same service to all customers. You can only terminate a customer for non-payment (if you’re a paid service) or if the customer takes actions that directly threaten your business (eg attempts to hack your service).

Social media companies may no longer promote or suppress content; they can only provide tools to let users do so themselves (eg filter/block/subscribe/tag). Advertisers can use similar filters for ad placement.

LudwigNagasena• 3 years ago

"innocent until proven guilty" only applies in a court of law.

“Innocent until proven guilty” is a philosophical concept that many legal systems subscribe to in the context of criminal law.

Similar to when people cite the 1st amendment in situations where a private company is taking action

Indeed, it’s very similar in the sense that the concept of the freedom of speech goes way beyond the 1st amendment. It existed before it. And it is the first amendment that exists because of the freedom of speech, not the other way round.

A private company can do what it wants within the bounds of the law.

Yeah, including immoral actions that others may disagree with.

afiori• 3 years ago

"innocent until proven guilty" and "freedom of speech" are principles codified in law.

The position that only the government is bound by "freedom of speech" is, at the very least, weird in an international context where things that are not the US government are expected to respect people's freedoms.

It is also perfectly legal to do a lot bad things like e.g. buying the product of slave labor in other countries or blood diamonds or buying stocks of companies known to pollute with wild disregard.

Also in the US:

"innocent until proven guilty" only applies in a court of law.

is misleading, the more precise version is that "innocent until proven guilty" only applies in criminal courts.

tored2• 3 years ago

Sure, but the public can always remove all legal benefits a private stockholder company has, like liability.

zo1• 3 years ago

It's a principle we hold as a society.

epgui2• 3 years ago

"innocent until proven guilty" only applies in a court of law

No, it doesn't "only" apply in a court of law. I choose to apply it in my own psyche (which breaks the "only"), and I choose to do so because I understand the reasons why a court of law applies the principle.

Just because the whole village is wielding pitchforks doesn't mean it's rational for you to also do the same.

orblivion• 3 years ago

It doesn't have to apply everywhere but it's still a good policy in a lot of contexts. I think a massive general audience platform is a good example. If this were, let's say, an online community of survivors of abuse, maybe that sort of prudence could reasonably take a back seat.

globular-toast2• 3 years ago

This is such a common thing for people to say I have to wonder if it's propaganda from big corporations. The idea that core tenets of our civilisation are invalid because "it's a private company" is insane. These principles are based on practicalities, not technicalities.

Plasmoid• 3 years ago

There's this really neat section of law known as administrative law. One of the tenants is that you are allowed to have pretty much any rule that you want to have but you have to apply it in a reasonably impartial and fair manner. This means, you can setup random rules that you enforce capriciously.

turquoisevar5• 3 years ago

Even then it’s a rather unfortunately named legal principle.

It would’ve been better for it to be called “not-guilty until proven guilty” since criminal courts aren’t in the business of establishing innocence nor do they have the power to declare someone innocent.

But I guess that doesn’t roll as nicely off the tongue.

smcleod3• 3 years ago

YouTube isn’t the internet… it’s Google.

mattficke• 3 years ago

“Innocent until proven guilty” is an incredibly high burden of proof that we reserve for criminal trials. In other contexts, this is not the appropriate standard —- civil suits, for example, use a “preponderance of evidence” standard. Non-state actors using a lower burden of proof is entirely appropriate.

tredre3• 3 years ago

So has the internet completely done away with innocent until proven guilty?

Yes. But to be fair it wouldn't be out of character for Russel, if you actually know who he is, so maybe that's why the internet finds it so easy to ignore silly things like "evidence" and "proof".

threeseed9• 3 years ago

Nobody is ignoring evidence and proof.

We have a victim who has gone to police. We have three newspapers who have corroborating evidence.

And in response Brand hasn't had his videos removed and his live shows have been temporarily suspended.

runarberg4• 3 years ago

Innocent until proven guilty is a legal framework, it has nothing to do with popular actions, and never has. All it basically says is that Russell Brand cannot go to jail until he is proven guilty.

There are no laws requiring the public to treat an accused person as if they never committed a crime until said crime has been proven. It is up to the public whether they believe the victim or the accused. In this case youtube has decided to believe the victim. Perhaps youtube—like so many others—have deemed the accusations credible, and they are in their full right to act on these believes.

robertlagrant7• 3 years ago

youtube has decided to believe the victim

Not the victim. The accuser, who may be a victim.

throwaway1281282• 3 years ago

On X you can get "cancelled" on even flimsier pretexts.

iterminate• 3 years ago

I disagree with the premise of your comment but on a factual note: Russell Brand has been litigious on this very issue, he has threatened to take legal action and taken legal action against people who have spoken up about him. He has been widely "known" to be a predatory rapist for years but has used his money to intimidate those who wanted to speak up.

snakeyjake• 3 years ago

So has the internet completely done away with innocent until proven guilty?

I'm not a court. Are you a court?

I hope you're not a court. Sentient buildings weird me out.

If four employees came to me and accused someone of harassing them, I would weigh the evidence and if warranted, fire the employee. No court involved.

When you are self-righteous prick as prickly as brand, it is extremely easy to believe the accusers.

robertlagrant7• 3 years ago

When you are self-righteous prick as prickly as brand, it is extremely easy to believe the accusers.

This is why courts use the only system that has a chance of finding the truth.

achrono• 3 years ago

Sentient buildings weird me out.

Courts are not buildings, sentient or otherwise. A court can exist without even a single brick or piece of stone being around.

You're also making this about Brand when in fact this is a discussion at a higher level of abstraction.

curiousllama8• 3 years ago

based solely on accusations

This is not true. The independent corroborating evidence is also material. Contemporaneous records from a rape clinic is powerful evidence.

More generally, innocent until proven guilty is a legal concept, not a social one. From a social perspective, that's never been the standard, nor should it be. Bad folks have often been shunned without convictions - that's why the norm has been "resign in disgrace," not "get thrown in prison"

nsajko3• 3 years ago

innocent until proven guilty is a legal concept, not a social one

Yes, legalism is often taken too far, but that doesn't mean that mob rule is a good thing.

Bad folks have often been shunned without convictions

Are you sure about that? I'd sooner say that only losers get "shunned". Powerful politicians don't get "shunned" for their corruption, actually sometimes it seems to help with their popularity. Likewise with mobsters?

Mobs go after the weak, not after the guilty. Whether they're lynching and necklacing their neighbors or "canceling" minor celebrity cranks.

tjrgergw7• 3 years ago

So has the internet completely done away with innocent until proven guilty?

YouTube isn't a court of law, fortunately.

If he's innocent, he can sue them.

kube-system2• 3 years ago

The court of public opinion has never followed the rules which apply to courts of law.

qingcharles• 3 years ago

Can we stop using "innocent until proven guilty" and change it to "innocent unless proven guilty"?

"Until" always makes it sound to me like it is a foregone conclusion.

pixelat3d• 3 years ago

Your assumption is the reason his content was removed was because of the allegations, which is potentially not true. While it's very likely the allegations are what drew attention to it, it doesn’t mean there wasn’t a bunch of stuff there already that violated policies – especially given the content he had doubled down on.

All Youtube did was cite their “Creator responsibility“ clause[1] as the reason. This could have included a myriad of violations, especially considering the type of content he was producing.

Also, if you read the allegations, he very much was in the protected status you mention. “Open secret”, lots of people covering for him, running interference, etc etc. Calling him a “D-list celeb, likely with little to no major influence” illustrates your lack of research into the issue.

[1] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7650329?hl=en as the reason.

nomel• 3 years ago

there wasn’t a bunch of stuff there already that violated policies

Are you suggesting that it could be that his existing videos were in violation of community guidelines? Is there any evidence for this? I've watched some of his videos, and this seems like a rather silly accusation.

jahsome7• 3 years ago

When a channel is demonetized does that mean YouTube doesn't run ads at all on the channel's content, or do they still run ads and just don't pay out the share to the creator?

realce2• 3 years ago

They're still hosting the videos, still running ads, but YT keeps all the money. Seems... not right and backwards to me.

tmikaeld• 3 years ago

Hosting isn't free and they're not forcing anyone to host it there, there are alternative platforms.

sbuttgereit2• 3 years ago

Agree. One can only interpret this as ham-fisted virtue signaling by YouTube management and perhaps with staff support.

If they are continuing to host and serve the Brand videos, they are defacto saying, "content by this person doesn't hurt our platform in a material way, but we've decided this person is bad and we want to show ourselves punishing him." And the best part is they are tangibly rewarded in this by not having to pay the creator's share of the revenue. No matter what Brand may or may not be guilty of... continuing to stream his content without paying for it is despicable and immoral.

Properly thought about, moral judgement of what YouTube is doing is completely independent of anything Brand had done.

denton-scratch2• 3 years ago

Indeed. If his videos are unacceptable, YT should have taken them down. If they're acceptable, then they should give him his money.

gnicholas• 3 years ago

Interesting conflict of interest there.

thrwy_9182• 3 years ago

They're still hosting the videos, still running ads

Please link to any example of one of Brand's youtube videos that is still running ads

_mxdo3• 3 years ago

YouTube ads are a tiny % of revenue. Celebrities on YT make their money from brand deals, not ads. Remember "Adpocalypse" and the beginning of all this ultra clean PC talk online? Before all that, sure you could make a living from YT ads, but many channels don't even have them on because it's cents. For example I have over 50k views on some videos, but the ad revenue is nothing.

jahsome7• 3 years ago

That's not what I asked.

c420• 3 years ago

You are incorrect:

"“He is most likely making £2,000 to £4,000 per video, not taking into account any affiliate deals and brand sponsorships that might be running in the background,” she said.

Based on five videos a week, this could easily produce the best part of a £1m a year."

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/how-russell-...

braza• 3 years ago

Somethings that happen from I remember from other demonetised channels: - no revenue share from YT - no superchats (via YT) - most of the ads are turned off due to brand deals with YT and risk of being associated with some banned channel

kylebenzle3• 3 years ago

Just checked it.

Went to YouTube.coms Russel Brand page, clicked the shortest video, let it play.

After the video, ad played, then the next Russell Brand video.

Next video was longer and included marked ads throughout the video, clearly pausing the ad content and labeled with a pop-up.

Also, YouTube still has its pop up that say, "Video contains paid promotion," so they know he is profiting off the video and are still allowing it AND YouTube is profiting from ad between videos.

Overall, I'd say YES, they are still allowing ads, they probably just suspended payments for "In-video" YouTube 3rd parts ads, really only 1 of 4 ad types they are serving.

Both YouTube and Russel Brand continue to make money off ads on Russell Brands videos on YouTube.

1. https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxUtzzTeakkcWlZp531K_jZ6JGWUSKbU7...

samspenc• 3 years ago

I don't think this is quite right - as the other comments point out, Youtube will still play ads and they take 100% cut of the money. They have already announced that Brand is demonetized, so they will pay him 0% while taking 100% of the ad revenue for themselves.

nimos• 3 years ago

The Monetization Window is the new Overton Window. I think people underestimate how much Youtube's monetization policy influences what popular creators put in videos. Because it's not just the money - it also effects how videos are promoted by the algorithm.

woooooo• 3 years ago

Matt Taibbi brought up a case of a guy who put up montages of Trump saying the 2020 election was rigged cut up with clips of liberal media figures saying the Russians stole 2016.

Pure trolling, kind of funny, 100% clips of public figures with no commentary. Demonetized.

diogenes44• 3 years ago

I'm honestly confused what people get upset about using a private platform. If you want better accountability argue for an open platform uncontrolled by capital. What is the point of complaining while suggesting nothing? This conversation is even more useless than the old "marketplace of ideas" bullshit.

agentgumshoe7• 3 years ago

I think the point you're making is there's no such thing as the Far Left, despite the Far Right seeing such common use.

diogenes44• 3 years ago

The Monetization Window is the new Overton Window.

More like yet another reflection of the extant overton window.

savingsPossible• 3 years ago

to a degree.

