YouTube demonetizing videos where LGBTQ keywords are said
boingboing.net
boingboing.net
In turn, creators have to be careful about what they say and viewers are slightly less interested in tamed content.
With creators further restricted and not being paid as much, they reached out for third party funding sources (bypassing Yotube) and started to seriously consider other platforms as alternatives.
Worse still, once one media company had seen success at trying to "cancel" Youtube, others strive to capitalize on the same opportunity.
Now Youtube is stuck trying to implement forever more complicated filtering models, employing larger and larger numbers of humans for manual verification and are trying to find an impossible balance of responsibility.
Dealing with news media is pretty much the same as dealing with bullies - simply ignore them and they'll go away. The advertisers will eventually come back when the heat is off and they see their competitors doing really well.
Are you in a position to know about that, though? I mean, would you expect to be made aware of whether these changes were financially efficient to YouTube? Or are you just presuming they are not?
YouTube directly lost money by introducing these changes, because content that is demonetized doesn't make YouTube any money either. However, the bigger picture is that if YouTube in its entirety becomes advertiser unfriendly, then much more money is lost by them.
So the question whether YouTube lost money with these demonetization rules is not so easy to answer.
I did proceed my statement with "As far as I know", meaning I'm willing to be educated differently.
> I mean, would you expect to be made aware of whether these
> changes were financially efficient to YouTube? Or are you
> just presuming they are not?
Again, I'm willing to be told differently, but the big advertisers that I was aware of were Disney, Coke and Car Manufacturers, none of which ever seemed to return, despite Youtube bending the knee in trying to get them to return.
As another comment says, Youtube loses money delivering content without adverts. As the number of demonetized videos increases, so do the losses from those videos.
My point is essentially that they although they made these changes, it doesn't appear to have benefited them. The number of "controversies" increases regardless of what they do, but now all that happens is that they hurt the communities they want to protect (such as LGBT) and annoy others.
I guess my point is that you're not going to be told differently, because that information is proprietary. It is not YouTube's habit to go around letting all the curious people know the details of its financials or the inner workings of its decision-making apparatus. You would not expect to be told all the factors that weigh into the feature's development, nor how it's turning out. So the fact that nobody has informed you or publicly announced that demonetization's goals are being achieved is the expected outcome, whether or it is performing as desired.
The only solid evidence you or I have access to is that they are still doing it. That at least strongly suggests that it has some significant benefits from YouTube's perspective, considering all the downsides you so rightly point out.
But of course it's """""the algorithms fault""""".
Maybe if this algorithm isn't doing it's job properly and you can't think of (or afford) other methods to administrate your content, you shouldn't be able to host it in the first place.
This is seriously your argument?
What are you even saying, that laws should exist that say that if youtube can't perfectly accurately categorize the 300 hours of video that are uploaded every minute, then youtube should be barred from hosting any videos?
Edit: I left out the part where you could probably add monetizatuon outside of YouTube
What can we do to mitigate these gatekeepers?
Ultimately, there's a trade-off to be made. YouTube could make their algorithm less strict, but then more objectionable content would monetized. YouTube doesn't want to go through another wringer of public criticism for it's advertising. The lawsuit filed by content creators is going nowhere. YouTube has blanket policies like not monetizing any videos with firearms, they are under zero obligation to monetize LGBT content.
This is different. This is YouTube saying "Absolutely no one may place an ad here under any circumstances." Advertisers have no say, and cannot place an ad on these videos even if they wanted to.
This didn't stop advertisers from pulling their ads during the adpocalypse. They pulled them because "YouTube has to do something!"
How advertisers select topics to advertise is not related to what I am writing about at all.
Normally, it would look at the video, audio and channel status and so on. In this case, it's not getting any of that. The model wasn't built to run on edge cases like this and it isn't expected to be able to classify such an outlier input.
I think the last thing advertisers want is more control, because that means they are responsible. Advertisers just don't want bad publicity, so when the news media comes knocking because of some controversy, the advertiser can say: "We did everything we could! (Please talk about us in a good way.)"
