WEBVTT - The YouTube Adpocalypse 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios, 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:14.120 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.560 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:19.480 How Stuff Works and I heart Radio and I love 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:24.000 all things tech. And one thing I do a lot 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:27.760 of these days but actually planned to reduce in the 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.479 future is that I watch a lot of online web series, 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:37.000 particularly on YouTube. I watched series about video games, pop culture, 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:41.600 film criticism, and vlogs a s MR Videos. I watch 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.080 a lot of stuff on YouTube, and one thing I've 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:48.400 seen a few times is how YouTube's monetization policies can 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:51.400 have a really big impact on the channels that I watch. 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.440 So today I want to talk a bit about the 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:59.040 business side of YouTube and how things have changed for creators, 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:03.240 particularly fairly recently. Now to understand what's been going on, 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.240 it's good to think of the story involving three major 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:12.440 groups or factions. First, you've got YouTube itself. This is 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:16.160 the publishing platform that enables users to share their videos 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.760 and have those videos paired with advertisers. YouTube takes a 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:24.400 percentage of the ad fees generated by videos, and generally speaking, 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:27.440 at percentage is pretty high. You know. You might have 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:31.160 heard that Apple in the iTunes store takes something like 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:36.280 thirty of all apps sales that goes to Apple itself. 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:40.559 YouTube does better than that for them, they do forty, 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.560 so nearly half of all the money generated by a 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:49.360 video goes to YouTube. More in that later. Then you've 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:53.440 got the creators. These are the people actually making the videos. 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:56.440 They run the range of no budget creators who rely 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.680 heavily on their own appeal to attract viewers, or upon 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.800 acular strategy for the type of content that they provide, 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:05.440 and it goes all the way up to highly produced 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:10.080 videos from established studios. If the creator meets a certain threshold, 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.359 they can choose an option to monetize their videos, which 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.600 allows YouTube to pair those videos with ads. A change 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:21.440 in monetization policy can have a dramatic impact on a creator. 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:26.119 And the third group or faction would be the advertisers themselves. Typically, 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:29.560 these are ad companies with many clients that offer up 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.760 different goods and services, so you'll have a dozen or 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:39.240 so ad companies that represent hundreds of different brands. Rarely 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:43.000 will such a company like McDonald's or Levi's interact directly 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:46.320 with a platform like YouTube, but it can happen more frequently, 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.400 they will rely upon a third party advertising firm to 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:52.800 hash all this out, And so the business of YouTube 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:57.000 depends upon these three prongs working together. The more views 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:01.040 a monetized video gets, the more it earns. Longer videos 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:04.000 can also have mid role ads, which creates a revenue 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:07.920 generating stream for creators and for YouTube itself. For that reason, 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:11.480 the platform began to encourage YouTube creators to make longer 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:14.519 videos a few years back. This was in stark contrast 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:16.840 with the early days of YouTube and which most videos 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:20.280 had a hard ten minute limit for running time. You 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.920 couldn't go beyond that. These days, YouTube would rather have 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:27.600 longer videos that encourage more activity on the platform, meaning 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:32.400 that after someone watches one video, they're likely to watch another. Now, 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.440 I didn't include viewers in those three prongs because we 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:39.720 don't have quite as much to do with the business 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.200 side of it. We generate the views that pull the 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.680 levers on those advertising dollars, but other than that, we 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.960 don't really have much involvement in the business. That stuff 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.440 lies more with the platform and the creators. Now, let 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.360 me give you a quick rundown on the history of 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.840 monetization on YouTube. So we can kind of understand where 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:01.160 we came from and where we are now. When YouTube 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:04.680 launched in two thousand five as an independent service before 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:07.280 it was part of Google, there was no monetization on 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.920 the platform. Now that changed in August two thousand six, 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:15.960 when YouTube launched its first ad concept, called participatory video ads, 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:20.440 along with brand channels. Brand channels are exactly what they 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.440 sound like, channels that are owned by specific companies and 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.400 meant to act as a type of marketing towards customers. 