The monetization window has everything to do with the advertiser confort window. That is "are we alienating a big chunk of the population being associated with that", where big is in dollars, not in people

So it is a lens that distorts what society deems 'acceptable' -- and that phase itself has its own set of complications

(see: wikileaks)

freitzkriesler2• 3 years ago

It's really what advertisers are willing to put up with. Unfortunately most companies are run by cowards and I know for a fact that having your ad presented alongside something controversial doesn't imply the brand supports it

Unfortunately, there's a load minority who try to push this when this far from the truth.

mrtksn13• 3 years ago

I wonder if YouTube takes into consideration local values when doing this. For example, nudity and other controversial stuff can have much different standards on what's acceptable and what's not. If this is not baked into the formula, then it's likely that YouTube is pushing cultures to align with SV or some managers in Google.

I'm not going to defend Russel Brand, just making a point about YT's impact. This time around maybe many people agree with their decisions on content but what happens if the managers change and the rules change with them? What happens if Andrew Tate types get positions in the corporate? Will people be OK about promoting videos about how you can make money by pimping your girlfriend on live stream and how to recruit more girlfriends and demonetise videos on climate change?

It's very disturbing that those utility level services can pick winners and losers. IMHO, we need to move to a model where if you can moderate content you are liable for the content. If you don't want to be liable for content then you should have nothing to do with that content, just provide the service and cooperate with the law enforcement when they are after someone who posts illegal content.

You can't be the curator and have no responsibility, and if you don't want responsibility don't be the curator.

I'm sorry that you don't like this unpopular opinion but we need to go to the dumb wire days of the telephone companies who couldn't control what people say on the phone and if their services were used to do bad things it was the law enforcements job to deal with it.

lotsofpulp8• 3 years ago

but we need to go to the dumb wire days of the telephone companies who couldn't control what people say on the phone and if their services were used to do bad things it was the law enforcements job to deal with it.

That is today. You do not get to control Google’s computers.

Buy your own server(s), buy your own bandwidth, and do what you please.

Lobby your representatives to make symmetric fiber internet a utility to each home, and implement ipv6 so you can serve content from your house and not have to depend on bigger companies to get around CGNAT.

ghaff3• 3 years ago

And if you don’t moderate at all you get deluged under piles of crap, hate speech, spam, and bot-created garbage. Might as well not even try. In any sort of forum context, zero moderation makes it useless at least for most.

madeofpalk6• 3 years ago

Youtube is not a utility.

nateglims2• 3 years ago

YouTube had to appease its advertisers to make money. I can’t think of a utility that has this revenue model.

morkalork• 3 years ago

Hasn't pushing cultural norms on others always been the case with American-centric media? Before silicon valley it was Hollywood. They've got all the big budgets to produce hyperviolent movies but lord help you, if there's an uncovered boob, then it's an R rating and a much tougher pitch to studios.

mongol2• 3 years ago

then it's likely that YouTube is pushing cultures to align with SV or some managers in Google.

This is as sure as that the sun will rise tomorrow. I have absolutely no doubt that the rest of the world is culturally influenced by the larger SV companies.

we need to move to a model where if you can moderate content you are liable for the content.

Agree completely.

zarzavat• 3 years ago

The answer to that is yes, kind of. Google only really cares what people say in English and perhaps some other major languages. Speech in less common languages is less moderated in general across the internet.

curiousllama8• 3 years ago

This is a very interesting point. Tech-media companies (Google, Meta, Tik Tok) increasingly serve a similar gatekeeper function for public discourse that TV networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) did 50 years ago.

This... actually is a hopeful insight to me.

iamacyborg3• 3 years ago

The difference is that YT and similar tech platforms have access to much more data which allows them to optimise (or not) for these outcomes.

I wrote a thing a few years ago after reading one of the case studies in John Doerr’s OKR book that used YT as an example, I think the point I was trying to make likely still stands https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/okr-youtube-uninte...

tatrajim• 3 years ago

You would really enjoy the Chinese internet world, where legions of "gatekeepers" at Bytedance et al. bravely patrol the cyber world and rapidly eliminate any undesirable utterance. It's very clean and reassuring.

arp242• 3 years ago

I think the main difference is that traditionally, this gatekeeper function was "decentralized". That is, ABC, NBC, CBS, New York Times, The Atlantic, Baltimore Sun, etc. etc. etc. all made their own editorial decisions, and there were dozens – if not hundreds – of decisions being made, rather than just a small handful of them.

This is still true to some extent, but the distribution of stories relies a lot more on a small handful of companies. Previously the distribution (newspaper stands and the like) might also refuse to carry some issues they found particularly objectionably, but again, these decisions were "distributed" much more than it is today, and it didn't affect subscribers of the newspaper or magazine.

Not that the previous system was perfect either or always worked well, or didn't have their downsides, but it's not really the same, IMHO.

mhh__• 3 years ago

It interesting seeing Mr Beast talk about AB testing thumbnails — his old style was apparently not actually what the algorithm wanted but he'd never tested it properly.

the_doctah3• 3 years ago

There was another style other than him looking stupefied with his mouth open? I'd be fine if that face disappeared off Youtube entirely because everyone seems to have copied that.

PH95VuimJjqBqy• 3 years ago

vernacular such as "unalived" is specifically to get around youtube's content policing.

tenpies• 3 years ago

See also "cerveza sickness" for when any discussion about COVID would get you flagged, and any narrative except the latest globalist one was tolerated.

Aunche2• 3 years ago

This is how ad-subsidized media has always worked. You worked for a television network has a team of censors that protected it from reputational damage. You had to listen to them if you wanted your show to air.

pixl9714• 3 years ago

Heh, I bet there is an age gap here in the replies. Older people remember the days of TV/magazines where if you did the wrong thing, suddenly your face disappeared from the media like it never existed. Then the wild west days of the internet was a weird time where there was all kinds of crazy crap on the net. Now we've recentralized the services and it looks like traditional media.

I do not blame Google on this. They are behaving in their business interests exactly the way one should expect. The problem is as a society we grow massive corporations that have large near monopolies over multiple aspects of the internet and think it's perfectly fine.

harshreality2• 3 years ago

Curated vs non-curated content. Apples and oranges.

Why can't social media add flags to accounts? Discusses weapons, discusses police shootings, violence, under accusation of <x>, trans/queer promotion, terf or anti- trans/queer, then advertisers can select which flags they don't want to be associated with?

pandaxtc• 3 years ago

This is something I think is overlooked very often. I feel like a constant narrative I hear is that censoring media like this is a new-fangled concept when in reality this has been standard practice forever.

paulpauper• 3 years ago

This is why contract law exists. You can cancel me, sure, go ahead, but you will pay up. With youtube, the contract is written, in the TOS, to 100% favor youtube.

calibas• 3 years ago

It's not just video content either, Google's been fucking up the whole Internet for a while now.

Do you want a high search ranking for your site? It's far more important to appease Google's algorithms than provide quality content your users enjoy.

Want to make money off Google Ads? You need to be very careful about what you put on your site. They sent me a threatening letter once because I promoted World Naked Gardening Day.

Running a "successful" website nowadays revolves around keeping Google happy. If you fail to do that, they can destroy your business.

the_doctah3• 3 years ago

I use Yandex. Google results are actively and overly censored and manipulated.

palmer_fox5• 3 years ago

Ah, finally a trustworthy unmanipulated search engine coming from an honest uncensored country.

hinkley13• 3 years ago

YouTube is a poor man’s gold rush.

Content goes on there based on the promise of money, not the reality of it. If you’ve watched YouTube enough you know how many content producers have come to grips with how much/little money they are actually making and have adjusted their strategy.

I like for instance LTT’s philosophy on merch and patreon as money streams for review oriented content: if the majority or plurality of your sponsorship comes from manufacturers, how can anyone be sure that you’re bringing objectivity to those reviews? How can you be sure you are? So keep sponsors locked into a small pool of your revenue, that way everyone knows you can walk away from them at any time and still keep the lights on. There’s less temptation to even attempt coercion, because the leverage is weak at best.

_mxdo3• 3 years ago

If what they're saying isn't true, why doesn't he just sue them for defamation?

theironhammer• 3 years ago

If you're innocent, it's already too late.

_mxdo3• 3 years ago

Just like Johnny Depp and Amber Heard right? Oh wait Depp won, was awarded millions, everyone knew about it, and Amber Heard was mocked & laughed at until she faded off. Why doesn't Brand do what Depp did, if they are just making it all up?

mikece• 3 years ago

No clue whether Brand is innocent or guilty before the law, but if he's exonerated would he have grounds to sue YouTube/Google or do the terms of service allow YouTube to demonetize people based on accusations even if they turn out to be false at a later time?

anigbrowl8• 3 years ago

Unlikely, since uploaders don't really have a contractual relationship with YouTube. Platform operators can just arbitrarily kick people off with no recourse or accountability or even a clear explanation. There's no workaround for this except through regulation, aka government overreach into the free market destroying jobs and freedoms (as objections are usually phrased).

awb2• 3 years ago

Small nit: YouTube has to adhere to it’s Terms of Service and any other “click to agree” policies. However, those documents and policies are incredibly broad like you mentioned.

pbhjpbhj• 3 years ago

regulation, aka government overreach //

I think you're mocking those who say this is overreach? But the tone is hard for me to be sure about.

In any case, regulation would seem to protect jobs here (jobs of content creators), although what it does to freedoms is much harder to analyse.

kwere2• 3 years ago

youtube is a de facto utility (like most of other Google products) and should be regulated accordingly

curiousllama8• 3 years ago

Not a lawyer (barrister?), but no. Generally, businesses are not obligated to do business with folks they dislike.

all2• 3 years ago

This is not true. Courts continually hold that a business must serve persons they don't like or agree with.

ChatGTP4• 3 years ago

Are you serious? If you don't like a certain ethnic minority it's legal to refuse them service?

mytailorisrich• 3 years ago

Yes if YouTube demonetized in breach of their T&Cs, which may not depend on whether the accusations are ultimately shown to be false.

Manuel_D4• 3 years ago

Not really, YouTube can terminate your account for any reason. If the accusations are false, and if they're the reason why he lost monetization, he could sue the accusers for damages.

ChatGTP4• 3 years ago

The more powerful these platforms become, the more this is a problem..

Airsinner3• 3 years ago

In addition to the contracts, YT could easily say even the implication he may have done wrong is not good for their business to associate with. He needn't be convicted in a court of law for it to be bad business to continue to work with him.

K0balt• 3 years ago

Probably would have to go after the false accusers for defamation and damages incurred… probably not worth it.

That said, mere unsupported allegations leading to serious material consequences is a dystopian quagmire and should be actionable in a legal sense without regard to the absurdly inequitable stipulations put forth in the T&C.

denton-scratch2• 3 years ago

The swiftness of Youtube's action makes my head spin. /s

Brand was kicked off the BBC fifteen years ago, for his disgraceful on-air abuse of Andrew Sachs ("Manuel" from Fawlty) and his daughter. Since then, he's only become more extreme and objectionable.

JumpinJack_Cash3• 3 years ago

Question to anybody who works in advertisement:

Are people less likely to buy Nike apparel because for example Tiger Woods was caught with escorts and drinking booze?

I am asking because from a distance it seems not a business decision as much as an opportunity for a CEO to dunk on an athlete/famous person

beej712• 3 years ago

I'm not an expert, but I'd suspect that people were more likely to buy Nike because they cut Woods loose. Lots of press there.

JumpinJack_Cash3• 3 years ago

A sport apparel company abandoning an athlete is the type of press that sells shoes?

kube-system2• 3 years ago

Brand image is a complicated concept but it consists of a lot of different pieces over a long period of time that build a public perception. Often, good or bad brand images are not due to any one single thing, but the totality of things that the public knows about a brand.

While a single bad apple might not sink a brand, if it starts to become a pattern, it can ruin brand image over time.

swores3• 3 years ago

Most people: no. Some people: yes.

If Tiger Woods was the only way Nike could think of advertising then they likely would've considered him worth keeping, but when they have so many alternative good options for sponsorships it tips the balance in favour of not sponsoring somebody that even 0.1% of your customers might think badly of you for.

GaryNumanVevo• 3 years ago

Current events aside, kinda insane how a Youtube channel with 6.6 million subscribers can get less than 500k views on a month old video

resoluteteeth2• 3 years ago

I don't think it's unusual for creators who put out videos on various topics extremely frequently when most of their subscribers aren't watching every video.