No, it's not.
It's about people.
Simply mentioning that someone is lesbian in a video does not make the content "inherently about sexuality."
The idea that everything related to LGBTQ issues is inherently sexual in nature is one of the most toxic ones to people with those identities. It maintains the idea that their very existence taboo, something you're not allowed to talk about in public, and certainly not around children! When talking about LBGTQ identities around children, normalizing their existence, is one of the most powerful things to help LGBTQ children understand and accept their identities, and help straight, cisgender children recognize that LGBTQ children are fine, normal, and not something to be feared or reviled.
And now we get into our semantic debate; is LGBTQ content any content that is generated by a member of that group? So if a gay man talks about skateboarding, is it LGBTQ content? Or is it only LGBTQ content when the topic is literally about lesbians, gays, bis, and transsexuals?
If you talk about sexuality, you’re talking about sexuality, so you’re going to get hit with these censors. If you talk about skateboarding, you aren’t talking about sexuality, so you won’t get censored.
There are many aspects of LGBTQ identity and culture which are not related to sex, in the same way that there are many aspects of heterosexual identity and culture unrelated to sex. One may use the keywords mentioned in the article outside of the context of a discussion of sex.
Here are some examples of LGBTQ Youtube content which, you will note, should you watch, are not entirely about sex or sexuality, despite clearly being "LGBTQ content."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTwm4IIBGPI&list=PLmWFOeT2jE...
Agreed. If you are attracted to someone and you don't want to have sex with them, then it's not sexual attraction. I am attracted to my business partner, for example, because he is very confident and has a warm personality. That's why I call him my friend and business partner. But this doesn't make me Gay, I don't want to have sex with him.
> You're further assuming that identity is exclusively defined by sexuality. Also not true.
Agreed. There are many facets to a person's identity. Sexual identity is just one of them. In a conversation about LGBTQ identity, it's fair to assume we're talking about sexual identity, it's right in the name - lesbian gay bi trans queer. Those are words that describe who you have sexual relationships with, therefore conversations about LGBTQ identity are about sexual identity. If you want to have a discussion about geographic or other parts of a person's identity, then we can do that, but nothing about our conversation is about those parts of a person's identity.
Edit: I see where our misunderstanding is. You think LGBTQ is a banner under which an entire identity is defined, but I think LGBTQ is just one part of a person's larger identity. I think there are many LGBTQ people who do not want their identity to be pinned to their sexual preference, many would say "I'm just a guy who likes men, don't paint me with that whole brush".
LGBT is laden with a number of controversial and polarizing issues. This means something that is advertising on a video where this is a meaningful focus, whether positive or negative, may result in controversy. And advertisers can't win in controversy. If they withdraw advertising, one group is pissed. If they don't withdraw advertising, another group is pissed. So they see it in their best interest to avoid controversy altogether simply as a means of maximizing their economic return.
And so you get the end result - advertisers are drawn to bland and inoffensive content. I'd hypothesize this also goes some way towards explaining the deterioration of music which went from invariable social commentary tied to the issues of the day to a million different versions of 'oh baby i love you' as the top tracks. Dylan to Bieber in 40 years. What progress...
Secondly, the experiment itself was contrived: They uploaded thousands of videos (with no video or audio) to a single channel, and looked at the monetization status. The issue is:
1. Youtube's system is probably not stateless. It most likely looks at the uploaders history and other channel data points.
2. An upload with no video or audio content is an abnormal data point. It's an outlier and doesn't represent real case scenario.
Therefore, you can't really extrapolate the results from this experiment and reach any sort of conclusion.
We dont know how Youtube´s system operates which is actually part of the problem as the lack of transparency makes it hard for anyone to make any reasonable assessment.
> 2. An upload with no video or audio content is an abnormal data point. It's an outlier and doesn't represent real case scenario.
