YouTube’s Inaction

YouTube is an very important source of entertainment for millions of different people across the world, and it gives them more ways to learn about current events. However, YouTube has done a few things in monitoring their platform that not everybody has been the biggest fan of. 

Many people who make a living off YouTube gain revenue from advertisements on their videos. YouTube, for better or worse, has been removing some of these advertisement oppurtuninties  from videos that have been deemed “not advertiser friendly” by its algorithm (the algorithm is YouTube’s computerized process of determining whether or not a video is appropriate). Many people  claim that the algorithm is too strict, and others disagree by saying that the algorithm works well and that it is the creator’s fault for making inappropriate content that isn’t suitable advertisers. As of right now, the only step YouTube has taken to remidy hesitation and deal with the controversy is to add a feature where content creators can have a manual review done on a demonetized video, which means getting a YouTube employee to watch the video and deeming it suitable or not for monetization (monetization means the video is able to generate revenue from advertisements). In an effort to not have to go through the dull and grueling process hundreds of times, some channels have tried to change the content they make in order to appease the algorithm. This is where the algorithm becomes even more problematic. Since a channel’s previous videos are not eligible for advertisements, YouTube demonetizes their newer content, even though the new content fits in line with the guidlines. This has caused some people to leave the  video creation platform entirely, as they can no longer make any worthwhile amount of money. While most seek out more stable means of supporting themselves many move to streaming sites like Twitch or Mixer. This has been an ongoing problem for Youtube Creators since 2012, and there is no solution or any attempts to address the situation. It also doesn’t appear that this issue will be resolved in the foreseeable future.

Another topic of debate among internet media users is YouTube’s current copyright system. If a content creator thinks that another creator has violated the copyright terms that YouTube has set in place, they can “copyright strike” the video. By doing this, the person whose copyright was infringed upon takes all the revenue generated from the video, and the other person gets a “strike.” Once your channel has received three strikes, it gets deleted along with all the videos you had uploaded previously. This penalty is extremely harsh. The issue is that people have been striking each other not because there is a legitimate copyright infringement, but because they don’t like the other person or what the other person has to say. Many creators see this as a reason to replace the system, while others believe that YouTube should keep the system but put certain checks into the system to keep it from being used in a way different from its original intent. So far, YouTube has done absolutely nothing to fix this. One notable example of an abuse of this system is that on May of 2018, a woman who goes by the name of Alinity became the center of a copyright strike conflict with a very popular YouTube creator known as Pewdiepie. YouTube did nothing to help fix this issue, but the two thankfully came to an agreement on their own terms later that year. However, many people still suffer from this problem, and YouTube has continued to not act.