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:30.880 So you could have Nike having a Nike channel, for example. 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.680 The participatory video ads would appear in the upper right 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:39.400 corner of the screen among video choices, so you could 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.520 think of the right rail having a list of videos, 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:46.520 and the top one would be an AD, but there 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.760 are others would just be other YouTube videos. So YouTube 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.200 had yet to introduce a method for content creators who 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:57.279 weren't representing brands to monetize content. The only money that 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.240 was really going anywhere was going to YouTube. Google Goal 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:04.080 purchased YouTube for more than one point five billion dollars 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.919 in October two thou six, just a couple of months 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:11.280 after the rollout of this initial ad strategy. A year later, 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.440 YouTube launched in video ads. This would be August two 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:19.400 thousand seven. Instead of a commercial running before or during 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:23.800 a show, these were overlay ads that were flash based 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:26.880 and appeared on top of the video, so the lower 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.320 twenty percent part of a video could have an ad 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:33.080 appear after fifteen seconds of the video had already played. 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.919 The goal was to make the overlay transparent and to 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:39.680 have them run for only around ten seconds, so you'd 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:43.440 have a little message upp here on that bottom that 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:47.600 would somewhat obscure that portion of the video and would 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:51.120 be an ad for something. Again, YouTube restricted these ads 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.800 to run on content from a select group of partners, 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:59.000 and individual content creators were generally not eligible for this. So, 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:02.560 in other words, if you were Joe Schmo and you 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.839 were creating your own vlog and it was getting a 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:10.200 good following, you still weren't eligible to uh to have 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.360 ads run on your your videos. In December of two 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:17.000 thousand seven, YouTube launched the Partner program, in which individual 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.720 creators could apply to become partners, which would enable advertising 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.680 on their videos. It did require that they meet certain criteria. 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.040 We'll talk more about that a little bit later. By 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.359 November two thousand eight, YouTube would launch pre roll ads, 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.680 making videos more like television programs. Pre roll ad is 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.080 just what it sounds like, you have an ad that 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:40.000 runs before the video that you've selected to watch. But 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.600 YouTube ads work a little differently from television ads. See 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:47.280 on TV, and advertiser pays for a specific time slot. 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.360 Advertisers might say I want to run an ad during 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:55.320 this sporting event or during this show. On YouTube, Google 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.279 can target ads to people who appear to have interests 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:02.680 that align with particular brand. By analyzing user behavior, Google 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.880 can predict which brands will resonate the most and match 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.080 those up to a viewers experience. So, rather than Coca 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.040 Cola saying I really like those let's play videos, put 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:16.040 us on those, it's Coca Cola saying, show us to 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.320 people who really like soft drinks. And this would end 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.160 up being part of the problem because there's a whole 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:24.840 lot of folks out there who likes stuff like soft 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.920 drinks who also like to watch some pretty questionable content, 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.120 and thus Coca Cola's ads would show up against stuff 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.760 that maybe Coca Cola wasn't so crazy about. Now, at 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:38.160 this point, it became possible to actually make a living 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.240 off of YouTube if you were just a regular person, 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.880 if you were a creator with an engaged, large following, 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:48.119 you could conceivably have enough views to earn decent money, 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:51.240 and eventually this would grow beyond decent money to a 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.080 metric crap ton of money if you were one of 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.760 a few mega popular creators. As still sort of the 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:01.280 wild West at this point. You two grew largely as 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:05.679 an alternative to classic television services, and in the earliest days, 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.240 people were uploading a lot of copyrighted work that would 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.640 land YouTube in hot water with various publishing companies, particularly 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.600 