Not really as titles (combined with other meta-data) have for a long time impacted the state of monetization, suppression and view count for any given video regardless of its content.
Sure, which is why this isn't "conclusive proof Youtube is blocking LGBTQ content". As I stated above, it's a contrived experiments and the results most likely can't be extrapolated, and you can't reach any definitive conclusions from it.
> Not really as titles (combined with other meta-data) have for a long time impacted the state of monetization
I'm not saying they don't play a role, most likely all of these data points are fed into the model. What I'm saying is that Youtube is primarily a video/audio site, so running an experiment with no audio/video isn't testing the model the way it runs in practice.
The model wasn't made to classify only titles, this is an abnormal input and therefore the output can't be used to reach any conclusions.
I didn't want to spend a half hour watching those goofballs in the video explain that their spreadsheets really mean something, so I took my own dumb stab at it.
Pre: Advertising partners hand YouTube money and say "We would like to target the following list of keywords..."
Event: a new video title appears!
1. Parse title for keywords
2. If there's a match from keywords to advertisers, mark as monetized, and serve up the ads.
3. Else, there is no one left to monetize this video. Mark as demonitized.
This is like a soft preview of the AI Alignment Problem.
In one sense, the YT algorithm punishes me for not maximizing watch time, but I'll never fall afoul of this kind of concern and best of all I don't monetize through advertisers.
I make tutorials and if people like them so much they want more, they pay me on a subscription basis. No advertisers needed!
I can see the criticisms now:
"These racists are using Mein Kraft to achieve power through the joy of gaming!"
Like the censorship of ISIS content, LGBTQ content censorship was celebrated by the same people now lamenting "conservative" demonetization.
The "same people?" All of them? Since when does "Conservative" equal "anti-LGBT?" You do know there exists LGBT conservatives, yes?
I'm not going to deny that there are LGBT conservatives. But the fact is that conservative politicians as a whole demonize LGBTQ people and have attempted multiple times to censor them [1] or bar them from aid.
"As a whole" they do not. There exists many who do, to paint it part and parcel of conservatism is incorrect.
One could just as well claim it's not their conservatism, but religious beliefs.
Recall George Bush Jr's presidential candidacy when banning gay marriage in the nation's Constitutional was a get-out-to-vote issue. Or California's 8. Why are these issues energizing? What about care for the poor and focus on education? Are these not red-hot winning issues?
You might also refer to the GOP platform of various states, or the GOP national platform. Here's some verbatim text from the Texas GOP platform, the 2nd-largest state in the nation.
> Homosexual Behavior: We affirm God’s biblical design for marriage and sexual behavior between one biological man and one biological woman, which has proven to be the foundation for all great nations in Western civilization. We oppose homosexual marriage, regardless of state of origin. We urge the Texas Legislature to pass religious liberty protections for individuals, businesses, and government officials who believe marriage is between one man and one woman. We oppose the granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin. We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.
> Definition of Marriage: We support the definition of marriage as a God-ordained, legal, and moral commitment only between one natural man and one natural woman.
> Overturn Unconstitutional Ruling: We believe this decision, overturning the Texas law prohibiting same-sex marriage in Texas, has no basis in the Constitution and should be reversed, returning jurisdiction over the definition of marriage to the states. The Governor and other elected officials of the State of Texas should assert our Tenth Amendment right and reject the Supreme Court ruling.
I would also argue that discussing American conservatism without a rich narrative on Christianity is obtusely blind.
> Religious Freedom: As America is “one nation under God,” founded on Judeo-Christian principles, we affirm the constitutional right of all individuals to worship as they choose.
If conservatives didn't care about gay marriage, then what political force would be left to oppose its legitimacy?
what?
What is happening, is notch tweeting reactionary opinion pieces on twitter and people are irritated by it. No one thinks he represents all gamers or their perceived 'wrongness', and no one expects him to fit into some imaginary SV mould.