It basically just means that the average subscriber is watching ~2 of his videos a month.

mrguyorama2• 3 years ago

Youtube turned subscription numbers into a gameable metric for some time, so they got heavily inflated, so then Youtube basically made them meaningless. Youtube rarely even shows your subscribers your new videos nowadays, and for many creators, subscribers are about 20% or less of their total views.

ToDougie• 3 years ago

I'm subscribed to hundreds of channels, and I rarely see their content in my feed. It is so bizarre.

sakopov• 3 years ago

Not really insane because it's not evergreen content.

sleepybrett6• 3 years ago

I thought he was 100% rumble already.

camhart• 3 years ago

X/twitter is going to explode (in user count) if other platforms continue behaving this way.

jimnotgym4• 3 years ago

This is difficult for me. I'm not pro censorship, but I would like a way to not have to hear about Russell Brand at all. Is that possible?

I don't want to hear from him or about him. I don't want to hear from people that like him. I didn't want to hear Radio 4 talking about it this morning. I don't want to stop his free speech, I just want to avoid him

jimnotgym4• 3 years ago

Interesting...I didn't expect my weird meta comment about how celebrity 'news' has become Real News to be quite so unpopular!

nsajko3• 3 years ago

All kinds of vote manipulation are possible, don't take the downvoting to heart.

Manuel_D4• 3 years ago

I'm not pro censorship, but I would like a way to not have to hear about Russell Brand at all. Is that possible?

Yes: don't watch his videos and don't read or watch news coverage about him.

jimnotgym4• 3 years ago

If only...I have never watched his videos or read about him. I don't read tabloid news. I don't watch TV news. I only listen to 'serious' radio news stations. Yet somehow I know all about this story

c7DJTLrn5• 3 years ago

Putting aside recent allegations, it's disappointing what has happened to Russell Brand's YouTube channel. I watched some of his videos a few years ago and they were interesting discussions of the news with a particular emphasis on questioning everything which I see as a healthy habit. Inevitably though, the algorithm steered the videos to become more clickbaity, divisive, and frankly crazy. He probably saw that outrage-bait videos were getting double the views. YouTube's algorithm plays a massive part in what goes into people's heads and they should be held more accountable.

wilg2• 3 years ago

Is it even "the algorithm" or is it simply just how people prefer to click crazy shit? We see it with news and pretty much anything else where clicks equal money.

HenryBemis• 3 years ago

"The algorithm" and/or the people behind it noticed that if User1 watches VideoA and then we show him B-C-D, he stays on the platform for 10 minutes.

BUT when we showed a User2 the videos X-Y-Z (after videoA), then User2 stayed "engaged" for 3 hours. And the new sequence was just established.

The 'machine' is constantly doing A/B and other tests, and it learns, adapts, and continues. The machine just learns what people like and feeds it to them. We can't blame the machine for giving the users what they want.. can we? :)

josefx• 3 years ago

I think the algorithm simply suffers the same problem as googles search algorithm: it was gamed years ago. I usually have to block a dozen or so of crazy or low effort content farms for every type of content I watch on youtube and after that the recommendations seem mostly acceptable.

rcxdude• 3 years ago

The difference between questioning everything and rejecting everything from the mainstream is an important one which Brand and many others seem not to understand.

breakingrules• 3 years ago

if you have a modern bar for accuracy, you require evidence. when you require evidence, because you've spotted a ton of lies in the media, most of it gets rejected.

we did not ask for untrustworthy media, algorithms, exploitation and bribery dictate that.

jjoonathan3• 3 years ago

Oh, I think he understands. Constantly criticizing mainstream media for low standards while having far lower standards yourself is the kind of thing that you have to put significant ongoing effort into rationalizing.

Consumers of alt media can do it thoughtlessly. Producers? I'm not convinced.

RRWagner• 3 years ago

A very good concise insight

asdfman1232• 3 years ago

Don't buy into the bad faith arguments. They aren't genuinely "asking questions," they're trying to bring what they already believe into the mainstream.

gorwell2• 3 years ago

It's amusing they recognize NPCs that uncritically repeat the establishment narrative and question nothing, but don't recognize they are doing the same thing in reverse.

"I Support The Current Thing" vs "I Oppose The Current Thing"

CWuestefeld• 3 years ago

the algorithm steered the videos

More accurately, the algorithm gave Brand incentive to change his videos. "The algorithm" can't steer the video directly; it needs to influence the content creators. It's the conscious decision, following incentives, of these people to change their content. And while we can understand why they may have done it, that doesn't make them blameless.

tommica• 3 years ago

Does the creator influence their audience, or does the audience influence the creator?

mrtksn13• 3 years ago

Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist, has been writing about this issue since half a decade now: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-po...

grecy2• 3 years ago

the algorithm steered the videos to become more clickbaity, divisive, and frankly crazy. He probably saw that outrage-bait videos were getting double the views. YouTube's algorithm plays a massive part in what goes into people's heads and they should be held more accountable.

I'm a YouTuber, and I want to be very clear on the above.

I know I would get way more views (and subscribers, and money) if I did more stupid clickbait stuff. But I don't want to, that doesn't make me happy. Also, professionals should not do that out of being professional.

A house painter would make more money if he did a rush job, and a TV reporter would get in the news more if he told blatant lies on live national TV. Just because a person can make more money short term doing something, it doesn't mean they should not take 100% of the blame for doing it.

I could very easily make videos of doing highly illegal stuff, which would likely get a zillion views. Am I then less responsible for doing it?

0xfae• 3 years ago

I see what your saying, but your examples don't quite work.

A reporter telling lies would presumable be called into their managers office and told to shape up or be fired. A painter doing rush jobs would get bad reviews and no referrals, and eventually stop getting jobs. Those behaviors are not incentivized.

A youtube creator milking the algorithm is rewarded for this behavior, with more views, more ad money, etc.

Are we really surprised that people are doing what they are incentivized to do?

mrighele• 3 years ago

A house painter would make more money if he did a rush job

If the way to find a painter is to use the yellow pages, and the order inside the yellow pages is by the time the to finish painting, most of the jobs will go to people that make a rush job, thus pushing painters into that direction.

itsoktocry• 3 years ago

Can say the same thing about Jordan Peterson, no? Content from 5-10 years ago was interesting. Now I have him muted on X.

c7DJTLrn5• 3 years ago

I'm convinced that these platforms are a huge driver, if not the main driver of social and political polarisation.

iamacyborg3• 3 years ago

I think both Peterson and Brand were always these people, social media just allows them to monetise it.

gonehome• 3 years ago

Audience capture is a scary thing: https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-audience-capt... (a particularly sad and grotesque example).

I think it's something we're all vulnerable too.

It's important to be aware of the incentives you're allowing yourself to operate under.

A little tangential maybe, but it reminds me of this book review I really liked: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/books/review/herman-wouk-...

madeofpalk6• 3 years ago

the algorithm steered

He steered. We should not remove his agency for the content he wrote, said, recorded, and uploaded.

ClumsyPilot6• 3 years ago

Google engineers steer the algorythm, which steers Russel Brand, which steers his followers, which steer.. Google in return?

randomdata• 3 years ago

No, the algorithm (more accurately, the audience) did the steering. His agency did allow him to reject the direction.

jmfldn6• 3 years ago

His decent into outrage-bait, alt-right friendly nonsense struck me as abrupt. One minute his channel was reasonable enough, the next it was totally nuts.

Part of me wonders whether this was calculated once he knew that a major expose was circling. I have zero evidence for this, but you can see the logic. Court a following that is sceptical of everything, and that will see an investigation by the 'mainstream media' as obvious evidence of some deep state conspiracy. You now have an army of cheerleaders, and an alternative renevue source, ready to wage war with.

0xDEF2• 3 years ago

He pulled an Elon.

Elon Musk also came out as an alt-right troll when he was tipped that an expose about sexual harassment of a flight attendant was coming his way.

c7DJTLrn5• 3 years ago

Interesting idea. It's possible Andrew Tate played this card as well.

cgio2• 3 years ago

I cannot see how the army would be of any use in the eventuality of the major expose. There was this other person with huge following among scepticals of everything (sorry I don't remember the name exactly) who got a huge fine recently. I don't believe justice would look the other way, if anything, it may be attracting scrutiny with attention.

mortureb3• 3 years ago

It’s pretty simple. If you have to be masculine and assertive in any way now you have to cowtow to the insane right because the left is a hostile space for regular men. The right welcomes you with open arms and basically shields you from any consequences for past wrongs. There is no middle. You can get away with just about anything on the right now with no repercussions.

You can downvote this all you want but you know there is more than a modicum of truth here.

pydry2• 3 years ago

His channel went from 500k to 20 million viewers when he went off the rails. It could all have been an elaborate 4D chess gambit or alternatively he could just like money and attention.

WWLink2• 3 years ago

His decent into outrage-bait, alt-right friendly nonsense struck me as abrupt. One minute his channel was reasonable enough, the next it was totally nuts.

An observation of mine going back to the 90s when I was a kid and liked listening to the radio: Talk show hosts would always lure you in with something that sounds reasonable, and use it to segue into a topic that sounded absolutely nuts.

That overall trend into insanity sounds like taking the exact same concept and doing it over a much longer timeline lol. That way they've established themselves in the community as a trusted 'podcast' source, and once they have an audience they start blasting crazy shit with hopes that at least some people will listen and consider it "thought provocative"

sixQuarks5• 3 years ago

Can you give an example of what made his videos “totally nuts”?

BLKNSLVR7• 3 years ago

The Trump methodology.

whatwhaaaaat• 3 years ago

I love this one and it was all over Reddit.

Russel Brand, at least 3 years ago, started becoming skeptical of the mRNA vaccines, the profit motives of pharma companies during the pandemic, and the concerning drift to authoritarian thought police all to build an “army” to combat allegations from over ten years ago by multiple women who happen to have some a tv interview but haven’t yet gone to the police.

Masterful!!!

It can’t be the war stuff right? Because he’s always been fervently anti war without much thought other than blowing up people is always bad.

CydeWeys2• 3 years ago

Inevitably though, the algorithm steered the videos to become more clickbaity, divisive, and frankly crazy.

"The algorithm" didn't force him to go off the crazy deep end. He chose to do this himself. Don't absolve him or that decision.

I think it's more like, he knew this was coming out and it was going to make him look bad, so he preemptively decided to modify his audience to consist of people less likely to leave him once the news did break.

gerdesj• 3 years ago

"I think it's more like, he knew this was coming out and it was going to make him look bad, so he preemptively decided to modify his audience to consist of people less likely to leave him once the news did break."

The accusations mainly seem to be from around a decade ago (give or take). How long do you have him down "modifying" his audience?

I personally think ... well I don't know the bloke at all, only his public persona. However we are seeing an outrageous pseudo trial by media (all of them) and ill-informed public "opinion" before he is even in the dock facing his accusers. How on earth can he face 12 unbiased jurors with this bloody nonsense going on?

Perhaps we should adopt a professional approach to trying crime, involving trained magistrates instead of the old school "12 men and true" bollocks. The jury system doesn't really cut it these days in the face of your and other shrill accusations. I gather that the Netherlands does that, for example.

agentgumshoe7• 3 years ago

I think he just found it harder to draw the line at where the lies end and real lies begin..

suyash• 3 years ago

It's time to end the YouTube monopoly, too much of this nonsense we have seen in the last few years, it's nothing but virtue signalling and pandering to one side without ascertaining facts.

tjrgergw7• 3 years ago

I have an incredible sleaze radar. The first 10 seconds I saw this guy some 10 years ago I immediately knew he was a disgusting guy.

c7DJTLrn5• 3 years ago

What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'?

tjrgergw7• 3 years ago

I'm not a court of law. I can say whatever I want. What happened to freedom of speech?

corinroyal3• 3 years ago

It stayed where it belonged--out of conversations on the social consequences of rape allegations.

Ylpertnodi• 3 years ago

...anyone else on your radar we should know about (before the allegations start)? How often have you been in/ correct?

tjrgergw7• 3 years ago

Frankly I can't tell you anyone off the top of my mind, since this isn't a subject I find interesting enough to bother keeping a list. There also aren't that many "celebrities" that I'm aware of.