music labels and movie and television studios, But that gradually 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.280 gave way to more user generated stuff, which is what 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:23.160 the platform was envisioned as. Now. It's interesting to point 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.320 out that in the early days of YouTube, a lot 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:31.000 of the popular videos were unauthorized uploads of more traditional media, 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.079 because if you go to YouTube today, you're going to 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:38.079 see a lot of authorized uploads of that same sort 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:42.280 of traditional media up on YouTube. So everything comes full 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.320 circle eventually, and here's where we run into the first 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:50.040 points of friction. YouTube is primarily a publishing platform. The 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.840 company does produce some of its own content, but it's 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.760 mostly known as being the place where creators can publish 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.880 their works, so YouTube is the video store, not the 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:06.600 studio producing the videos. Generally speaking, the video producers developed 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:09.600 their own voice, their own style, their type of content. 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.800 They find what works and they build an audience on that. 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:17.520 Some content creators do music, some tutorials, some do let's 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.839 play videos, some do scripted works like sketches, and some 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:26.680 incorporate pretty edgy material in their videos. Or sometimes they 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:31.360 might include intentionally offensive material knowing that controversy will result 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.000 in more views and that results in more money. Now, 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:39.839 initially that benefits YouTube because YouTube only makes money as 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.440 videos earned views, So as those videos rack up the views, 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.959 advertisers fork over more cash and YouTube takes that healthy 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:53.280 slice of all those revenues. Now. One example YouTubers pointed 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:58.360 to as a problem of this kind of philosophy, this 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:02.920 idea of YouTube being totally cool with controversial material as 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.120 long as it was bringing money in was a channel 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:08.160 that was run by Mike and Heather Martin. The couple 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:10.560 created a series of videos in which they would pull 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:14.720 what they called pranks on their young kids, but others 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:19.360 saw these pranks as borderline or sometimes beyond borderline abuse. 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:23.440 And it was this that the parents were profiting from. 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.200 In other words, they were mistreating their children, at least 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.440 in the eyes of these critics, and they were using 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:32.320 that as a form of entertainment through which they were 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:36.600 making money. Um Rose Hill, who was the biological mother 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.679 of two of the children in the Martin household says 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.440 that she had been flagging videos as being in violation 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.720 of YouTube's standards as early as October two thousand sixteen, 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:49.559 and yet little appeared to be done about it. YouTube 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:51.640 did not seem to take any of the videos down 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.440 or demonetize them or anything. It was only after the 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.840 channel made the news and a massive negative backlash mounted 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:00.360 against the Martins that things seemed to be set in motion. 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:04.240 It reinforced the perception that YouTube was loath to move 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.320 against a creator that's getting a lot of views because 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.959 those creators are a healthy source of revenue for the company. So, 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:15.360 at least initially, there's very little incentive for YouTube to 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:20.120 do anything about offensive or questionable content if it's driving views, 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:23.560 because that would hurt its revenue. But then we have 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.319 the third point of that triangle, and I'm going to 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:28.719 use a lot of different metaphors for things with three components. 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.720 Maybe at some point I'll use tricycle. The third part 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:37.600 is the advertisers. Now, advertisers are understandably sensitive about the 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:41.400 types of content they run ads against, the association of 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.680 the advertiser with questionable content could be harmful for the brand. 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.160 Protecting a brand is an important part of advertising. So 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:52.360 if a soft drink company executive suddenly finds out then 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.400 add for their company's flagship product is running against a 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:59.560 video that contains racial slurs or hate speech, calls for 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.320 violent or other objectionable material, there's a good chance someone's 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.280 about to get fired. So we've got YouTube and creators 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:09.400 pushing the envelope and driving lots of views to videos 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.680 of questionable content. This powder keg just needed a spark 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.320 to set it off. The spark first arrived in late 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.679 two thousand sixteen, and the powder keg blew in February 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:22.320 two thousand seventeen. That's when advertisers began to take note 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:24.920 that their ads were running against videos that had hate 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.800 speech and extremist content in them, particularly in the UK. 