https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/youtube-just-demonetized-anti-vax-channels?utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=bffbbuzzfeed&ref=bffbbuzzfeed
YouTube on Friday said it would prevent channels that promote anti-vax content from running advertising, saying explicitly that such videos fall under its policy prohibiting the
monetization of videos with “dangerous and harmful” content. The move comes after advertisers on YouTube pulled their ads from these videos, following inquiries from BuzzFeed
News.
Earlier this week, BuzzFeed News found that while YouTube usually returns a top search result for queries like “are vaccines safe” from an authorized source such as a children’s
hospital, its Up Next algorithm frequently suggested follow up recommendations for anti-vaccination videos.
In addition to demonetizing anti-vax content, YouTube also introduced a new information panel pertaining to vaccines. Previously, information panels appeared on anti-vax videos that
explicitly mentioned the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine, and only described what the MMR vaccine is for and linked to its Wikipedia page.
Now, a considerably larger number of anti-vax videos have an information panel that links to the Wikipedia page for "vaccine hesitancy", where it is described as "one of the top ten
global health threats of 2019" according the World Health Organization.
Odd, this would have required a human being to do this. I thought that was impossible.
I love how the video title in the OP image is written. They just use Mom as some sort of title that's supposed to hold some weight, as if they of all people know what they're talking about instead of just being an uneducated piece of shit. Like good job that you got fucked and did what we've been doing for millions of years, how in the hell does this make you qualified or trustworthy to talk about complicated shit you know nothing about unlike people with actual degrees and studies proving your retarded ass wrong
Watching uneducated suburban middle aged mothers attempt science is honestly painful. Stick to what you're good at please.
Thank goodness, they accidentally did a good thing
That explains why all my videos got demonitized :/
Getting a dick sprayed in your pussy empowers you with moral authority
Are you serious?
This guy got vaccinated
I'm getting worried here. Sure, antivax is dangerous and harmful, but that's not the direct reason this is happening. The article openly boasts that BuzzFeed started these events by contacting 7 advertisers, which in turn demanded YouTube pull their ads. YouTube responded, and this article is the result. This shows that advertisers can basically pay to decide what kind of videos get promoted, and which videos are suppressed through demonetisation and low rankings in the suggestion algorithms. Great for antivax, not so great for political speech, or videos criticizing big companies.
It also means that BuzzFeed has some amount of influence over this whole process by creating outrage. It means news outlets indirectly influence what you get to see on an otherwise free platform.
Don't get me wrong, fighting the misinformation that is antivax is a good cause, but I really don't like the way this is happening.
I'd prefer an alternative, but YouTube isn't going to make a move on this. They only do anything if money is involved, and only as far as money is involved.
Why Conspiracy Videos Go Viral on YouTube
They aren't good at anything, why do you think they're so willing to believe anything that makes them feel better than someone else.
While I agree that this is justified, I'm having a very hard time seeing how there isn't massive cognitive dissonance in this thread.
The same principle that allows them to demonetize this sort of content -- that being "they think it's harmful for the world and/or harms YouTube's viability for advertisers" -- also allows them to demonetize the content that people on Facepunch have cried out against.
I thought the problem was that YouTube shouldn't have this power and not that YouTube is exercising the power against the wrong topics.
i think a lot of people are entering a 'whatever, gradual change has only made things worse, and we're no closer to a YT competitor being a realistic possibility, i hope YT crashes and burns' mentality
I don't know if people were ever against youtube not having the power to shut down bad channels at all, that'd be naive. It'd be insane if they didn't in many cases, imagine people posting snuff or cp. There's obvious cases where they have to moderate their content. The discussion is where is the line, how they should moderate, not wether or not there's a line.
There's an immense difference between "bad actors" - conspiracy theories, libel, maliciously trying to sway people with lies, etc - and regular content to me. And while the difference can be hard to see sometimes, most of the time it's absolutely obvious.