I guess you're doubting that I would've said what I said before the allegations started. There's nothing you I can do prove anything to you.

trescenzi• 3 years ago

https://www.theonion.com/nation-could-have-sworn-russell-bra...

tjrgergw7• 3 years ago

LOL that's great. Exactly how I feel about this guy.

mrmincent• 3 years ago

Sexual assault is a serious allegation. In most media channels if an employee is accused of sexual assault they would be stood down and an investigation launched. He’s lucky they’re still giving him a platform to use.

arpowers• 3 years ago

While sexual assault is serious if true, it's also the only crime that can ruin someone's life and livelihood with no evidence or actual crime taking place.

Additionally there is often large financial incentive for accusers (and their lawyers) via lawsuits and it serves as a fantastic method of hurting people politically even if they are exonerated.

curiousllama8• 3 years ago

While sexual assault is serious if true, it's also the only crime that can ruin someone's life and livelihood with no evidence or actual crime taking place.

This is true. Along with this, it's important to note that there is, in fact, a significant amount of high-quality evidence about this particular allegation (some of which is contemporaneous to the assault itself).

I'd also note that failing to believe & punish a true/credible allegation is itself an abhorrent act. There's no easy defaults in a situation like this: it's A Very Bad Thing to be incorrect in either direction.

nullifidian2• 3 years ago

There is even bigger financial incentive in general to shut up / deplatform an outspoken, high-profile leftist (as in a person who threatens profits), or a politician in general. So such accusations should be considered with caution.

wilg2• 3 years ago

Seems like there should be guidelines for what you can and cannot do to get YouTube monetization (that people can squabble over). Seems very ad-hoc to do it this way. It surprises me that being accused of a crime would be a good or fairly enforced rule.

droptablemain• 3 years ago

Anonymous allegations from more than a decade ago, procured by a fishing reporter, should not lead to the cancellation of someone's means of supporting themselves. This is absurd, regardless of whether the accusations are ultimately true or not. Beyond the absurdity, this is tyrannical.

Even the "testimony" they released was recorded by an actor. There's simply very little of substance here.

sneak4• 3 years ago

His means of supporting himself has not been cancelled, just his ability to get paid from YouTube. Don't conflate them.

newsclues• 3 years ago

There are people whose main income is YouTube and if YouTube can do this to famous people, surely they can do it to smaller creators who are paying their bills with YouTube money.

Don't be confused by the situation and the precedent it establishes.

crazygringo2• 3 years ago

Do any of us know what percentage of his income is from YouTube currently?

I think the point stands in the abstract. It doesn't even matter for him specifically, because there are people whose income is primarily/entirely from YouTube.

And so we should appreciate what a serious action that is, to turn it off. It's not like it's just play money, that we can pretend it doesn't matter. It's real income.

Supply54112• 3 years ago

Maybe the real lesson here is nobody who wants to speak their mind should be supporting themselves on a platform of nervous advertisers.

stainablesteel2• 3 years ago

why are they never nervous when they outright betray the demographics they should be pandering to?

latest examples would be the bud light and target fiascos

georgespencer10• 3 years ago

Your comment seems either mistaken or disingenuous to me:

Anonymous allegations

The identity of the alleged victims is not public, but that is not the same thing as an anonymous allegation. The newspaper and television channel know the identities of the individuals, as does Brand.

from more than a decade ago

Utterly irrelevant.

procured by a fishing reporter

It's unclear what you mean by this. I can't find anything in any of the stories which suggests that the journalists simply began investigating him hoping to find a story or promulgate the misapprehension that he is a rapist. In fact, the Times' investigation seems to insinuate that the 16 year old Brand was dating when he was 31 approached his publisher seeking an apology before being rebuffed. That seems to me to be the most likely origin for the investigation.

should not lead to the cancellation of someone's means of supporting themselves

Suspension without pay is extremely common whilst investigations of serious misconduct in or outside of the workplace are carried out, but even if that weren't the case: YouTube is not Brand's employer, he chooses to publish on their platform [presumably] knowing the terms of service, and is not beholden to YouTube as his only source of income. After he was "censored" by YouTube during COVID for espousing inane conspiratorial drivel, he began posting on a service called "Rumble", not to mention the royalties and residuals he still receives from his previous work and of course not forgetting his option to use one of his myriad other platforms (or indeed YouTube's, if it's within the ToS) to encourage his brainless fans to remunerate him directly or via other means.

This is absurd

Even your straw man retelling of this situation is fairly benign-seeming.

this is tyrannical

Lol.

Even the "testimony" they released was recorded by an actor.

You could be forgiven for not knowing this if you get all of your news from Elon and Russell Brand, but it is absolutely the de facto standard in journalism to protect the identity of individuals with a mixture of actors and altered voices. If you watch the Channel 4 documentary you will note that at times they use the real people, with altered voices, and at times they use actors.

None of this undermines the credibility of the reporting or the accusations, and -- again -- the identities of the individuals in the reporting are known to both the journalists and Brand, and the police know the identity of the _further_ individual who came forward in light of the allegations to make _another_ accusation.

qup• 3 years ago

> from more than a decade ago
Utterly irrelevant.

I disagree. It's relevant to me. It's not absolution, but it's relevant.

dmix2• 3 years ago

There’s been so, so many of these accusations in the past decade that turned out to be far less than the initial reporting or flat out wrong. Your deference to the professionalism of journalism is about a decade or two out of touch with modern reality.

It is only rational to wait for proper processes play out.

It’s sad that such a thing has become politicized where one has to feel the need to tar and feather someone at the first reporting of accusations and any dissent of immediate overreactions is dismissed as conspiratorial or itself motivated by a distasteful political agenda or merely getting their information from unclean sources.

pengaru• 3 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_brand#Sexual_misconduc...

zapdrive• 3 years ago

I wish there was a viable alternative to everything Google (search, youtube, android, maps to name a few). I can't wait for Elon to buy Google and end this BS.

freediver• 3 years ago

I think there is (for search at least, I may be biased), the question is are we ready to pay for it, or we expect the same business model as Google's (ad-tech) to somehow produce a better product for its users?

jalino23• 3 years ago

this is your solution? for Elon to buy Google?

logicchains• 3 years ago

Bing, Rumble, Apple, Apple Maps?

karaterobot• 3 years ago

“If a creator’s off-platform behavior harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community,” the spokeswoman said.

Putting aside the validity of the accusations—let's say he did everything he's accused of, for the sake of argument—is Youtube alleging that he assaulted Youtube employees, app developers who use the Youtube ecosystem, or Youtube users? I assume the latter. But the thing is, a majority of people on Earth are Youtube users, so what the heck does that even mean?

I have no dog in this fight, Russell Brand's fate is not of interest to me. I'm just wondering about the argument they are making, and how broad it seems. If any alleged crime takes place wherein the victim has watched at least one Youtube video at some point in their life, and the perpetrator has a monetized Youtube channel, will Youtube's policy be to step in and protect the victim? For example, if I am YT creator and I punch someone in a bar, and that someone has a Youtube subscription, does Youtube step in? That feels like the kind of policy that cannot be faithfully and objectively executed, which makes it a bad policy and a potential legal vulnerability for Youtube.

sneak4• 3 years ago

YouTube is like HR - they are there to protect the company and the company's revenue streams, not you or "the community".

This is why I think the term "community guidelines" for "censorship policy" is such abusive gaslighting. It's unilateral censorship, not community, and they are rules, not guidelines.

It's the same deceptive drive that renamed "searching your bag" to "security screening" at airports.

pydry2• 3 years ago

In this case it looks like theyre essentially just keeping his money because they decided to.

brk• 3 years ago

I mostly agree but my argument against “rules” is that these things never seem to be unilaterally enforced. So it really is more like a guideline because enforcement is unpredictable in several aspects.

znpy2• 3 years ago

Community is an abused term nowadays

yreg3• 3 years ago

I agree in general, but in this case the company has nothing to protect from. The matter doesn't relate to them in any way.

api• 3 years ago

It’s 100% about protecting the brand.

Twitter has lost something like 60% of its advertisers because it turns out Proctor and Gamble doesn’t want an ad for Dawn dish detergent next to someone called BasedFuhrer1488 posting about how the Holocaust didn’t happen.

If it wasn’t for that all these platforms would let anything legal go as long as it drove engagement.

happytiger4• 3 years ago

Well the “community” doesn’t include anyone outside of Google. So, it’s not really a “community” by definition.

surfingdino2• 3 years ago

YouTube doesn't want to be demonetized by advertisers, so they are demonetizing Brand. It's basic reputation management / income stream protection. Brand is free to go elsewhere or set up his own streaming / video publishing service.

christkv• 3 years ago

I doubt YouTube worries about being demonetized by advertisers at this point. Where exactly will this advertisers go to advertise on long form videos otherwise?

FormerBandmate• 3 years ago

YouTube is a massive platform and inherently has power. People used the exact same argument for Twitter but I don’t think you can deny that arbitrary management choices made a huge difference in how it worked, which had substantial impacts that a private company shouldn’t have.

EGreg3• 3 years ago

Don’t you mean they are managing their Brand? ducks

corethree2• 3 years ago

Brand is free to go elsewhere or set up his own streaming / video publishing service.

Obviously there's problems with this reasoning right? Why bother mentioning pointless rationalization here? You and Youtube both know there's only one video service that offers long form format and that's youtube themselves.

Just tell it like it is. Youtube having a monopoly over online video content is effectively gagging and censoring Brand because of the alleged crimes influencing their business. It is not technically eliminating freedom of speech but it is both practically and effectively doing the same thing.

This points to a an overall problem within the US today regarding freedom of speech. We effectively do not have freedom of speech because all public speaking platforms are controlled by business interests.

That's what's going on here. Not some "oh you're free to go to another video service" bullshit.

perfect-blue• 3 years ago

It's an interesting thought experiment, but ultimately boils down to one point. YT gets to do whatever they want. The terms of service are designed so they can be selective in their enforcement.

Is it bad policy? Yes. Does it allow for flexibility in a world that is never black and white? Also yes. Honestly, if there was a better solution, what would it be? The questions are endless once you start down this rabbit hole.

jvickers2• 3 years ago

No, in my view Youtube can not do whatever they like with this kind of thing, at least as far as my potential outrage is concerned. If Youtube gives a false reason (to me as well as others) about the reason for demonetising someone then I have a problem with that.

When some content is banned from Youtube, it's got positives and negatives. Like when Alex Jones was banned, I was annoyed that I could no longer watch Alex Jones on Youtube if I ever wanted to, but more than that glad that he'd never appear in my autoplay or recommended videos. While I think there is some truth that YouTube can do as it likes, people talking about what their rules are, complaining about them, lobbying Youtube even, is all fair too. A fair complaint would be that the user does not get enough control over what gets recommended. If enough people are talking about that issue, it could motivate Youtube or a competitor to provide that kind of control, as it would be a signal that it would attract an audience to that platform and keep them engaged if recommendation control was a major concern of theirs.

Also, in some circumstances I could be quite annoyed with Youtube for not demonetising or banning some content. It could be something I don't want to watch personally, or more likely something I feel disgusted by such as Elsagate type scandals where the 'protect the children' type argument or instinct in my opinion or feelings override free speech concerns.

People criticising what Youtube does and talking about what a video hosting website would ideally do helps to create the conceptual foundations for the ideal video hosting website, and which Youtube and anyone else who reads the comments can use.

Also, discussing how such a system works produces what would be considered 'prior art' when it comes to patents.

speak_plainly• 3 years ago

I don’t want to state the obvious but the part of the ecosystem being harmed is advertisers.

agentgumshoe7• 3 years ago

It's a stupid excuse. I guess all those 'Fail' videos will be de-monitised now?

djur4• 3 years ago

It's incredibly easy to get a video demonetized on YouTube now. I don't know what videos you're talking about, but I wouldn't assume that they haven't long since been demonetized.

hughesjj• 3 years ago

If only, that'd be fantastic. Same with the "prank" videos.

lr4444lr• 3 years ago

Liability. It all comes back to liability. I can't tell you what kind of cases have legal standing against YouTube for showing videos of an alleged abuser, but I trust that many smart and less scrupulous lawyers could.

gorwell2• 3 years ago

We thought we were going to escape a CCP style social credit score in the US, but big tech has an exploitable loophole in the administrative layer.

