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Comment by mbrumlow | Hacker News Reader

I don't know who's to blame. But somewhere along the line we let people's outrage have more control than it probably should.

I don't know who Logan is but read what he did. It was disgusting. But the market should have naturally handled it. The problem is had YouTube done nothing it likely would not have affected his views. That should tell you something about how loud and powerful we have let the offended become.

I think there is a second problem that actually might be bigger. Intolerance for mistakes.

I did not see the video in question but I know that humans can often loose judgment and make mistakes. I think it is going to make shitty society to live in if you will be judged in perpetually for the worst moments of your public life.

There are talks about him breaking YouTube rules. That is fine. He should be punished within those guidelines. But it seems people want blood.

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> But the market should have naturally handled it.

It did. Advertisers don't want to be associated with such content and made it clear to Youtube they want a sanitized landscape to advertise on. Youtube in response has cut Paul off from the Guaranteed Revenue Stream for now. The business partners involved in this situation spoke a long time ago on what they did and did not want, and Youtube made a business decision.

From the article, the viewers who think what Paul did was deplorable are calling out for more punishment, which Youtube has not done, so they are in-fact resisting the will of the masses here.

> I think there is a second problem that actually might be bigger. Intolerance for mistakes.

I do get what you're saying, but per the article and per Logan Paul's history with his videos and audience, his fame comes from constantly pushing the envelope with outlandish behavior. It's part of his character and also what attracts people to him, but it should be expected that he also sets his own limits and boundaries. There's not really a way in light of his popularity and work with Youtube that he could have not known about the policy on such video content, and even if he did, ignorance is not an excuse in this case.

Logan Paul is receiving a penalty for bad judgement and violating Youtube rules; he's not the victim of mob mentality, he's the victim of Advertisers wanting a sanitized advertising platform. If he made a mistake in earnest, then I hope he learns well from it and grows as a video maker, using this as a learning experience from which he recovers. Nothing Youtube has said so far though has made it out to be that this is some irreparable situation, it's a penalty for violating the Youtube Guidelines.

If Logan Paul is contrite, he will recover.

> Logan Paul is receiving a penalty for bad judgement and violating Youtube rules; he's not the victim of mob mentality,

He's receiving punishment because of the mob mentality. The platform had the video in question on their highly curated Trending page before he pulled it.

Whether some accountability was necessary is secondary to the fact that he is now in the sights of a huge morally righteous outrage mob. And I'm with the OP that it seems like society runs in a mode now where mob retribution is not satisfied until it the retribution is absolute.

Exactly, so much overreacting to something you can simply choose not to watch.

People getting so offended someone put a video up, they will call the advertisers and complain about how their add is showing in a offensive video.

And then there is the punishment, it never is enough. The person must be completely destroyed. I think that happens because in the angry mob every one wants retribution for themselves. (for example, you murder someone. You get arrested and go to court. There you get sentenced 5 years for each relative and friend the victim had, instead of getting the sentence for murder)

> People getting so offended someone put a video up, they will call the advertisers and complain about how their add is showing in a offensive video.

But this is capitalism.

Bob can say what he likes, but I don't have to pay him to say it.

If the money I spend buying products is then given to Bob in advertising I'm free to chose a company who doesn't advertise with Bob. And when I tell those companies why I no longer buy their products I'm using freedom of speech - the same freedom of speech that Bob claims to care so much about.

> He's receiving punishment because of the mob mentality.

I'm afraid history doesn't really agree with you - the entire "Adpocalypse" was advertiser driven, not user driven. Users had been complaining about horrible videos on Youtube for years and the videos continued to be monetized and Youtube didn't care. Ad revenue and results were not trending down, Advertisers just wanted more control, and Youtube gave it to them.

And I take issue with the idea of the Trending Page being highly curated because it's clearly algorithmic, not manually managed. The countless videos on the subject, as well as Quora discussions strongly suggest that it's decided by algorithm, not by individuals.

I get that you're frustrated with how people respond to certain topics in modern society, but the action from Youtube is pretty even handed by any metric. Logan Paul is _not_ banned from Youtube, he's not banned from monetizing, he's simply been removed from a specific level of partnership in Youtube for violating a rule that Youtube has had for a long time and for going against Advertiser wishes. Again, he should know better - he's made a mistake, he's receiving a punishment. If he is contrite, he will recover; he seems to have what it takes to be successful on Youtube. This time he just went too far.

The Adpocalypse was driven by activist journalists at the Wall Street Journal and other outlets, who contacted brands to tell them they were writing a scandal story before they even published it. The outrage was not organic, but driven by established media organizations also reliant on the same advertising revenue.

> the entire "Adpocalypse" was advertiser driven, not user driven.

You really think add companies cared that much? They only started caring because there were users going after them for advertising on such videos.

In some cases I understand, like the videos that are aimed at kids but they are pretty bad. And the scammers.