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:32.560 The advertisers, in an effort to protect their clients and 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:36.360 mitigate the fallout of such associations, began to pull ads 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.679 from YouTube. Their main objection was that they had no 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:43.000 control over what types of videos could run their ads, 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:46.079 and so they could end up being associated with ideologies 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:48.960 and messaging that was in conflict with their public image. 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.599 And that was just the beginning. I'll explain more in 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:53.840 just a second, but first let's take a quick break. 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.360 I mentioned before the break that advertisers were pulling their 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:08.080 spots from YouTube. They represented some really big clients, including 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:12.920 Coca Cola, The Guardian, Johnson and Johnson, and the Government 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.320 of the United Kingdom. Their move began to create sort 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:20.319 of a domino effect, and one domino to fall was 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:26.080 a reassessment of Google itself. Analyst Brian Weezer moved Google 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:31.160 stock from a buy recommendation to a hold recommendation based 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.440 off the February two, seventeen scandal. He pointed out that 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:38.440 Google had quote a serious issue in the UK with 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.280 brand safety issues end quote, and that they could end 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:46.200 up devaluing the company. Now. Suffice to say, this was 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:49.920 a lot of incentive for YouTube to do something about 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:54.360 all this. One high profile case where YouTube did act 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:59.360 involved Felix Kilberg, better known by his screen name as 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:03.000 Beauty Pie, Kilberg published a video that showed two men 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:06.840 holding up a reprehensible message written on a sign and 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.160 I'm not going to repeat it here. This prompted Disney 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:13.520 Maker Studios, which had been producing Pautie Pie shows, to 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:17.360 cut all ties with the creator. YouTube canceled a YouTube 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:21.520 red series called Scared Pauti Pie. YouTube Read is a 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.120 subscription service that, in return for a monthly fee unless 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.240 you watch videos without ads and view special content. Just 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.840 for those subscribers, Google removed kale Berg from the preferred 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.960 premium ad tier as well, which cut back how much 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:38.000 he could make on his videos. It was a pretty 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:42.360 pretty extreme punishment. UM, I don't know if it was 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:46.440 completely unwarranted. I have some pretty strong feelings about it 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.480 in general, but there were other YouTubers who felt like 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:56.560 that was a particularly harsh judgment against another creator, and 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:58.760 other people said no, he got exactly what he deserves. 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:02.240 So it kind of runs the gamut. Now. I've placed 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:04.600 a lot of the responsibility for how things have shaken 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:07.480 out at YouTube on the platform and the creators, but 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:09.920 I want to make it clear that advertisers were also 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.640 somewhat responsible, with some pretty bad choices of their own. 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:18.360 In April two thousand seventeen, PepsiCo had an ad featuring 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.000 Kindall Jenner handing over a can of Pepsi to a 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:24.200 police officer during a protest. This was at the height 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:27.200 of the initial protests in the Black Lives Matter movement, 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:31.520 and so PepsiCo was widely criticized for trying to exploit 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.480 a social movement for the purposes of advertising a soft drink. 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.200 Pepsi would pull the ad after just a few days, 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:41.800 including pulling it from YouTube. The move of a major 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.760 company pulling more advertising from YouTube fueled even more companies 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:48.520 to follow suit. Even without the public image issues that 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:53.200 Pepsi faced. The sudden departure of numerous big money advertisers 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:57.360 prompted YouTube executives to make some pretty hasty and broad decisions, 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.520 leading to what was called the ad PoCA lips. Now essentially, 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:06.840 YouTube effectively demonetized any channels that were not considered to 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:11.160 be family friendly, but the definition of family friendly was 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.640 left rather vague, and YouTube began to rely heavily on 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:19.200 algorithms to determine whether or not a channel's content qualified 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.760 for the tag family friendly or not. Now, to be 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.880 fair to YouTube, the company