Sabinus2• 3 years ago

Professional reputation is and has always mattered when engaging with large companies. Especially between 'media personalities' and media companies.

enaaem• 3 years ago

He is not being censored. Youtube ends their commercial partnership, because they think he doesn’t fit their brand image. But he can still upload videos, ask for patreon subscriptions, sell tshirts etc…

Waterluvian• 3 years ago

They’ve calculated that this is the right business decision.

There is never anything more than that with corporations.

mistermann• 3 years ago

The government may offer them "advice" now and then as well. If I was running the American regime, I'd want him deplatformed due to his content.

benjaminwootton• 3 years ago

I think that’s a good way to look at these things. I went through a phase of getting angry at online censorship. In reality, I don’t think corporations will be spending much time debating morals and will simply look at their reputation and bottom line.

gooseus6• 3 years ago

I'll make one point, which is that if you are a violent asshole who punches anyone in the face that looks at you wrong, you still can't actually harm anyone through Youtube except by trying to convince someone to come get their ass kicked by you.

Russel Brand is accused of grooming a 16 year old girl while he was 31, if true, that means there is the very real possibility that Brand could be using the YT platform as a means for finding other victims.

bcrosby95• 3 years ago

Or reddit. Or email. Maybe we should cut his power just to be sure he isn't maybe grooming some 16 year olds.

jrflowers• 3 years ago

But the thing is, a majority of people on Earth are Youtube users, so what the heck does that even mean?

This is an interesting question; why hasn’t anyone verified that these women are YouTube users?

Since we have established that “ecosystem” is a word that means “app developers” and not a broad term that could be interpreted to mean the general environment in which YouTube does business with advertisers and users, this means that YouTube is acting in defense of its users.

Furthermore this announcement gets even more confusing as punching someone in a bar is not something that can faithfully or objectively be separated from (alleged) rape by any community standards or legal bodies, YouTube is in even further hot water here

pixl9714• 3 years ago

YouTube is in even further hot water here

No they really aren't.

Wowfunhappy• 3 years ago

But the thing is, a majority of people on Earth are Youtube users, so what the heck does that even mean?

This is beside the point, but I want to bring it up because I think it's important to remember we live in a bubble.

A majority of people on earth are not Youtube users. Only ~60% of the world's population uses the internet[1], and of those, I'd assume a significant portion lack the bandwidth to stream video. Also, Youtube is blocked in China.

---

1: https://ourworldindata.org/internet

hx8• 3 years ago

So Youtube will demonetize you if you hurt someone with an internet connection, but not if you hurt someone too poor to afford one?

musicale• 3 years ago

2.7B youtube users is about 1/3 of the people on Earth, and a solid majority of internet users.

India has the most youtube users at 570M+, though the US is highest in youtube traffic. Japan also has high youtube traffic per capita.

https://www.globalmediainsight.com/blog/youtube-users-statis...

rayiner7• 3 years ago

I’m 100% in favor of cleaning house with that generation of musicians and performers that openly preyed on women. But is that what YouTube is doing? When is Aerosmith getting demonetized? https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/steven-tyl...

How has it taken YouTube this long, anyway? Hasn’t much of this stuff been openly known for a decade or more? Is YouTube literally just reacting to the media cycle and nothing more?

ikt• 3 years ago

yeah it's odd, if they do it for brand does that mean they'll now do it for all? of course not and they haven't, this feels unusual for them, so why target brand specifically?

this is going to make his conspiracy's seem true like they are targeting him

but it could be as simple as advertisers don't care about aerosmith because it's bigger than steven tyler, whereas brand is purely a youtube based opinion show and he is the main star of the show

camillomiller• 3 years ago

Same here, but tbh the accusations against Brand are quite moot. Regardless of that, why is YouTube to decide and not a court of law? Of course a private platform can do whatever they want, but when their decision is basically the same as a court issuing fine or damages in the way it affects a person’s livelihood, shouldn’t their decisions be regulated accordingly?

tptacek3• 3 years ago

Soon, hopefully. But I don't understand how you think Aerosmith is significant, or somehow countervails Brand. The people who care about Brand's sex pestery tend not to give a shit about Aerosmith. There are always going to be victimizers who haven't been called out, or who haven't yet been dealt with, in every field of endeavor; Robert Kelly is a good example.

It's not as if people who care about sexual assault are somehow lined up in Steven Tyler's corner. Quite the opposite.

hinkley13• 3 years ago

Allegedly. If a bunch of people come forward accusing you of assault, odds are pretty good you did it.

However, private businesses punishing people for having charges brought against them but not yet tried? That's judge, jury and executioner, which is incompatible with the set of laws that the US is built on - for which the source material was English Law, and precedent even older than that.

So an American company pre-punishing a Brit based on a news article is the beginning of another level of dystopia none of us wants.

aidenn02• 3 years ago

By the definition of "punish" that you are implicitly using, private businesses in America used to be able to punish people for anything ("we reserve the right to refuse service to anybody"). Now there are certain things they cannot punish people for (e.g. being black). Are you suggesting that the time has come to mandate that companies may not discriminate against customers for other reasons as well?

Barrin922• 3 years ago

is the beginning of another level of dystopia none of us wants

This 'dystopia' is called freedom of association and I can confidentially tell you that I personally support the rights of any business to choose who they enter contracts with and not to do business with a likely sex offender, so I think you ought to speak for yourself.

There is no basis on which to compel a private business to host everyone's content and I would in fact consider that to be quite dystopian.

NoboruWataya• 3 years ago

Brand is not being executed. There has never been a principle in US or English law that you have to do business with everyone all the time. There are, in modern times, certain protected classes that you cannot discriminate against. Otherwise, you are free not to do business with someone, or to set the terms on which you are willing to do business with them. Alleged rapists are not a protected class.

In fairness there is a discussion that needs to be had about private businesses that have the de facto power to wreck people's lives if they decide to de-platform them. I think that applies more to businesses like banks and payment services providers that can literally make it difficult for you to obtain food and shelter than it does to social media or content hosting platforms, which are relatively easy to self-host. In any event, it has nothing to do with the criminal law concept of "innocent until proven guilty".

fortran773• 3 years ago

If a bunch of people come forward accusing you of assault, odds are pretty good you did it.

I sure hope you're never on a jury!

davidcbc2• 3 years ago

This has never been the standard for businesses. "Innocent until proven guilty" is only applicable in criminal court.

OJ didn't keep his endorsements after he murdered Nicole and Goldman, he lost them well ahead of the trial, and the businesses shouldn't have been forced to continue them because he was a toxic asset even after he was found not guilty.

madrox• 3 years ago

I believe this is about protecting the ecosystem. YT has basically stopped ads from playing on his content…no advertiser wants to be associated with him right now. If YT didn’t take this action, it’s likely advertisers would pull back on spend because they don’t want to risk being seen along side his content.

YouTube, afaik, doesn’t just let advertisers blacklist individual channels.

CapricornNoble4• 3 years ago

no advertiser wants to be associated with him right now.

I see this sentiment all the time and I just don't understand it. If I sold razor blades, or if I was Stephen He's dad and sold Beijing Corn, I would want EVERYONE buying my product. Communists, Fascists, Russians, Ukrainians, Israelis, Palestinians, Antifa, Proud Boys, Prince Andrew, Andrew Tate, etc.... They may all hate each other but they should all agree that I make the best damn razor blades / canned corn on planet Earth, and everyone should buy it.

This weird era of conspicuous consumption, "lifestyle" branding, and virtue-signaling faux-activism can't end soon enough.

thedrbrian• 3 years ago

YouTube, afaik, doesn’t just let advertisers blacklist individual channels.

It's sort of amazing that the biggest search company on earth can't filter/select ads like that.

croes2• 3 years ago

If a creator’s off-platform behavior harms our users, employees or ecosystem

It's just a euphemism for people.

anigbrowl8• 3 years ago

if I am YT creator and I punch someone in a bar

I don't think it matters if the other person has a YT subscription. If you create videos about, say, beekeeping and you get in a random bar fight, no, probably not. IF you're some sort of 'influencer' and your public persona is all about being a tough-talking badass, such that your getting into a bar fight makes you the Main character in the entertainment/gossip pages for several days, then they might dump you because they don't want next weeks story to be 'YouTube subsidizes karaterobot's hard-drinking combat LARP.'

It's not a balanced appraisal of facts and harms and injury allocation like in a tort lawsuit; more a seat-of-the-pants executive judgement call on 'does hanging out with this guy commercially make us look bad?' If the answer is yes, then you suddenly no longer have a commercial relationship. It's similar to the 'morals clauses' in the contracts of TV and movie stars, but with the difference that tech firms basically set contractual terms unilaterally and the network effects are so strong that that no individual performer has any kind of leverage to request anything different.

It's worth understanding that the incredible concentration of corporate power on digital platforms is due to a mix of technological moats, the first-mover advantage of preferential attachment, and a philosophical shift away from breaking up monopolies, on the theory that large entities often deliver greater consumer benefits than a competitive market place, a viewpoint famously summarized here: https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...

flerovium• 3 years ago

The comparison to 'morals clauses' is apt: it was used mostly to force Christian, anti-Communist, and later pro-China stances on actors lest they harm the 'reputation' of the studio.

It's not a good thing.

KKKKkkkk1• 3 years ago

What kind of weird lawyerly nitpicking is this. YouTube does not want to be associated with an alleged rapist. Is that so hard to understand.

marcell2• 3 years ago

It’s not lawyerly nitpicking. The US has a tradition in rule of law, and it’s a social convention that applies broadly.

YouTube, in their statement, is pretending they have an objective standard that is fairly applied to everyone. In reality, there is no uniform standard. They ban people when business interests dictate it.

So their policy reads as “we have an objective standard,” but reality is “we ban when we feel like it.”

YouTube could fix this contradiction by changing their policy to something like “we will ban creators for any reason, at our discretion.”

royroyroys• 3 years ago

Are they not still associated with an alleged rapist by hosting and monetising his content, but not sharing the profits with the content creator? They should just give him notice to close his account if that is the case and close his account.

brokenmachine2• 3 years ago

They don't want to be associated with him... but they do want to be associated with the ad revenue his content generates.

ChatGTP4• 3 years ago

So now people are guilty before being tried in a court of law ? Sounds interesting…

NoMoreNicksLeft• 3 years ago

Yay for extra-judicial, pre-conviction punishment! Even better, if acquitted he still won't be re-instated!!!

happytiger4• 3 years ago

Nobody seems worried about how this standard gets applied down the road. They all seem focused on the case study but don’t see how this example applies directly to them so obviously.

I am genuinely confused how so many smart people can be so short sighted.

Sophistifunk2• 3 years ago

It doesn't really matter what their argument is, they simply need to have one. It's their sandbox, and they have chosen an advertiser-friendly ratchet as the driver of policy. YouTube will get more and more bland and samey as people fear the banhammer, which will get used on less and less extreme content and producers, as the "cancelling machinery" has been built and will always find the next-most-evil^tm on which to focus.

Until YouTube becomes boring and enough interesting people end up together somewhere else, and then all the users will leave at once (in internet time).

Doctorow huffs his own farts at a James Cameron level, but he's right about this.

0xDEAFBEAD4• 3 years ago

In England and Wales, more than 99% of rapes reported to police do not end in a conviction. This is the result of a criminal justice system that makes prosecuting rape extremely rare, lengthy and difficult.

https://www.city.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2022/04/new-scor...

An alternative interpretation of what's going on here is that the mainstream justice system is failing, and people are cobbling together an alternative justice system, where public shaming and demonetization are the punishments.

I think building in redundancy to reduce single points of failure is generally a good thing.

nvy• 3 years ago

so what the heck does that even mean?

It means they'll ban anyone who is high profile enough to expose YouTube to PR risk.

lofaszvanitt• 3 years ago

All these actions will eventually lead to the birth of another video platform.

technick2• 3 years ago

I can't wait for that to happen

cornfutes• 3 years ago

They had no problem keeping the Logan brothers on the platform despite their toxic behavior.

kornhole• 3 years ago

'Community' is defined by them. It does not mean us. It could mean the government, military industrial complex, biopharmaceutical complex, the board of Alphabet, and anybody else they wish to include in it.

emodendroket• 3 years ago

I think the idea is that being known as a platform that gives money to unsavory characters harms their ecosystem.

akira25013• 3 years ago

I'm just wondering about the argument they are making,

You are witnessing the slow merging of Silicon Valley with the Security State. Buckle up. It gets super fun after this.

