Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

Why do people insist on conflating demonitization with censorship? Google isn't saying she can't put her body on YouTube, they're saying they don't think they can sell ads on that content. If advertisers would pay for controversial content, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

View on HN

"My channel got demonetised but my videos shows ads."

https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/105920334/my-chann...

This is the big one imo. Youtube's monopoly status is making creators sign unfair contracts, after which stealing from them becomes legal.

Advertisers would pay for controversial content. They'd pay less, but they'd pay. TPB keeps selling ads somehow.

I think the reason people see demonization as censorship follows the same lines as seeing non-government censorship or "ceasing to do business" (in an industry that generally does business with everybody) as censorship. They aren't exactly going out and burning books, sure, but it's certainly exclusionary and it's certainly targeted.

What's wrong with demonitizing all the videos of gay people? "It's not censorship." Still seems to have most of the negative impacts of censorship. It's a spade to me.

>Google isn't saying she can't put her body on YouTube, they're saying they don't think they can sell ads on that content. If advertisers would pay for controversial content, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

The assumption being in this case that advertisers will pay for ads when a man creates a nude female torso and not when a woman creates a nude female torso and YouTube is simply acting on their behalf?

Seems like a dumb move on YouTubes part. Instead just only show ads from advertiser's who want to be associated with this kind of content. There aren't many of that kind of advertiser, so prices will be low. YouTubers will then soon find out that while that sort of content might get lots of views, it earns few dollars, so will produce other content.

Having a binary 'you have been demonetized' flag just seems like a way to stir discontent.

That's what their email says. You will receive less revenue because less advertisers will want them on adult content.

She has not been demonetised, despite the clickbait title, but classified as adult which means roughly 99% less ad revenue.

>She has not been demonetised, despite the clickbait title, but classified as adult which means roughly 99% less ad revenue.

Correct

End effect is essentially the same thing though, less ad revenue for Naomi

Not defending YouTube, but I think that the letter said that some advertisers won't accept "sexual" content and thus her income would go down? The big question here, as I see it, is whether it's fair to call that "sexual" content.

Would it be hard for Google, for all their greatness, to have adds for...adults?

Advertising-funded adult sites are extremely common, though. If you have adult content and want a site to host your content and share ad revenue with you, you have lots (lots!) of choice. The problem is that there's a lot less money available to people funded by sex toy ads on PornHub or whereever than there is to people who sit behind Liberty Mutual ads on Youtube.

So SexyCyborg would, unsurprisingly, prefer to be on youtube. But she's also dancing on the edge of what people call "adult" (again, I'm presenting no personal opinion here: take it up with Liberty Mutual if you don't like the definition). So naturally she's going to have trouble with those boundaries. PornHub never would have kicked her off, but she doesn't want to be on PornHub.

It's all about money here, not freedom. That was my point.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com