What I find strange is, there isn't any evidence for long term association of an ad with the content of the video. If you see a coca cola commercial before an ISIS beheading video, do you really think "Huh, coca cola is sponsoring ISIS now"? It is a ridiculous jump to leap to. The research also doesn't back it up, there seems to be a short term association, but definitely nothing long term.

The problem is YouTube doesn't want to operate at a loss, they are trying to get more advertisers to the platform so they can make more money. To bring more advertisers to the platform, they are attempting to get advertisers to pick and choose what kind of content their ads show around. Instead of just allowing them to target the user and whatever demographics/interests they may have based on their viewing history.

I find it really strange for a company hemorrhaging money to actively be showing fewer ads, considering they make money on those ads as well.

The users causing a fuss were simply leverage for the ad companies to remind YouTube who is boss. For some reason YouTube thinks they don't have any kind of leverage of their own. Of course they aren't profitable, but they also have a massive user base. It seems like a strategic mistake to me.

They are pushing content creators off the platform, which will push down their user count and push down the amount of people they can advertise to. I'm not a business or marketing guy, but I would have simply said "We try to remove videos that violate our TOS as quickly as possible, all other videos the creators want to make money from, we show ads on. Our ads are targeted to users, not based on the specific video they happen to be watching."

That makes sense. Apparently there are videos that they just can't take down with their TOS, but that they want advertisers to have the option not to advertise there. Its a service that sells less advertisements and makes creators shift away from youtube. A lose lose lose situation in the long run.

Also seeing youtube as the future of tv... I don't think so.

Yes, they have a "demonetized" status for videos that don't violate their TOS but aren't "advertiser friendly". Their general lack of transparency about it is also quite annoying. There also does seem to be some kind of manual process going on which is very strange. I have a small anecdote about it, unfortunately the creator took down the video talking about it after the problem was resolved or I'd just link that. I'll try to summarize as best I can.

There is a channel I watch, called "Counter Arguments", it is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. He made a video a while back called "Punch a Nazi"[0]. Some weeks after it being up, he got it taken down as violating the TOS for promoting violence. I don't believe he actually attempted to get it reviewed and put back up. The funny thing about the video is it is a video that is ultimately against political violence and he puts clips from a couple other videos in it that actually do promote violence. Those videos were never taken down. He posted a video about what happened to the video because people were asking him about it. A few days after posting the video about it, the video was put back up. I believe it may be demonetized, but I'm not sure. He seems to have scrubbed the videos discussing it from his channel.

We have no way of knowing if it was a manual or automated action that caused the video to go down, nor if it was a manual or automated action to get it put back up. The timing of it, sounds to me like it may have been flagged, a YouTube employee looked at it and didn't like what it said, so took it down. Potentially another YouTube employee saw the other video about it being taken down and put it back up. We have no way of knowing. I think if he would have never made another video about it being taken down, it likely would still be down today.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XtQ1BVhcOk

I feel like my first point still stands. It does not matter that the advertisers pulled, it matters why they pulled. If it was not based on actual business impact but the threatening offended then it is a problem. Unfortunately the only way for them to know would to have not pulled.

Also I don't see how YouTube RED dropping him has your do with advertisers. He still has a channel right ? He still is able to make new videos ?

But you bring up a real good topic. You claim the advertisers want a sanitized platform. Does it not bother you that these people have basically hijacked YouTube and have any say in the content you get to view ?

Also I am not really trying to defend this guy. I am mostly questioning how what is often a vocal offended outraged minority of people seem to have more power than they should.

So if YouTube or an advertiser made any decisions not directly off raw numbers then it bothers me. If the market -- that means views -- goes down because people cared enough to stop watching then it is a win win. Advertisers won't pay because of less views.

My argument is based on the notion that YouTube stands to loose more by penalizing him, the same goes for advertisers in lost impressions.

> Unfortunately the only way for them to know would to have not pulled.

Well, I think the video popularity even before hand is proof enough that the mob still liked it. People still flocked to Paul's channel, and probably will continue to do so. IIRC, he even saw an uptick in subscribers, but that may be a mistake on my part. The part I take issue with mostly is people saying that overly sensitive people got it taken down, when really it's just that overly anal Advertisers worried about the effect on their investment and brand image. That's a business decision which I'm sure is backed by pretty cold hard numbers.

> Does it not bother you that these people have basically hijacked YouTube and have any say in the content you get to view ?

As I try not to use Youtube at all, no, not really. Like, fundamentally I agree with you that pervasive Advertising is bad for society as a whole, but what happens to Youtube isn't really my concern, as Youtube/Google demonstrated long ago where their loyalties were, and I made peace with that. My response is not to say I approve of Advertisers having this much control - I think it's ridiculous. But my response is to empower the few artists I like using other funding means and to avoid Youtube. The loss of one viewer hopefully is off-set by the $5 a month.

> YouTube stands to loose more by penalizing him, the same goes for advertisers in lost impressions.

Well, I would have to imagine that based on the drama around the Adpocalypse and that Youtube has doubled-down on it instead of walking it back, Youtube and Advertisers are in agreement that the changes have been for the better, not for the worse.