0xDEAFBEAD4• 3 years ago

Is that really the right way to think about it? Has Brand been convicted of any crime by any government? Seems more accurate to say Youtube is building an alternative security state. Heck, it's rather anarcho-capitalist if you ask me.

a2800276• 3 years ago

we take action to protect the community,” the spokeswoman said.

This really exposes Google's hypocrisy, though. If they were worried about protecting the community, surely they would remove his content and not his ability to monetize it.

They must mean that "community" is being harmed by the content and not by the ads (else the responsible thing would be to shut down altogether ...)

That said, I think Brand's videos are a big pile of barf, though again, if that were the standard, YouTube would have to throw out 90+% of their content...

belter• 3 years ago

Meet Pedrinho Matador YouTube Channel... - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBnh_1CLNa5rF3dmoDKIt3w

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Rodrigues_Filho

hasmanean• 3 years ago

“Ecosystem” means advertisers.

lenkite• 3 years ago

All this doesn't matter. There is a Social Credit System and Scoring that is implicitly implemented in the Land of the Brave and Free. If you anger the Lords of The Traditional Orthodoxy by shaking your Chains, they will ensure that Sufficient Character Assassination is carried out to reduce your score to pitiful levels. Once that is done, you are deemed as Unfit For Society and then slowly Cancelled and Censored Out Of Existence.

soundnote4• 3 years ago

It's simply an excuse to engage in political censure. It's worth remembering that in these people's parlance it's "denying someone's existence" to disagree with their political program or one counter-reality belief they hold, and they do demonetize for it.

YeBanKo• 3 years ago

Trying to dig into their statement is a moot point: R Kelly on Youtube Music is alive and well. You can argue, that it's separate from Youtube. But then here is a search result for R Kelly https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=r+kelly I assume those those videos that come up copyrighted content and someone gets monetization for it? And he his not been merely accused, but convicted.

There are other examples if you dig. This Brand is a tool and can't stand him, but this all happens conveniently right when he gained a little bit of traction by being an outspoken critique of the government.

tjrgergw7• 3 years ago

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/newsalerts/video-3019301/V...

nothatscool• 3 years ago

When YouTube does this it means that they tacitly endorse the behaviour of everyone who is currently monetised at the moment. I’m sure it would be easy to find many monetised channels with similar allegations as well as people who have actually been convicted of crimes.

Edit: for example, someone like Chris Brown is convicted of domestic abuse as well as accused of many other incidents. He appears to be monetised on youtube.

If a creator's off-platform behaviour harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action.

So why does this apply to Russell Brand but not to Chris Brown who is convicted of violence against another YouTube user? It must mean that youtuber endorses the behaviour and criminal activity of Chris Brown.

crazygringo2• 3 years ago

I think "endorse" is far too strong of a word. No, YT isn't "endorsing" Chris Brown.

But it certainly raises the question of YT being arbitrarily punitive. Rather than endorsing, it ignores certain allegations while demonetizing others.

dmix2• 3 years ago

It’s never been that arbitrary at YouTube though. Pretty easy to spot patterns. It’s very obvious that it’s a small motivated human group doing this, not just a faceless process protecting their profits using some hyper capitalist risk projection with advertisers, where the news cycle comes in and the outputs go out.

Tokumei-no-hito• 3 years ago

Because chris brown isn’t making anti-establishment content. It’s selectively applied and curiously both the accusations (10+ years old) and this fallout occur right around the start of election season.

If his content was on the other side of the aisle he’d be defended not demonetized.

Capricorn24814• 3 years ago

Because Chris Brown is never in the news for this shit. He gets a free pass because men in R&B and Hip Hop, like Charlemagne, like to give him a pass.

If there were weeks of Chris Brown articles, tech companies would certainly distance themselves

rcarr6• 3 years ago

The mainstream media are trying to frame the argument as Russell Brand is a sex offender and that his mainstream media critiques are thus null and void as a result. Personally, I find it more likely that he is both a sex offender* and he is also right about it being a targeted mainstream media attack. It's absolutely laughable seeing the BBC, The Guardian and particularly Channel4 amongst others trying to wash their hands of this when they practically encouraged all of this behaviour and created the 00s indie hedonistic culture from scratch with shows like Skins as well as encouraging his antics on Big Brother's Big Mouth.

It's weird reading all of this as someone who was a teenager from the era who idolised Brand and other indie scene figures like Pete Doherty. I remember reading about Brand dating Peaches Geldoff in the paper but didn't realise how young she was and how old he was in comparison. I think I assumed he was in his 20s and assumed she was in late teens or twenties based on the fact the tabloid press showed them stumbling out of nightclubs together and no-one seemed to be batting an eyelid. Though looking back I, and many others, were sneaking in to nightclubs all the time underage with fake IDs. It still goes on to this day and parents just seem to accept it as normal part of growing up and even a celebrated and encouraged rite of passage but maybe we should be having a more serious conversation about it. I don't go out anymore, but in my 20s bouncers definitely seemed to be taking checking IDs a lot more serious than they did when I was 17 so at least that's a start.

It wasn't uncommon in the 00s for school girls to be dating older guys who were no longer at school, Arctic Monkeys even wrote a song about it (Bigger Boys And Stolen Sweethearts) but someone over 30 dating a 16 year old definitely would have been considered weird and the fact the mainstream media wasn't batting an eyelid at it is damning. Why the Brand stuff is headline news but I've not seen a single mainsteam media article calling for the legal age to have sex to be raised to 18 is ridiculous. Teenagers are going to fuck regardless, but no-one is going to prosecute a 17 year old and a 15 year old having a relationship, and the police are smart enough not to waste time on an 18 year old and a 17 year old having a relationship but at least you then have a mechanism to protect 16 year olds from getting groomed like this. It also made me sad to find out that another of my indie heroes, Noel Fielding, was also doing the same thing - dating a 16 year old Pixie Geldoff when he was 33.

I'm not justifying any of Brand's actions, he has to take responsibility for what he's done especially if there was no consent, but he's quite obviously a people pleaser and he wouldn't have done half the stuff he did if it wasn't for the mainstream media and the culture they created around him. People are trying to use old videos of him flirting with celebrities on talkshows to damn him and disregarding the fact that the entire audience is laughing and clearly signalling that the culture at large was OK with what he was doing.

Stuff like Google demonetising Brand's videos just make me believe even more that at least some element of this is a targeted MSM culture war attack to take him down, even if a justified one. The problem is that at some point it's also going to take down people who don't deserve it - in fact it's no doubt already happened. I've read several mainstream articles where Jordan Peterson's ideas are completely misrepresented and character assassinated in a way that is completely unjustified. I agree with some of the things he says and I also disagree with others but there seems to be absolute no nuance or tolerance in the mainstream media any more, it's all tribalism - either you're good or you're bad and if you even agree with part of what one of the "bad" people say then you must be one of the bad ones. I honestly can't even debate any of Jordan Peterson's ideas with some people I know, even the ideas I dislike, because mentioning his name is like saying Voldemort and he's "The One Who Should Not Be Named".

Mainstream media outlets clearly have agendas and will go after people who speak out against them and will use anything at their disposal to do it. It's completely ridiculous.

*Obviously I would prefer for this to actually be settled in a court of law with evidence rather than public opinion, but the text message exchange and the rape clinic visit do look quite damning which is why I'm currently inclined to believe that at least that allegation is looking more likely than not on the face of it, even if some of the others turn out to be false.

ChatGTP4• 3 years ago

In other words, he pissed off the wrong people for long enough for them to do something about it, or at least, he doesn't have any friends left to protect him form the allegations.

My opinion is, many of his followers will stick with him because he is a mesiah like figure to many and people will see this as some type of MSM, Establishment attack because he is revealing "the truth", top comment on YT:

Honestly, dude, it's surprising it has taken them this long to try and shut you down. For me, and many people who follow your content, it is just a sign that you are on the right track Stay strong, brother.

Capricorn24814• 3 years ago

Mainstream media outlets clearly have agendas and will go after people who speak out against them and will use anything at their disposal to do it. It's completely ridiculous.

And the non mainstream ones will do this even harder

rcarr6• 3 years ago

I’d argue both do it at the the same intensity, but one is using a false veneer of prestige and respectability as a cloak to try and give itself a legitimacy it no longer deserves.

BLKNSLVR7• 3 years ago

Well reasoned, well written, and I think you're probably correct in that it exists in both column A and column B in roughly equal measure.

I wish I hadn't read that about Noel Fielding. I love The Mighty Boosh.

It's fundamentally "weird" for someone with 33 years of life experience to be able to connect, in a relationship-context, to a 16 year old. Having said that, celebrity-adjacent 16 year-olds (ie. Pixie Geldoff) probably have more life experience (for better or more likely worse) than your random 16 year-old. Still way up on the "weird" scale though.

rcarr6• 3 years ago

I too loved the Boosh growing up, and I would still laugh at most of it today. So far it’s managed to avoid the retroactive judgement that other shows have. Why that is I don’t know - is it because it was cult and niche, is it because those who know about it love the comedians and want to keep quiet, is it because they haven’t fallen foul of the power figures in the MSM? Off the top of my head, there’s blackface and the transgender Old Gregg sex predator that I’m surprised haven’t been called out much yet.

On some level there’s nothing wrong with the “I go by many names” bit - the blackface wasn’t really necessary other than the character was meant to be some kind of psychedelic guitarist and the most recognisable psychedelic guitarist was Hendrix. There wasn’t anything that was mocking black people, and there wasn’t really any stealing of a black person’s job because the whole humour of the Boosh was Noel, Julian and Rich playing all these different characters by themselves. It was like going to watch an improv group perform but on TV and with costumes.

I think a line needs to be drawn and each sketch of these comedy shows interpreted through a lens of intent. Is the underlying minority the butt of the joke or is it the character that is being mocked? If it’s the first, by all means denigrate it but if not it should be allowed to be made. There was a lot of uproar over the South Park transgender episode where a lot of people missed the point that South Park wasn’t mocking transgender people, it was mocking self interested characters like Cartman who will manipulate anything for their own advantage, such as pretending to be transgender so they can use the female bathroom. Unfortunately, I think Old Gregg probably falls into the other camp, as unless I’m missing something (and it’s been a while since I’ve watched it so I might be wrong), the “joke” seems to be that Old Gregg is a lonely transgender outcast that is flashing her “mangina” and trying to coerce people into sex.

All these culture war lines are both very ill defined and selectively enforced, which does nothing other than throw fuel on the fire that they are just tools that the MSM can use to retroactively cancel people that no longer serve them or are actively going against them. If there really isn’t this targeted agenda, the companies like YouTube either need to write clear guidelines and enforce them fully not just selectively, or alternatively drop the moral arbiter stance and instead take that of a museum or public library that exists solely as a container for artworks and lets the public be the judge. Anything else is hypocritical at best and malevolent public opinion manipulation at worst. Personally, I think they should take the public container route, because as soon as you start having an authority that is in charge of defining the culture, you’re on a very slippery slope that leads to authoritarianism. Taking down videos from platforms is the modern equivalent to book burning.

The main stream media loves to pretend it’s the hero and that it created the MeToo movement but it didn’t - the MeToo movement was created organically bottom up by women on Twitter. All the mainstream media did was capitalise on it after the fact to get clicks and eyeballs.

JacobThreeThree2• 3 years ago

Like every social media platform the "community guidelines" are written to be purposely subjective and vague, such that the enforcement of the guidelines can be done arbitrarily, per the whim of the company and their agents.

djbusby• 3 years ago

Not just social media. Stripe and Square have similar wiggle-room and it's a demonization felt pretty directly. Amazon, Etsy and others - their policies give room to pick and choose winners - and change policy on a whim - and apply it inconsistently.

Corporate Overlords don't have to engage on Rights - it's all in the Privilege realm.

withinboredom2• 3 years ago

I worked at a (big) company when they changed their policy to include this vagueness. It was all over this guy spreading mass disinformation and conspiracy theories that were actively harmful. There was a lot of discussion about “yeah, I agree this is bad… but, this is a slippery slope,” and “how can you think we should let him use OUR platform to do this,” type arguments. We were a privately held company at the time, and this is what the owner wanted to do.