had little other choice than 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:29.440 the hand things over to an automated protocol. Today, around 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:33.040 four hundred fifty hours of video are uploaded to the 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:37.480 platform every single minute. The site racks up a billion 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:41.200 hours of you time every day. With that much content 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:45.120 being added every minute, it's impossible to put human beings 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:47.160 in charge of vetting all of it and making sure 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.600 none of it contains material that violates YouTube's policies or 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:54.720 will upset advertisers. For that reason, the company has developed 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:59.320 programs that try to do that automatically. Part of this 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.480 depends upon the metadata that's connected to the videos in question. 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:07.920 A metadata is data about data, so YouTubers build out 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:12.439 metadata like tags and descriptions so that their videos will 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:14.760 show up in search results. That way, when you pop 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.960 into YouTube search and you're searching for a specific thing, 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:21.520 like the other day, I search for Gauntlet to play 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:25.359 through because I was feeling nostalgic, then it gives you 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:29.080 the results that are relevant. It helps boost the video's 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.359 visibility and makes it more likely that people will find 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.119 the video. And since you only make money if a 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.199 lot of people are viewing your stuff, it's important to 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.920 include the information and your metadata. If you don't your 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:44.920 video is not likely to be seen by very many 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:48.119 people at all, so the algorithms look for the tags 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.960 that could indicate whether or not a video contains objectionable material, 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:56.640 and again, the term objectionable isn't terribly well defined here. 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:01.399 YouTube did create a checklist for advertisers in an effort 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:05.359 to win them back, and the checklist would allow companies 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.359 to select the types of material they did not want 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:12.480 their ads to support. Categories include stuff like profanity and 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:17.040 rough language or sexually suggestive content, which is stuff similar 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:18.760 to what you would see in a film's m p 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:22.639 A A rating description. But there were other categories as well, 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:27.520 such as tragedy and conflict or sensational and shocking that 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:31.440 raised questions and it could mean that people doing valuable 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:35.280 work in fields that need coverage would find themselves without 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.280 a means of earning enough money to pay for production costs. 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:42.200 And you do painted with a pretty broad brush. People 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:46.320 who had never had an issue with demonetization found themselves 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:49.960 hit hard by it. YouTube pointed out that the company 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.720 had an appeals process that creators could follow if they 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:57.040 felt that their work had been unfairly targeted, and there 0:18:57.040 --> 0:18:59.760 were a lot of people who definitely felt that way. 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.720 For example, people advocating for human rights for people in 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:09.080 the LGBTQ community saw some of their videos demonetized, and 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:11.639 the message seemed to be that their goal, that of 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:15.600 extending human rights to a vulnerable population of people, was 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:19.560 somehow not add friendly or it was taboo, which is 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:23.040 a pretty crappy message to get. It reinforces the idea 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:26.480 that the world is against you when your video series 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:30.520 that's all about trying to extend human rights to people 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:36.280 is demonetized because the people in question somehow fall into 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:42.920 a category that isn't advertiser friendly. Uh. It's dehumanizing, really, 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:46.680 And that's just one example of the types of videos 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:50.320 that were targeted. YouTube was seen as being overly cautious 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.000 in order to appease the advertisers that were pulling out 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.760 of the platform, and the appeals process wasn't exactly a 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:00.320 smooth one. Creators who had a flagged video would get 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:02.560 a notification that their video was in a sort of 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:06.040 limbo in which it was not currently counting towards monetization, 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:11.320 but an appeal could, in theory, overturn that, and the 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.920 flagging process was based on machine learning, which also meant 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:17.960 that the appeals process was effectively part of the training 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:21.760 model for the system. You have a computer system that 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.479 identifies what it believes to be a video that has 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:29.960 objectionable material, It flags the video. The videos immediately demonetized, 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:33.639 and then by appealing the