In this video, Philip DeFranco says that youtube is changing its terms of service to combat harassment and cyberbullying. This is from the youtube policy center:
- Harassment and cyberbullying
We want you to use YouTube without fear of being subjected to malicious harassment. In cases where harassment crosses the line into a malicious attack it can be reported and will be removed. In other cases, users may be mildly annoying or petty and should simply be ignored.
Harassment may include :
Abusive videos, comments, messages Revealing someone’s personal information
Maliciously recording someone without their consent
Deliberately posting content in order to humiliate someone
Making hurtful and negative comments/videos about another person
Unwanted sexualization, which encompasses sexual harassment or sexual bullying in any form
Incitement to harass other users or creators
DeFranco says that the policies are very vague and that a lot of channels could be affected by these changes. He names some of the channels that have made negative comments about other users. He says that some people feel that free speech* would be affected. Others are welcoming the change.
Will this change youtube? For the better or worse?
* in a colloquial sense. youtube is not a government entity.
The only new addition is the last one: "Incitement to harass other users or creators" The rest has been the same for about a year. Not sure why this is blowing up all of a sudden.
Thank for that info. I'm pretty new to youtube, so I wasn't aware of their old policies. From what I've seen from this video and others like it recently, there have been a couple big youtubers who have complained about drama. 2 months ago, Pewdiepie video, the biggest youtuber and Markiplier video, a big gamer channel, have both made videos specifically about the changes in youtube due to drama. They both don't name any channels, so it leaves people to wonder and speculate. This next part is just my speculation and me trying to read between the lines, keeping in mind that I'm new to watching youtube. There's a channel called DramaAlert that had become very popular at that time. The owner, Keemster was calling out people and digging up dirt about people, whether real or manufactured. Pewdiepie was in a lot of the titles on that channel, even if there wasn't dirt on him or sometimes even any mention of him. It was just clickbait. DramaAlert's content was causing a lot of people to either fight with each other or to create videos defending against the allegations. Within the last few weeks, GradeAUnderA made a video calling out Keemstar with some dirt on him, leading to a large drop in DramaAlert's subscriber base. There's a livestream of his subscriber base dropping. (I know way more about this than I want to know. I watch some of the bigger youtubers so it's hard to miss.) Philip DeFranco was speculating on whether any of these channels (and a few others) will be affected, considering the timing of the new changes.
So, the issue here is this. You, a small time youtube person, post a stupid video that goes sort of viral for the reasons those things happen. Then, some monster massive channel gets on it, makes fun of you and their 4-6 million followers start to dogpile you. Say the Fine Brothers get their army of tards into the game. Who do you ban? A channel with a million subs that generates ad revenue? The idiots who say "lol you suck" in your video comments? Is this going to put a cap on response videos and reply videos? Are conservatives who do nothing but take pot shots at liberals going to be banned? What about the other way? What about people who debunk shitty KIckstarter Projects? What about people who criticize religions like Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, sacred beliefs that governments are willing to aggressively fight to protect? Say some protest vid goes viral because a protestor picks a fight and makes an ass out of themselves. Then 4chan's people figure out who the people in the video are and now start posting the other vids on those channels in order to mock and laugh at people 'for teh lulz.' All of these events happened over the last year. And they still cannot fix fair use DMCA and Copyright abuses (honestly I don't think they care to). Youtube comments are already cancer, how can you fix that steaming pile of gibberish? People are already using DMCA claims to dox people on Youtube. Is Youtube going to help fight the malevolent people who are trying to out critics for real life harassment? Worse. Trolls will now start bragging about how many bans they get, develop lists of soft targets to annoy and harass and in general make the whole video environment worse. More blocked comments, more disabled ratings and more screaming into the void instead of talking with other people. To be very brutal here, if you go onto the internet you are going to cross someone who is going to shit on you, your beliefs, they way you look, they way you present yourself. The only way I was able to deal with bullies is to fight back and not be a doormat. This is not something that I think can be fixed with technology or law. It gets fixed by teaching kids to stand up for themselves and to be able to fight back, with wit, sarcasm, mockery and biting jabs. Bullies pick soft targets... funny how nobody bullies the weightlifting and MMA channels, right? And if I could fix this with the snap of my fingers or the passage of law or policy, I'd run for god.Revealing someone’s personal information
Will this change youtube? For the better or worse?
The Fine Bros? After the PR disaster that lost them 2 million subs and had pretty much all of youtube unified in hating on them and had them backpedaling on trying to trademark the word REACT? I'm surprised they still have an army. That's a huge ball of wax with a lot of complex issues. But from the videos I've seen, they're at least making an attempt to make the monetization more fair. I saw a video saying that the money in dispute is put into escrow until the claim is settled. In the past, the money would go to the person making the claim. I don't know much about youtube, but that sounds more fair to me. I disagree with much of this. Wit and sarcasm can only get you so far on a platform where the deck is stacked against you. For instance, announcing that you're an atheist on a Christian forum will get people picking you as the target. And vice versa. The policies and rules will determine whether it's possible to post there at all, but there's no question that you will get picked on. If the owners decide to mock you when you're in the minority, wit and sarcasm might get you a pass for a while, but it's always at their pleasure. I knew an atheist who was successful at a Christian forum and vice versa, but they also had good relationships with the owners. If that changed at any moment, the tables would turn. In lesser degrees, every platform is like that. There are dominant views and minority views. People holding minority views will always get picked on. The people with the dominant views are the ones doing the mocking. You can't really mock from the minority because no one is laughing with you. Every group requires some sense of allegiance around the core group values or shared interests. If you're on the other side of that, you'll be mocked. Platform owners create the environment and culture that includes or excludes the type of people they want to see there. It can be in the form of rules but more often it's in the form of who they choose to mock and exclude. Policies shape the culture, which in turn shapes the behavior of the participants.Say the Fine Brothers get their army of tards into the game.
And they still cannot fix fair use DMCA and Copyright abuses
This is not something that I think can be fixed with technology or law. It gets fixed by teaching kids to stand up for themselves and to be able to fight back, with wit, sarcasm, mockery and biting jabs. Bullies pick soft targets... funny how nobody bullies the weightlifting and MMA channels, right? And if I could fix this with the snap of my fingers or the passage of law or policy, I'd run for god.
Life is like that. The reason things like the First Amendment exist is to protect the minority and the offensive from the majority. Youtube has more income than Hollywood, and could, if it wanted to, work to fix the DMCA. Instead, a ton of RIAA people are now trying to make a bad system worse. It makes me sad that Trent Reznor is on that list, but it is what it is. Have you seen this, btw? In lesser degrees, every platform is like that. There are dominant views and minority views. People holding minority views will always get picked on. The people with the dominant views are the ones doing the mocking. You can't really mock from the minority because no one is laughing with you. Every group requires some sense of allegiance around the core group values or shared interests. If you're on the other side of that, you'll be mocked.
The channels on YouTube that I watch, Motortrend, Mr. Regular, etc. don't really seem to have these problems. That said, I hear YouTube as a whole can be a pretty unfriendly place and often full of drama. It's no doubt a black eye for Google's otherwise decent reputation. I'm not surprised this is happening, but I am a bit surprised it took so long.