Youtube policies and anger about censorship. What's going on?

in steemit •  8 years ago  (edited)

I saw a lot of you writing about the Youtube policies right now. Let's talk about them for a moment

So... what's going on with Youtube? 

This question got asked a lot recently, and I never had a clear vision and a clear opinion on that regard. That's because I don't see it as a big problem or an unconventional decision.

Let me explain but, before going on, I want to link you one video that helped me figure out other points of view. There's it.

What is censorship?

"Censorship is the suppression of free speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions"

Now... the big question is:

Is Youtube censoring channels?

No.

The simple answer is just... no.

Is Youtube suppressing their channel because of their contente? Nope.

Is Youtube deleting their videos because they said "fuck" too many times? Nope.

What's clear right now is that people don't have the idea of "censorship" clear in mind. Because they're too busy saying everything is just not right. Especially for big social medias like Youtube. 

You're free to say whatever you want on Youtube (as long as it's legal, but that applies to every single country and every single thing in the World - not a big surprise), but you're not free to monetize whatever you want on Youtube.

Now...

Is it really so strange?

Have you guys ever thought about what is Youtube? 

As a guy in the video says, and I 100% support that theory, "Youtube is a private company". 

You're not going into a public place. You're not an employeer. You're not anything on youtube, you're a "content creator" for a private platform.

And, since you're an user, the platform estabilish some rules.

They're not new. They've been there for years. So what's going on with all this anger right now? 

They're not clear, they're non explained and so on. But it's, anyway, a choice of the advertisers. 

Let's explore this one a little bit.

Did you ever sponsor anything? 

I think you didn't. 

When you sponsor a product, you're aiming for:

  • The right age group 
  • The right annual income
  • The right targeted type of social people
  • The lower price possible

That's why you start an ad campaign: you're trying to find buyers. You're not trying to have views. Because the cruel reality is that earning on ads is not a genial idea (the ROI is negative).

Now, if you have to sponsor a smartphone that costs 2500$ ('cause it's made up of diamonds), you:

  • Don't want to spend money when a 11 years old visit the video. What's the point? 
  • You don't want to advertise it to people who's annual income is lower than 19.000$, maybe
  • You want social people because your product is based on a "social environment"

Is Youtube allowing you to do that? 

No.

So what could you do? 

You have to limit your research to contents that will not argue with your company beliefs and logic. Since you can't have targeted traffic (aka buyers), you at least want to have a good amount of interest by people.

And, some companies, decided that if you say "fuck" too many times they don't want to advertise on your content. And, since Youtube is under their rules (he has to earn), he says he can't pays you.

That's not strange at all. And no one is asking you to don't speak about a certain range of topic. They're saying that, if you do that, you'll not get paid by a certain amount of companies.

Is not being paid for something you do for free a form of censorship? 

Ok... so you agree with Youtube

What does it even mean? 

I agree with it being logical. You agree on their ToS, you have to follow their ToS. It's their platform - not yours.

That's not about supporting their choices or about supporting the "speak about easy thing so you can get paid". It's just logical thinking about the choices Youtube made recently.

So what do you truly think about the matter in general? 

I don't want to live in a World where you have to earn being an indirect employeer for advertisers.

News' channel and many other will be affected by that and, since some people are now working on the platform, it just seems bad to me.

It doesn't seem "wrong". It seems bad.

Because I actually think that earning on ads is the wrong way to allow people to earn based on their contents. Since, as I said, advertisers are searching for a certain amount of behaviors to sponsorize their products.

And do you really want to have a sponsor you don't want to have on your video just to earn 1$/1000 views? 

That's the point.

It's not about censorship - it's about what you're willing to do for money.

If you're not into staying under the advertisers, just gain your following on there and start to advertise your own product. Or try something else - nobody is forcing you to write for advertisers.

Just don't put the monetization on.