decision and having a human 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:38.399 go over the result and either uphold it or overturn it, 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:43.560 you train the machine learning model. That's great if you're 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:45.760 doing it in a lab, but when you're doing it 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:49.000 out in the real world, where it's actually affecting people's 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:52.719 ability to earn money, it's less great. So the content 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:56.840 creator was meant to send an appeal request, and in theory, 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.280 that would push the video to a human staffer at 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:01.920 YouTube whose of it was to manually review the video 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:06.320 to see if in fact the demonetization was justified. That 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:10.040 was the theory. However, that could not really work in 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:14.960 practice because the number of videos being uploaded each day 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:17.879 and the number getting flagged would have made that almost 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:20.399 as impossible as having humans view all the videos in 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:24.040 the first place, and so YouTube put in some additional rules. 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:28.520 Appealed videos would only go to human reviewers if those 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:31.080 videos had more than one thousand views in the most 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.840 recent seven days, or if you had a subscriber base 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:37.920 of at least ten thousand people, then a human would 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:40.800 review a flag video even if it hadn't yet met 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:44.400 the metric of one thousand views in seven days. Besides 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:46.359 the fact that YouTube was having to deal with an 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:49.959 enormous number of appeals, the company also wanted to make 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:53.639 sure it was addressing the concerns of the big earners first, 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:58.080 the most popular channels on YouTube. Many videos performed best 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:01.240 in the short term after uploading to the site, no 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:04.280 big surprise there. Right a new video goes up, people 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:08.159 flocked to it. There are fan bases who eagerly anticipate 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:10.840 the next video or episode, and so you see the 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:15.360 vast majority of activity hit those videos right away. YouTube 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:18.320 wanted to prioritize those videos over ones that might get 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:21.480 a lot of views over a very long span of time, 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:23.600 you know, the sort of stuff that tends to do 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:26.720 well on search. It might be more evergreen, so the 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:29.879 earnings month to month may be low but consistent. So 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:32.080 if I did a video that was sort of a 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:35.840 how to guide on something that would remain relevant for years, 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:39.159 I might not have a ton of traffic to that 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.320 video on any given month, but I would have consistent 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:47.480 traffic throughout the whole run of the lifetime of the video. Meanwhile, 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:50.719 someone else who's posting a new episode of a web series, 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:53.960 they're going to see the vast majority of activity on 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:58.240 their video in the in the near immediate fall health 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:02.760 of uploading it. So those first few days are critical 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:06.000 for those kind of series. And worse, there was a 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:09.520 growing concern among creators that this would mean a really 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:12.920 big drop in revenue, since the time they need monetization 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:16.640 would be shortly after the video goes live. So if 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:21.239 you upload a video, algorithm decides its objection it's got 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:24.600 objectionable material in it, flags it, and then you're not 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:28.800 You're demonetized and your video is just now live. It 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:32.520 could be the sweetest spot to earn money, and you 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:36.040 can't earn anything because you've been demonetized. The longer you 0:23:36.280 --> 0:23:39.120 your video spins in limbo, the more money the creators 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:42.760 would lose. And as for older videos, there was a 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:45.560 concern that creators wouldn't even see that those had been 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:48.480 demonetized because all the focus would be directed towards the 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:53.000 latest videos that they're posting, So older videos typically don't 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:56.920 earn a ton individually, but collectively they can still act 0:23:56.960 --> 0:23:59.280 as a pretty healthy source of revenue. So if you're 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:01.840 a creator who has been active for several years and 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:04.919 you have a big back catalog of videos, you might 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:07.600 have a decent amount of money coming in from views 0:24:07.800 --> 0:24:11.240 on those videos, And if an older video suddenly becomes 0:24:11.320 --> 0:24:14.520 relevant again for some reason, you could stand to benefit 0:24:14.600 --> 0:24:17.760 from that. But if it's been demonetized, you never see 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:19.800 that money, and there's a good chance you wouldn't even 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:22.760 know about the demonetization because your focus is on what's 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:25.920 going up next instead of what you uploaded years ago. 0:24:26.640 --> 0:24:30.240