So we changed the terms. I felt like the T&S team (trust and safety) sighed a huge sigh of relief because they were having to deal with advertisers and bereft families complaining.

Anyway, it became a very heavy hammer that was very rarely used except in extreme circumstances.

I imagine not every company uses it as sparingly but it’s a much needed clause to deplatform certain kinds of charismatic people who are harmful to humanity. I don’t know anything about this particular case, nor do I want to know even a TL;DR. I’m just here for the comments and your comment chain struck a nerve.

zlg_codes• 3 years ago

Good way to piss off some people and encourage competitors. We need business reform, they do nothing in society to be deserving of authority in any measure.

mpsprd• 3 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20230919111212/https://www.nytim...

agentgumshoe7• 3 years ago

Wow so much focus in the comments on the individual instead of YouTube's ability to randomly remove whoever they dislike, reminding us of the problems with large corporate companies controlling essentially public services. Just imagine if Tencent decided to buy YouTube from Google, would get real interesting.

Tokkemon• 3 years ago

Why do I have to waste brain space on this absurd hypothetical?

agentgumshoe7• 3 years ago

It's impossible, yes? Let's see what happens next US election as a good start, I can't imagine what becomes 'misonformation' or 'harmful,' no matter which party wins.

And still you wasted brain space to respond, very witty.

SuperNinKenDo• 3 years ago

They bought Reddit. YouTube was bleeding Google's profits for a long time at least (is it still? I don't actually know). It's not exactly absurd, just extremely unlikely.

leptons2• 3 years ago

controlling essentially public services.

Youtube is not and never was a "public service". It's their platform and they are free to do with it as they want, with very little exception. It's not any different than a mom and pop store having a "No shirt, No shoes, No service" sign and enforcing that. It's their store, it's private property, it's their rules.

agentgumshoe7• 3 years ago

I get that, and I've been in the camp warning people of that many times, but I think it's an interesting situation where so much essentially public data is on a private platform. What happens if YouTube shuts down tomorrow? A, would society accept it and B, would they be bailed out? For the latter, what happens next? Honestly, I would not be against one of these massive services failing spectacularly to 'teach us a lesson' about trusting all our important things to private corps.

seydor• 3 years ago

Google is not a monopoly. Youtube is not a monopoly. Google ads is not a monopoly.

ovao• 3 years ago

I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all to argue that YouTube has an effective monopoly in the video sharing space. Yes, there are certainly other platforms — Vimeo, Rumble, etc. — but purely in terms of reachability, YouTube absolutely holds near-absolute reign here. Trying to effectively monetize video content on other platforms, from what I understand, is extremely unlikely for the vast majority of creators.

And while there’s a valid counter-argument in some of the numbers creators on X have put up (e.g., Tucker Carlson), those are really the exceptional cases.

I could see Brand going straight over to X, but I don’t know if that’s sufficient to really argue that YouTube isn’t effectively a monopoly in the space.

dadjoker• 3 years ago

Guilty until proven innocent.

WesternWind• 3 years ago

It's not like he's poor or anything.

cmiles74• 3 years ago

Did I read this correctly? It sounds like YouTube will continue to host his content, but will now pocket the money they would have paid him.

That doesn't seem right to me. If they were to cease hosting his material, that would maych their corporate-speak blurb. This sounds to me like more money for YouTube.

JacobThreeThree2• 3 years ago

My understanding is that when a channel's content is not monetized, no ads are displayed. So no, YouTube is not pocketing the money they would have paid him.

znpy2• 3 years ago

Still keeping the engaged users though. Such users will see ads on other videos.

So they’re still making profits off someone else’s work (without retribution)

pseudosavant• 3 years ago

YT most certainly runs ads against demonetized content. They just don't share in the take with the creator. What a principled stance... "I will make even more money because you did something bad somewhere else!"

yreg3• 3 years ago

It is crazy but they do indeed run ads, even on demonetized videos.

ren_engineer• 3 years ago

unless they changed things, last year YT made it impossible to not display ads on your videos even if you wanted to let people watch your videos without ads

timClicks2• 3 years ago

I believe this is true when you are a partner and you opt out of ads for a video. But if you're not a partner yet, then YT will serve ads that you don't receive any income for.

beebmam2• 3 years ago

The less money that creators get from YouTube, the better. Content becomes a swamp when content gets monetized for the creator. The internet was so much better before everything was monetized. The platform should always be pocketing all the money.

egypturnash• 3 years ago

This leads to either more paid sponsorships and harder pitches for the creator's Patreon, or it leads to fewer professional creators.

Are these things you want?

turquoisevar5• 3 years ago

YouTube has been doing this for a while.

If you’re just starting out and don’t qualify to become a “partner”, you can’t monetize your videos until you reach X amount of subscribers and Y amount of watch hours.

This doesn’t mean your videos won’t have ads on them. They most assuredly will have ads on them. It just means that YouTube doesn’t consider you good enough to share the revenue with you.

Load of BS of course.

Either content is good enough to place ads on, revenue of which is shared, or your content isn’t good enough to place ads on. Making profit over someone else’s content (however abhorrent the person might be) is just dirty imho.

judge20208• 3 years ago

consider it ads on UGC to operate the service.

blibble• 3 years ago

operating the service isn't free and there's going to be some fixed cost component of introducing a new partner arrangement

as long as the number isn't too high I don't really see a problem with it

majani• 3 years ago

To be honest, YouTube should be charging hosting fees to people who don't qualify for the partner program. The fact that they try to make up the shortfall through ads is a huge favor

NoPicklez2• 3 years ago

I don't think it's a load of BS.

Youtube is a free platform to host video content, they themselves need to pay the bills. At a particular point that your videos become "valuable" they offer to provide you with a cut.

The grey area is potentially how they determine the value

baja_blast• 3 years ago

Just like how Youtube will demonetize videos with things like violent retro video games. But they don't take down the video or hide it, they just collect all the ad revenue for themselves.

dragonwriter4• 3 years ago

It sounds like YouTube will continue to host his content, but will now pocket the money they would have paid him.

If he is demonetized, then his videos won’t get ad placement, so Google won’t make the money in the first place, as it will contribute neither to advertising revenue nor to the marginal benefit from the Premium users derived compared to non-Premium users in avoiding ads.

Since Google pays creators less than it makes from their content, Google is giving up money (in a narrow analysis) by demonetizing Brand, not keeping additional money. (In a broader analysis, the rational for demonetizing is that monetizing toxic content hurts the brand and alienates advvertisers, so it is profitable to demonetize that content in the long run despite the immediate hit from any particular decision to do so.)

The exception is demonetization for certain copyright claims, which effectively isn’t “really” demonetization, its letting the copyright holder take the creators place for monetization.

zdkl• 3 years ago

marginal benefit

While Youtube may be discounting direct revenue from this specific and limited set of content, Alphabet recognises the value of ostensibly being the quasi-exclusive repository & catalogue of video content.

Denying to their "users"/viewers the availability of some subset of content hurts their reputation more than "losing" a negligeable fraction of direct monetisation.

Leaving aside the morality of repudiating monetisation while allowing access, this is a sound strategy for maintaining the Youtube platform's monopoly and raison d'être. Which is after all the core of their ability to maximise shareholder value, and what else matters to a corporation?

rwhyan2• 3 years ago

If he is demonetized, then his videos won’t get ad placement

Not necessarily true. YouTube definitely runs ads on demonetized videos and channels.

nikau• 3 years ago

Seems like ad revenue should go into a trust, if he is found innocent it gets paid to him, if guilty it goes to victim compensation or related charity.

vuln5• 3 years ago

But if he stops publishing to YouTube that will be held against him. He puts out less shows or ad revenue drops due to boycott it will be spun as “Brand is stealing from his victims/charity” it seems extreme but these days someone will spin it such a way.

croes2• 3 years ago

I don't know his channel, did he spread conspiracy theories and misinformation on it too?

So it's only a problem if you allegedly assault people?

rcarr6• 3 years ago

The amount of comments on this that are getting flagged whilst meeting the guidelines is making me question the state of HN as a platform for rational good faith debate. Has tribalism really took over here too?

judge20208• 3 years ago

Have some examples? The few I see are things like victim-blaming (37576676 37576735) or just "innocent until proven guilty" which adds absolutely nothing to the conversation.

bluedays4• 3 years ago

Your observation underscores a fundamental challenge in public discourse: determining which contributions substantively further a conversation. While the repeated mentions of "innocent until proven guilty" or instances that may appear as victim-blaming can feel redundant or unproductive to some, for others, these comments might encapsulate deeply held beliefs or concerns. Recognizing this, it's crucial to appreciate the multiplicity of perspectives.

However, true progress in any debate relies on a collective willingness to delve deeper, to move beyond surface-level assertions and to engage with the nuanced complexities of the issue at hand. Dismissing certain viewpoints as merely "adding nothing" can inhibit this deeper exploration. We should endeavor to foster an environment where contributors feel empowered to expand upon their initial sentiments, illuminating the reasons behind them. Only then can we bridge understanding and foster a richer, more productive dialogue.

rcarr6• 3 years ago

Well for one, I don't see how "innocent until proven guilty" posts should be flagged. Maybe they don't add much to the conversation, but people should be allowed to express such a simple sentiment without being flagged to death, just ignore them and move on. Flagging is equivalent to silencing someone, and I don't think we should be doing that apart from cases of obvious hate speech such as racism.

Personally, I found the 37576735 comment interesting because I hadn't thought of this in the context of statue of limitations, even if it does come across a little victim blaming. And the victim blaming was called out and addressed by other comments. In general I think this is the better approach to flagging - state what you disagree and try to change minds rather than just flagging it outright.

This seems like a reasonable statement to make if the author disagrees with the censorship:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37576437

And this is my comment that got flagged:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37577525

By flagging my comment I have no idea what people dislike about it - I presume it's the anti mainstream media stance but I don't know. I'm open to having my mind changed and my thoughts challenged but that can't happen if people can no longer engage with my comment because it's flagged. Personally, I thought it added context, particularly for non-British readers, about the UK media, laws and cultural landscape and how it plays into all of this.

yieldcrv• 3 years ago

There should be an insurance product for this

bluedays4• 3 years ago

While it's not my place to adjudicate his innocence or guilt, the decisions by platforms like YouTube and the BBC to immediately curtail his revenue streams are ethically contentious. Such actions, rooted in the pursuit of reputational safety for these organizations, inadvertently presuppose guilt, potentially skewing public perception and compromising the accused's ability to muster an adequate defense, particularly in terms of securing robust legal representation.

For high-profile figures like Brand, while the financial impact may be substantial, they often have other resources at their disposal. However, for smaller creators, who might be living on the edge, this could be devastating. We need to remember that behind every headline are real people with real lives. Ensuring fairness and empathy in our responses, especially when the stakes are this high, is crucial.

bluedays4• 3 years ago

Before reflexively expressing disagreement through a downvote, I invite and encourage a thoughtful discourse on the matter. It's disheartening to observe dissent without accompanying dialogue, as meaningful engagement fosters mutual understanding and growth.

palmer_fox5• 3 years ago

What you express is so perfectly reasonable that the downvotes are likely just an emotional reaction, not something people would be able to articulate clearly as a logical argument.

barelysapient• 3 years ago

Ah, the old "guilty until proven innocent". And it pads the pockets of shareholders. That's what we call a win win.

georgespencer10• 3 years ago

YouTube is not a court and Brand has not been found guilty of anything.

YouTube is enforcing its ToS, which Brand freely agreed to when he chose to begin using their platform to post his conspiracy theories.

And it pads the pockets of shareholders

YouTube runs adverts on videos which are not part of the partnership program, but it is unclear (as far as I can see from this thread) whether they run adverts on de-monetised videos. Do you have a source either way?

In any case, YouTube did $29.9 billion of revenue in FY2022. The Guardian estimated that Brand's YouTube videos, of which there are five per week, likely gross him (pre-tax) in the order of $5,000. That's around $1.3m a year.

