Age of the Geek

After these messages
     Is the YouTube party over?
     That was the question of last week when Google rolled out what appeared to be a new Terms of Service agreement that resulted in scores of videos from creators big and small getting demonetized.
     Making money on YouTube is already an iffy prospect. Due to widespread abuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and YouTube's Content ID system, a creator never knows when their video is going to be claimed by a third party, redirecting any advertising revenue to anybody willing to claim that any of the content of a video rightly belongs to them. The appeals process can take more than a month, at which point the creator has lost the bulk of the revenue that the video will have earned.
     But if dodging copyright claims weren't enough to deal with, now YouTubers are feeling the pressure to be "advertiser friendly."
     Content considered inappropriate for advertising includes a list of the usual suspects. Sexually suggestive content, violence, promotion of drugs, pretty typical for things that advertisers probably don't want their products associated with. Fair enough.
     However, "controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown," is also among the qualities that can get a video demonetized.
     In other words, the news.
     YouTube is, by a large margin, the largest distributor of video on the internet and they've created a major disincentive for any creator that wants to put out content more thought provoking than a dancing cat video.
     Philip DeFranco, a long time YouTuber that does a news show, had monetization one of his recent videos presumably removed due to the content of the stories he covered. Specifically, convicted rapist Brock Turner's early release and/or Chris Brown's latest encounter with the police.
     Beyond the news, other creators have found that videos discussing important, but uncomfortable, topics have had their monetization stripped.
     Steven "Boogie2988" Williams, a YouTuber that mixes video game news and comedy sketches with personal vlogging, found that a half-dozen of his videos had been demonetized. The offending videos all seemed to involve his real-life issues, particularly his struggle with suicidal thoughts and how he's overcome them.
     Ironically, the catalyzing event for all this controversy is technically good news. It seems that these guidelines have been around since last year and YouTube has been quietly demonetizing videos this entire time.
     The reason people are only getting upset now is that YouTube has only recently started telling people about it.
     Ignoring for the moment that YouTube has denied creators an unknowable amount of advertising revenue for the last year without telling them, the bigger issue is where things go from here.
     To their credit, YouTube does have an appeal process that one can use to have monetization restored. It's also worth noting that YouTube is privately owned and it's well within their rights to set whatever rules they want. If you don't like that, you can go and start your own billion dollar streaming service.
     It's hard to ignore the chilling effect a tighter reign on content could have on creators, particularly the ones in that nebulous space where they are big enough to make YouTube a full time job, but not big enough to support themselves without ad revenue.
     On the bright side, the market may already be correcting itself. Both Twitter and Facebook have been dipping their toes into the monetized video waters lately. This may be an opportunity for a new contender to take their shot at king.
 
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and did not have any of his videos demonetized… not that he makes any money off them anyway.