I'm not 100% sure you're criticising that, so if you're not, please take this comment as directed at the many other times I have seen it criticized on HN and elsewhere:
It always surprises me to see fairly smart people throw this out there like it's obviously silly. Communication is based simply on actual usage of language and symbols. If a bunch of people want to associate a symbol (especially one that's still ubiquitously known but has somewhat fallen out of popular real-world usage) with something very controversial and offensive, then they can realistically do that by simply using the symbol that way, even if they're only doing it as a hilarious joke. Then it just means that sometimes (depending on context), until they stop using it that way. If people are, in practice, using a symbol to mean a certain thing, then it means that thing (with the likelihood of meaning being a function of context). I don't have to think about it or philosophize about it when I see it - it comes naturally based on context, because that's how language works. If I've seen 10 usages of <Mercury-symbol> to mean "Mercury" in the past 5 years, and 75 usages of it to mean "kill all the elderly" in the past year, then when I see somebody who seems antagonistic write <Mercury-symbol> with no planetary context in sight, I can reasonably assume he probably means the latter, and I would probably be correct. As another example, the "V" sign means different things in different places - but if I see it in the US, I don't fret at the idea that I might misinterpret it. The fact is, in practice, it's used here to mean "peace", therefore it means "peace" at that moment. Sort of like how money works. You can't just say "no" and make the social agreement go away.
*edit: I didn't know HN filtered some seemingly innocuous characters - I've replaced my usage of the Mercury symbol with <Mercury-symbol>.
Can you provide some context examples? Genuinely curious.
> It always surprises me to see fairly smart people throw this out there like it's obviously silly.
I don't think it's silly, but I do feel the media's coverage of it was irresponsible / clickbaity. The ADL website itself mentions that most uses are "entirely innocuous and harmless" but CNN's headline was "'OK' is now a hate symbol", which stigmatizes the gesture and feels like cultural vandalism. I understand your point about language usage, but far more people use the gesture in an innocuous way. It's not surpising to me that people would be upset when told it's a hate symobol (when it's not in most cases - documenting that it is in some cases is fine, but generalizing it as a hate symbol is what most people disagree with).
Demonetizing videos that make homophobic attacks on public figures (the "conservative" content in question) is not "the other side of the coin" to being positive about LGBTQ issues.
If the majority of conservatives hold (and try to post) homophobic views, then it seems that banning the majority of them is the right thing to do.
But that's because I believe in private property and freedom of association as well as personal responsibility for one's actions while it seems "conservatives" in 2019 do not from the public stances they have adopted in their political efforts.
1. Outlaw "extremism"
2. Label your political enemies as "extrmist."
3. ???
4. Eutopia
I am, however, willing to support a movement that results in conservative content being demonetized if American conservatism continues to pander to and fall back on its racist and reactionary cores. It isn't clear to me why social disapprobation and pressure on the whole to excise reactionaries is inappropriate in this context.
They don't.
> It isn't clear to me why social disapprobation and pressure on the whole to excise reactionaries is inappropriate in this context.
I consider the moral-fascism of modern illiberal progressive rhetoric to be rather abhorrent. Are you fine with being socially outcast?
This is counterfactual, and I'm not interested in debating facts.
> I consider the moral-fascism of modern illiberal progressive rhetoric to be rather abhorrent.
I'm sorry, but this is word salad. You don't know any of my concrete political positions.
> Are you fine with being socially outcast?
I am extremely comfortable with reactionaries being socially outcast. I belong to a few different groups that are traditionally (and violently) targeted when reactionary movements gain social and political power. Minimizing the ability of reactionaries to undermine systems of government and public discourse directly serves my end of continuing to exist in a liberal democracy. I'd quote Popper, but that's a little bit too cliche at this point.
Downvoters please explain - we have tons of threads about homeless and joblessness and how tech is concerned with eliminating jobs instead of creating them.
If you give this responsibility directly to advertisers then the advertisers are responsible for every single misplaced ad. They have no scapegoat if somebody comes knocking and asks why they support Mr Very Evil by giving them money.