So yes, if YouTube is still running ads against Brand's YouTube videos then "the shareholders" are benefitting from an additional $1.3m per year which would otherwise have been paid out to Brand, but now that you know the aggregate benefit to YouTube constitutes 0.000044% of the service's annual revenue, I'm curious as to whether you think this had any bearing whatsoever on the decision to demonetise him, in line with their Terms of Service?

tomohawk• 3 years ago

Smells like a class action lawsuit to me.

The class is anyone who has been demonetized, and yet youtube/google is still profiting off of them, when no due process has been applied.

Google doesn't get to be judge, jury, and executioner.

TheCaptain48152• 3 years ago

Let’s go down the list of rappers and professional athletes and see how much harm they’ve caused women.

Once again, another coincidence in which side of the political aisle gets censored.

CapricornNoble4• 3 years ago

Don't forget to add male feminists to the list.

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/when-men-claim-to-be-femini...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/schneiderman-abus...

random6754478• 3 years ago

They get a free pass as long as they stay on the plantation.

aCoreyJ• 3 years ago

I don't get it, do they have monetized YouTube channels?

TheCaptain48152• 3 years ago

They are all part of organizations / corporations which have monetized channels, yes. You think if Russell Brand joined up with a company he’d get a free pass all of a sudden? They’d just ban the entire company.

brokenmachine2• 3 years ago

YouTube, World police.

YouTube will still share his videos, but keep the ad revenue.

Thanks so much for protecting us, YouTube.

I guess I'd rather it this way because I hate it when videos are removed, but it just seems inconsistent.

StrangeSmells01• 3 years ago

Kevin Spacey was just acquitted of all charges in a court of law...but he was tried and found guilty in the court of public opinion.

Russel Brand hasn't even been to COURT yet....

kevin_thibedeau• 3 years ago

Elon has settled out of court to silence misconduct allegations. Surely Google will stick to their principles and demonetize all content featuring him and others since a conviction in court is apparently not necessary?

shadowtree• 3 years ago

Huge opportunity for X to continue to become the safe haven for "cancelled" content. Tucker Carlson, etc.

georgespencer10• 3 years ago

Perhaps a moral opportunity if you believe that people credibly accused of and under investigation for rape (Brand) or spreading white supremacist dog whistle conspiracy theories (Carlson) is a moral imperative.

Not such a great opportunity when you consider that the audience for this sort of content is poorly-educated, credulous, reactionary, and anathema to advertisers who can actually support the businesses behind the platforms.

This is the most surprising thing about Elon's lurch to the right: it has already cost him c.40% of Twitter's ad revenue because, huge surprise, nobody wants to be associated with conspiracy theorists even when they aren't rapists or racists.

decremental• 3 years ago

To say the kinds of things you're saying betrays that you just blindly believe whatever you're told. How can you say that and then seemingly unaware go on to call others credulous and poorly-educated? It's remarkable.

andrei_says_• 3 years ago

Or even an exclusive, paid platform - like Rogan on Spotify.

One I’d be doubly happy to continue not paying for.

chrisbolt• 3 years ago

Spotify has a free plan.

WiSaGaN• 3 years ago

I am not sure how long X can keep doing this. Elon is under tremendous pressure from the establishment. It's likely that he will either align with Facebook and YouTube's policies or be compelled to relinquish control of X.

vuln5• 3 years ago

Isn’t Brand on Rumble? He already does live shows on Rumble. Less followers, less money I assume but doesn’t seem like he’ll be kicked off Rumble anytime soon.

https://rumble.com/c/russellbrand

ulizzle3• 3 years ago

So what happens if the allegations turn out to hold no weight? Does he get his channel back and the bureaucrat NPCs self-flagellate with hashtag mea culpas?

I suppose not

The culture wars are out of control

pixl9714• 3 years ago

Do you get your job back if your 'right to work state' if your accused of being a sexual predator and your job fires you... no, you do not.

Tomorrow everyone will be back at 'right to work' and 'freedom of association' around here on some other topic.

ulizzle3• 3 years ago

If you are accused, you don't lose your job; proof must be there first. Otherwise, you can sue for wrongful termination, and there will be hell to pay in dollars. HR's job is to protect the company first, so unless they catch someone in the act, they won't know or want to know unless it comes from you or the cops.

But this is different because it's politics and a public person. It's different rules for them. Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard is an excellent example of how easily the mobs can be misled and manipulated.

I don't think it's fair that allegations can destroy a man's life just because he's famous, but that's how the cosmic cookie crumbled.

Technically, YouTube should only be able to demonetize Russel Brand once he's proven guilty, but pointing out hypocrisy makes one very unpopular nowadays

BLKNSLVR7• 3 years ago

Off-topic, I think, writing this down to see if the logic is sound:

If YouTube can demonetise a content creator at the discretion of YouTube (because they can), then surely it follows that an individual can de-monetise a content creator at their own discretion (because they can).

A platform demonetising someone is surely of much greater impact than an individual doing it. A platform owns their platform, from which the content is being delivered and so their discretion is justification enough. An individual owns the hardware and bandwidth upon and through which the content is being played, and so their discretion is justification enough.

Am I performing the mental gynastics of denial to make that leap?

Part of the differentiation I'm making in using the word "discretion" is that it's not illegal content that's being demonetised. Agree or disagree or find it as morally reprehensible as you feel the need to, the content itself (the very thing being demonetised) is not illegal. And, in fact, had been happily monetised for the past however long.

crmd• 3 years ago

I’m not following…what would it mean in practice if I, as an individual, decided to demonetize him?

artificialLimbs• 3 years ago

It means you don’t watch or block the content.

BLKNSLVR7• 3 years ago

Sorry, I didn't realise I didn't mention the context of my thought process: ad blocking.

The content remains, but the monetisation does not.

fortran773• 3 years ago

There are no actual charges against him. Nobody has said under oath that anything has happened. The most recent allegation is for something that happened 10 years ago.

I'm of the opinion (and I know the law disagrees with me in the U.S.) that you should not be able to bring charges against someone for a non capital offense, where all the evidence is he-said/she-said. a decade after the event happend. Our memories just aren't good enough for that.

Capricorn24814• 3 years ago

That's all well and good, but it's weird to see automatically HN conclude that people distancing themselves from Brand are overreacting to a few allegations and not the more likely scenario: that there are more stories like this of Brand and it's been an open secret in entertainment for years.

Since these accusations, several famous people who have worked with him have come out with stories consistent with this behavior. Could it all be untrue, and there's some kind of witch hunt on Brand? I guess, but if it truly was an open secret, it makes perfect sense that people would distance themselves from him now when it comes out to the public.

gorgoiler• 3 years ago

No one has the right to win the popularity contest of celebrity. If the world wants to turn their back on you then you cannot force them not to. It would be as foolish as feeling aggrieved about not winning an election (an example that’s hard to use nowadays.)

fortran773• 3 years ago

hUH? I'd have the same opionion against some poor non-celebrity if someone were to make he-said/she-said charges a decade later. Even if it were to happen to you!

rabbits_2002• 3 years ago

then ban him instead of taking his money

you cant claim the moral high ground while profiting off them

99_00• 3 years ago

It's probably just a coincidence that Brand is one of the biggest names and promotors of YouTube competitor Rumble.

m3kw9• 3 years ago

They way they semi-cancel brand by getting all his profit is simply policy that increases profit while looking like the good guy

throwll• 3 years ago

YouTube let's scammers to use their platform willingly.. these guys are evil pretending to be great humanists

BLKNSLVR7• 3 years ago

Yeah, whenever I mistakenly use the ad-ridden normal youtube app / website, I'm inundated with ads for investment scams and get-rich-quick-selling-ebooks-on-amazon scams and various other things that just would not pass television advertising standards. It's so strange that this is some kind of acceptable default behaviour.

Cypher• 3 years ago

Sounds like another 2016 mass cancel culture event

EGreg3• 3 years ago

Sounds like they don’t want Russell damaging their Brand…

oblib• 3 years ago

Personally I don't think YouTube should have any restrictions on who they let use their platform.

If I started a platform for Bluegrass musicians to upload their music and someone started uploading videos of shooting guns I should be able to cut them off without any interference at all.

And they should be able to start their own website that lets folks upload videos of people shooting their guns.

YouTube is pretty liberal in the range of content they allow. They didn't boot Brand off the platform, the just quit paying him for using it. That doesn't bother me a bit.

jongjong• 3 years ago

YouTube is a scam. The SEC needs to shut them down. The government needs to seize it without compensation and nationalize it such that it can be run in a legal, non-discriminatory way which is consistent with the principles of democracy which made it possible for YouTube to exist in the first place. Surely that's the last straw. Nationalize YouTube.

akira25013• 3 years ago

I'd sooner nationalize the network they abuse rather than their business and all the attendant problems it's collected over the past two decades. The internet has been monopolized and we're all poorer for it.

technick2• 3 years ago

I think some of the things coming out of Russel Brand is lunacy, however I'm also 10000% against censorship. Youtube stepping against Russel Brand is virtue signalling at it's finest, when Russel Brand has not been convicted of any crimes. A small group of people can claim X did something evil against them, and Youtube will run with it blindly.

tibbydudeza2• 3 years ago

It is pretty clear considering his past behavior and own admissions to the effect he was lewd drug addict and turned a new leaf a few years back.

But justice must still take it's course - even decades later - the truth will no doubt come out during the investigation.

What is maddening is his cult on YouTube who did not bother to watch the documentary and the testimony of the accusers before jumping all in to defend him.

wtcactus• 3 years ago

In the name of consistency, YouTube must now demonitize anyone that is accused of any crime by anyone else.

fieldbob• 3 years ago

Guilty with contaminating earth human consciousness with propaganda designed to cause conflict fear and doubt

epolanski• 3 years ago

So Youtube is now judge, jury and executioner.

dusted• 3 years ago

I don't have any opinion on his guilt, that is for the court to decide.

However, I do believe it's wrong to start sanctioning people for a crime they've not yet been found guilty of.

yungporko• 3 years ago

more importantly, they've not even been charged for.

personally i'd be surprised if the guy wasn't a rapist, he spent a decade virtually admitting it and acting like one, but it's absolutely fucked that that all somebody (person, newspaper, content creator, whatever) needs to do to completely and permanently take away someone's livelihood is call them a rapist on the internet.

our society is irreparably broken at this point, there's no coming back from any of this.

xchip• 3 years ago

Just by being accused with no proofs? Bad YouTube.

bjpless2• 3 years ago

As a disclaimer, I’m not a Brand content consumer and I’m also not commenting on the validity of the claims.

I’m aware that he’s a popular populist and the slippery slope is obvious here, independent of the particulars of the specific case.

The playbook to silence a relatively loud political voice is now obvious from the YT response. It is a given that cynical actors on all sides will evolve to further exploit this strategy, especially so if accusers do not have to testify under oath.

YouTube, on a common sense basis, should have recognized that political reality today and tred more carefully — much more so than for a travel influencer, for example.

The long term game theory here, like brand boycotts, is hopefully that the exploitation of this strategy by all political players would lead to the strategy losing power due to general fatigue and whataboutisms.

ngetchell• 3 years ago

I don't think "loud political voices" have the right to make money off of YT. YT seems generous to keep Brand on the platform during this odd period between accusation and conviction.

bjpless2• 3 years ago

I’m not raising a question about his rights or generosity.

He and other independent political pundits have large audiences and as a result generate valuable content for the platform.

If the game theory above plays out and cynical actors act cynically, it will ultimately hurt YT in the long term run and drive users to other platforms (I’d assume Twitter).

I think YT may be opening a can of worms for themselves.

noam_compsci• 3 years ago

I don’t see what YT did wrong here even remotely. It’s their platform. There is no right to access. It’s not a public place.

The hard core libertarians who say that Brands “free speech” is being reduced… well YT has freedom too and they should be free to deplatform.

We have freedom from government oppression but when you are on someone else’s property, you should have no/low rights.

Slava_Propanei• 3 years ago

A lunch counter cannot limit its customers- it is a public space. But a global peer-to-peer communication platform is NOT a public space. Curious.

soundnote4• 3 years ago

There apparently were letters sent by the UK Parliament to politely inquire if Brand is able to earn money on the recipient's platform. No requests or threats of course, oh no, just asking...

https://twitter.com/rumblevideo/status/1704584929026216118

YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

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