It does require human who understand the context of the content and the creator. And yes youtube has failed at that a lot, or has bowed to the demands of clueless advertisers too much
I agree that im not comfortable with youtube making the decision on what is honest content and bad actors, but I will always suport bad actors who are obviously, actively lying, being deplatformed. Whatever the political spectrum or school of thought. That's something I strongly believe in. Nobody whos actively hurting the conversation with malicious intent deserves to be part of it.
Lies like "vaccines cause autism" are killing people today, and youtube and facebook helped theses harmful lies spread like never before. A few channels being demonatised isnt even deplatforming them entirely either, its really more about advertisers not wanting their brand on that kind of video which I completely understand.
The existing issues with the demonatising on youtube doesnt mean it doing a good job for once is a bad thing.
People have died. Anti-vax is a short-hop away from murder. They should be kicked out of all modern societies.
The description on that video, good lord
When this mom was pregnant she researched vaccines and vaccination by
reading a book, the Vaccine Safety Manual, and discovered the many
horrors of vaccination. She learned what vaccines are, what vaccines are
made of, the supposed reason for vaccination, and then the type of harm
each vaccine can do to human life. She wept and cried as she read story
after story from parents who have vaccine injured children. She refused
the Vitamin K shot and was berated by the doctor and she refused the
vaccine anyway. She figured out that the doctor just wanted her to live
in fear. She then read more books and talked with more people about
vaccines and vaccination and concluded that we don’t need vaccines or
vaccination to have a healthy child. She also learned that children are
being drugged by pharmaceutical drugs, which is not in harmony with
natural living. She believes in natural living and natural health and
natural immunity by keeping the body healthy through organic food,
supplements and other natural methods of treatment, such as through
Homeopathy. Her child is four years old and vaccine free and healthy.
They're being drugged by drugs...
I was watching some anti-chemo documentary (I use that term losely) and it spent 5 mins explaining why this treatment worked (It would say shit like "cancer cells hate oxygen" over and over) while the rest of it was just fluff. The documentary then said we had it on "good authority" that this natural treatment worker because the director's wife's sister said so over the phone.
Then we spent the rest of the documentary talking to the director's friends in their fancy houses listening to their life story.
The basis of this pseudoscience is that these people think they know better than everyone else. They believe they're the only ones clever enough to find the truth and we all have to follow them. It's all ego and I'm fucking sick of it.
Isnt there a whole legal side to this? I believe they only won against viacom back in the day because they talked themselves out of the equation by claiming that they were "unaware" of the copyright problem. This should still hold up and mean that if youtube actively employed people to moderate every video that they would become legally liable for user content. Also monitoring the months worth of content uploaded every second on youtube would be impossible for a team of humans to do, unless google is ready to loose ALOT of its revenue within a few months employing the worlds largest team of copyright inspectors.
This would require a journey of self-discovery to find that in the first place which anti-vaxxers are definitely not equipped to make.
its about time we start treating anti-vaxxing as bioterrorism
Killing their children? Please don't stick to that.
There's a difference between restricting indoctrinating videos that harm the populace and restricting stuff based on whether or not advertisers think it's harmful.
While censorship isn't good, it isn't as set in stone or black and white as that.
There's always a grey area, and actively censoring people spreading actively for a fact harmful opinions is fine.
If there was any slight amount of legitimacy behind anti-vax, I would be against youtube doing this, but there isn't outside of extreme fringe cases where an individual cant be vaccinated.
And even at that, herd immunity from vaccination STILL helps them.
do you not think this is okay under any circumstances? people are being harmed and people are dying here.
When certain extremist groups began to be openly involved in terrorist acts in the US there was a big push to remove all their videos from youtube, have their channels on various VOIP services deleted, have their domains rejected by webhosting services like godaddy, etc. This sounds like a good start. People are dying by the thousands from preventable diseases because they got their understanding of science from morning talk shows, this needs to be taken more seriously
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