What do I think will be a viable solution

I think we can aim for three main disputes about that matter:

Direct advertising

We should stop the "general advertising". Youtube can grant a way for content creators to get in touch with companies that agree with their contents and want to use their channel to sponsorize.

This way, it'll be a win-win solution since you choose the right sponsor for you.

Plus, it will work like normal sponsorship so you'll get paid a lot more and you'll be able to never work with, to say one, that film company you hate so much.

It would be similar to some platforms right now, but with thousands of thousands of companies available every day.

That will result in:

  • Better traffic for them
  • Better ROI for them
  • More freedom for you
  • More decision-making on your part

Channels Database 

We could analyze channel to give advertisers a way to choose which channels are fine for their companies and which are not. 

That way, Youtube will not interfer with users prohibiting them to monetize certain type of contents. 

That will result in:

  • Better ROI for the advertisers
  • Better choices for the advertisers
  • More freedom for you
  • More content-creation on your part
  • Probably better payments on your side and cheaper price on theirs

Don't base Youtubers earnings on Ads

That's the strongest one, in my point of view.

In this perspective, Youtube should be a giant table for people to put things on. Then, you choose what content you like and you bring "traffic" to it.

When you gain enough traffic, you start to create digital products or digital goods to be able to earn your main income based on the traffic you earn on Youtube. 

And Youtube should help in that.

Let me explain.

Youtubers are there to entertain you.

They wants to get paid for it. 

But, sadly, Chicca S.r.l doesn't want to sponsorize on their "FUCK EVERYTHIN I LOVE POT" video. You said it's funny, so they think they could get new users on their "see an happy cat everyday page", but I don't think their return will be higher than their investment.

But, luckily enough, Youtube can show you a different path.

You gain followings for that video and you can now redirect your users to a specific offer or page. That could be an affiliate product, your own product, or some advertisers page.

Then, you'll share a part of the earnings with youtube.

That will result in: 

  • An increasing number of advertisers 
  • A different way to earn sponsorized by Youtube itself
  • A GIANT ROI for the advertisers
  • A lot more money for content creators
  • Absolute 100% content creators friendly policies, since they're the ones who gives money to Youtube

That's to remember that content creators give traffic to the platform. Not money. Advertisers give money to Youtube. That way, the two things will be provided by the same output: the content creator.

Make ads cheaper

That's easier.

Just make advertisers pay less money so they don't get to choose the target of their ads.

Simple as that.

Conclusions

These are some of my thoughts about the matter. I'm not "one-way" right now, so if you have time to share your opinion in the comments please do that. 

I would like to engage a discussion with some of you to expand this ideas or add some of the solutions. I'm open to suggestions and misbelieves to my theory and I hope we can remain kind and polite.

I'm sure to have your fully support on that and...

See ya!

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The question I have heard asked is this:

Is YouTube a private company or have they taken public money? If they have taken public money (meaning taxes, which are theft) then should they have the power to demonetize accounts? Like you I am not hard over on the issue one way or the other. I have watched videos on YouTube that have direct advertisements in them (GunTalk is one of them) and I think that may be a good route for content creators to pursue.

I believe the gotcha of the whole situation are the content creators who have driven a lot of viewership to YouTube getting demonetized when we all know YouTube will still make money off of their work. Of course the content creators lose their payday. In the end, I am not convinced one way or the other but I appreciate your perspective.

Hello! Sorry for the late answer, I was outside all day long :)

I'm glad you liked my article. It's just a short thought about what's going on. I appreciate your valuable comment and I hope we can share some other ideas in the near future :)

Have a good day bud!

Playing outside? You'll never make it here... ;)

What I know is there are many discussions about CENTRALIZED and DECENTRALIZED networks. For others, centralized networks is a big deal but either centralized or decentralized for me is fine as I am not a terrorist and have nothing to hide. LOL

Decentralization is not only about privacy. I agree with you on that, but I'd like to have a social that users really own. Like they invest in the platform.

But you don't need decentralization for that. You just need a good project. But steemit can be a way :)