It's late and I am sick so my reply will be short. Not for lack of words or things to say. Just might sleep better knowing you had a chance to see this.

I did not mean to imply you approve with advertisers having this sort of control. It was a question of inquiry on a topic that I had not thought much about. Something we have more common ground on apparently.

No worries, I'm at work anyways.

I think we do agree on a lot with regards to advertisers. In this instance, we disagree on the impetus for YouTube to punish Logan Paul, but effectively dislike the situation in general. I think that YouTube failed to be what it should, and a Logan Paul style account is symptomatic of the problems of YouTube, but that's unrelated.

Feel better! )

>But the market should have naturally handled it.

But youtube is the market. YouTube is a private enterprise that's declining to continue their business relationship with him. That's market forces in action.

Adding to this, his show is similar to the MTV format "Jackass" modeled around shock value. So I believe the market would have actually encouraged and rewarded such behavior.

Sounds like you don't agree on who participates in a market. It's not the audience. An easy rule of thumb: the demand side of a market is the side that pays the money.

> An easy rule of thumb: the demand side of a market is the side that pays the money.

Not necessarily, especially when you're talking about multi-sided markets, like YT.

There are 3 demand components: - Ads - Content - Cash

And 4 participants: - YT - Creators - Advertisers - Audience

Ads flow from Advertisers to Audience, content from Creators to Audience, Cash from Audience to Advertisers, and Cash from Advertisers to YT and Creators.

Correct. Without intention to politicize this, that is the main reason why @realDonaldTrup still exists. Eyeballs, Traffic, Usage. All lead to ad revenue for Twitter and Google/Youtube in the first example.

There are many markets. And YouTube is part of a larger market that you ate talking about. However, I think he is talking about the market that makes up the viewers of YT content which I think is a might be a better market to look at since it is closer to the infraction. However, I think YT is well within reason to axe the guy. They are similar to a channel getting rid of a talk show host in this instance.

> I think it is going to make shitty society to live in if you will be judged in perpetually for the worst moments of your public life.

Not perpetually, but the crew needs a reality check. He treated the streets of Japan like his own theme park. He repeatedly disrespected its people. He also recorded, edited and posted his childish reaction to the hanging corpse of a man. Making that vlog took several hours and was reviewed by multiple people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vtpEwGgdf4

There's loose judgement and making mistakes; and there's filming the corpse of someone who has committed suicide and making jokes about it, then somehow deciding that it's a good idea to put it online.

The market doesn't handle morality. Especially in this kind of case, he was more likely to get views from the outrage, even just from people disgusted in him.

There are cases where yes, I think that maybe the voice of the offended gets magnified too much. But trivialising suicide to millions of (mostly quite young) people and in such a crass and uncouth manner is not one of those cases.

You can see some of the extremes of this public shaming culture in S Korea[1]. Not sure if it's gotten better or worse. I think it's also prevalent in S Africa.

[1]https://www.dailydot.com/society/ladygate-korean-women-publi...

Who exactly is in this role of deciding how loud and powerful people can be? At what point does a person get bucketed into the category of "the offended"? Clearly you think his actions were disgusting, yet you speak as if you're in a position of superiority over these people. I wonder where that line is drawn.

People don't want to support this stuff, or buy products associated with it. That's a show-stopper for this business model.

The market did handle it, there was enough bad press for YouTube so that it was no longer a good business decision to continue their partnership with Paul.

I think that depends on how you define "market". Is it the viewers, the concerned culture watchdogs who obviously speak for everyone, one gigantic internet medium with outsized influence?

Should viewers have decided whether or not Weinstein should still be producing movies? There’s clearly a point where the press around someone becomes too toxic to have a close business relationship with them.

You know, I don't like the guy. Because I don't like the guy, I like that the mob contributed to his fall.

But, to answer your question, I don't have an answer. Do I not listen to music because the musicians are not my politics, or do I not read an author because they have horrible views or they belong to the Church of Scientology? When I look at it from that prism, I'm not sure.

Then there is the irony of Hollywood, the most misogynistic and misandristic, sexist, exploitative group of people lecturing the rest of the country on what proper conduct is.

Well if you’re not aware of an artists politics you can easily find yourself consuming propaganda. It’d be foolish not to exercise any restraint in that regard.

Sometimes we have to learn to enjoy things as they are without thinking about the meta context. I think Reagan, like him or loathe him, you know, liked Springsteen's "Born in the USA", despite it being a protest song.

Beside, propaganda is not in and of itself bad. Maybe propaganda has made me more of a conservationist or environmentalist. Should I have disregarded those readings because of the inherent propaganda?

Yes. There is an unstated assumption that giving in to a screeching outrage machine is somehow "better for business" than standing up for free expression (even if that expression is offensive).

That assumption is...unwarranted. The actual percentage of neopuritan busybodies (from whatever political perspective they claim to be from) is significantly lower than an estimate based on volume would lead you to believe.

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