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> Advertisers could push back on the notion that "an ad == approval"

Ads are far more than just "approval", they're funding. An ad appearing with a video is funding the production of more, similar videos.

It's quite meaningless to "boycott" a service that you're not paying money for, but people recognise that the modern flow of money around the economy is extremely indirect. This results in a lack of moral accountability. Campaigners aim to collapse the distance between those spending the money and the actual actions that result, to say "are you really happy paying for this to happen?"

If you want to look at causes then I fear that it's not the monetization itself that's the problem but youtube's 'burned bridge' approach to communication. I've seen several people complain about the non-communicative stance YouTube has taken, leaving people with little to no ways of recourse.

To me it seems likely that this person felt that this was the only way they could 'reach' YouTube.

With 50 million channels it's impossible to give quality communication to everyone, so they prioritize based on size/viewership/ad dollars. Top creators have great communications channels - nobody's don't. It's not YouTube's responsibility to stroke everyone's fragile ego.

The problem is people thinking they are more important than they are and then going to extreme lengths to make themselves relevant. That's what mass shooters are, people with egos that don't have the influence to match.

>it's impossible to give quality communication to everyone

This is wrong though. See Valve for a counter example. Steam is also run by algorithms but Valve has managed to give people tons of information on what their algorithms are doing at various points on their store ("this game was shown to you because of X, Y and Z", for instance). The communication problem that YouTube has can be solved by them improving their product and letting creators see more of what their algorithms are doing behind the scenes, like Valve did with Steam.

You can't compare communicating with users that are buying stuff (Steam customers) and communicating with paid creators (The 50M+ YouTube Channel content creators). It's a completely different set of questions/answers and a completely different relationship.

You can and he did. The main thing lacking in YouTube other than communication (which is not good - delays are inevitable but compete lack of is not) is actual reason. This is probably because they either cannot offer a real reason (either physically or because it'd expose the incompetence) or do not want it to be known (ulterior motives).

> This is absolutely a "no-win" situation in my mind.

We'll, people can just understand the algorithms are flawed and not blame the advertisers for having an ad for toilet paper next to an video of someone TPing a house.

Discussed this in the other thread, but there's nothing stopping YouTube from doing a video tagging system and making creators tag their works.

Softly (the toilet paper brand) simply deselects 'pranks' as a tag to advertise on.

> I don't blame the advertisers one bit from wanting to remove their ads from many videos. Once the media starts playing the game that "an ad on the video == the advertiser agrees with the message" I too would want to do everything I can to ensure that I'm not associated with bad things.

Why do we do that on youtube when we don't do that on TV? Do we assume that if you're ad runs during <some sitcom> you agree with the jokes in it?

Happens on TV relatively often. Bill O'Reilly got the boot because advertisers pulled their ads after he got caught up in sexual harassment claims.

TV just has also built up years of trust with advertisers and have legal departments reviewing all their content while YouTube was throwing up ads in front of ISIS recruitment videos.

You're probably right, I don't watch cable TV so it was a poor comparison.

Nobody is complaining that ISIS is losing their youtube ad revenue stream, that's a strawman argument. ISIS recruitment videos violate youtube's guidelines so they'd just be taken down, that's not what we're talking about here. What's actually happening is videos that have a dissenting or unpopular viewpoint have their ads removed, with a lot of harmless content caught in the crossfire due to the indiscriminate nature of youtube's algorithms.

This happens pretty often, currently other media outlets are pressuring advertisers to pull support from Laura Ingraham and effectively de-monetize the show. That's just the latest example though.

Also, the FCC regulates broadcast TV and commercials. you can't simply run an obscene advertisement just because the station and/or station's audience approves it.

>Why do we do that on youtube when we don't do that on TV?

Our society does do that on TV and radio. Consider the recent boycott attempts against Laura Ingraham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott_in_support_of_David_Ho...

>Do we assume that if you're ad runs during <some sitcom> you agree with the jokes in it?

I don't think most people actually assume that the advertiser literally agrees with all the content they are running ads on. Rather, I think that people have found that it's an effective ideological weapon.

Going after the advertisers to attack content is a tactic that works. The attackers don't have to literally think that the advertisers are morally signing on with the content, they just have to think that enough people out there think that, and that the advertisers are risk-averse to bend the knee, that it's a useful tactic.

Advertisers pull their ads to flex their muscles in the tv industry all the time.

I don't understand why it's a problem at all. Can't YouTube enact settings for advertisers to choose which videos they want to advertise on. Some of the obvious things to filter could be video category, view count, number of likes/dislikes, comments. Instead of demonetizing channels, they could tag them controversial and allow advertisers to say they don't want to advertise on controversial channels. Seems a lot better than a blanket ban on advertisements.

In many cases, the advertiser doesn't have direct control over their ad placement.

You're thinking the marketing manager at Coke clicking buttons in an admin panel on youtube.

The reality is 3 layers of management inside Coke, 2 external advertising agencies, a brand management company, ad aggregators and 3rd party ad exchanges and resellers, video networks, then youtube.

When the boss at coke sees an ad next to dubious content, it's much easier for them to say "don't advertise on youtube" than "switch this special setting on youtube to avoid controversial channels".

Youtube is taking the "safe" approach by not allowing such advertising at all.

> Media outlets are (in many cases) just trying to report on things.

I would be more guarded and say in some cases. The previous comment's accusation that "mainstream" media, televisual, radio, & written, is stoking the anti-youtube sentiment has legs to stand on. Self publishing and social media are their competition and as they are getting desperate they are playing dirty. This is true of both the big players and some collectives of small players (which like those in the Sinclair Broadcast Group are effectively one big player as the individual outles have to tow the corporate line). The hope that moving bits of advertising budgets away from online outlets will mean that some of it comes back their way.

Of course this doesn't in any way make them culpable for the events at youtube's offices this week.

Similarly while youtube's terrible user support (which I'm told is very much in keeping with Google's apparent policy of "like we give a fuck about individuals"), while it may have increased her ire, can't be considered even partly responsible either.

The woman obviously had issues, and they were going to blow up in someone's face sooner or later if not treated. I can't pretend I have an answer, as it is a very complex issue, but a key part of the problem is the lack of support available for those with mental problems, and the lack of ways to protect the rest of society from the fallout when something pushes people over the edge.

Lack of gun control is also part of the problem too IMO (sure she could have attacked with a knife instead, but knife attacks are generally less deadly).

Scott Alexander's essay "Meditations on Moloch" is relevant here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

The no-win situation you describe is a prime example of "Moloch."

This is fantastic. Thanks for sharing.

Everyone is acting in their best interest, except youtube. Youtube has a product team, its their job to come up with solutions to problems like these. If they haven't found a solution, they haven't done their job. Full stop.

What is the "solution" here? There is only mitigation, it's not a problem that could ever be completely solved to the satisfaction of all parties.

Foresight and planning. Don't tie to another's platform without expecting cutoffs (pagerank, YouTube, apple front page, amazon serverless , etc)

Agreed it can't be solved completely (like a lot of problems), but a non-binary monetisation option (ie, content tags, where advertisers pick tags they'd like to include/excluse) would be a hell of a lot better.