WEBVTT - Stuff They Don’t Want YouTube Know, Chapter Two: A Narrative War 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:04.680 From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:09.080 riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:11.159 learn the stuff they don't want you to know. 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:13.880 A production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:30.160 Hello, and welcome back to Netflix. My name is Matt, 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:31.080 my name is Nol. 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.480 They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:38.760 super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:43.160 are you You specifically you are you. You are also 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:46.920 here right now, and that makes this the stuff they 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:50.920 don't want you to know. Previously on Stuff they don't 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:54.480 want you to know, we explored the origin and the 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:59.600 controversy surrounding the stuff they don't want you to know. 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.680 It's a pun that we're not giving up on. Please 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.240 check out chapter one before you continue to chapter two. 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:08.600 What do you say? Guys? Should we just drop in 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:09.920 and media arrests? 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:13.520 And before we do, reminder you have to watch on 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:15.880 YouTube reactions to Pete and Boss for the first time. 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:17.960 It's one of the best things you can do on YouTube. 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:25.120 So here we go, joining us already in progress. The 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:30.720 absolute volume of content on YouTube is a feature, not 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.600 a bug, and there is no possible way that that 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:37.960 could be policed, so to speak, by YouTube themselves, except 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.240 when it kind of benefits them, right. 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:42.920 Well, that was one of the main things YouTube was 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.000 concerned with in the beginning, right, just like Facebook, just 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:49.800 like all these other social media platforms, about the terrible 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.639 things that could be uploaded. If you give that tool 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:55.760 to everybody who can possibly make a video or put 0:01:55.840 --> 0:02:00.600 video up, there's danger there, right, And is it their fault? 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:03.040 It might be their fault if it goes up and 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:05.760 everybody sees it. So we as a company have to 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:10.560 protect ourselves more than anyone for sure, that kind of stuff, right. 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:12.760 And I mean, obviously there are safeguards in place that 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.240 would prevent someone from, say uploading a video of like 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:19.760 murder or violent sticking place or something really horrific like that. 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:22.680 But then it gets a little more nuanced when it 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.680 comes to like ideological content and like what is and 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:29.959 is not okay and what is incentivized and de incentivized. 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:31.680 And I love then that you point on on the 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:35.200 outline here. That's when we start getting into Acts of 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.720 Congress and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as well as 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.680 Communications Decency Act, and how those things kind of play 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.799 into the way YouTube needs to approach this. 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.320 Yeah, and thank you for shouting those out, because the 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:55.520 YouTube initiative runs into specific acts of Congress. You mentioned DMCA, 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.919 which we are unfortunately quite well aware of, as well 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:05.760 as the CDA Communications Decency Act, specifically section two three 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:09.239 zero for anybody who wants to play along at home. 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:14.080 Pretty much like the YouTube okay created in two thousand 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.799 and five, they get into legal trouble as early as 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.120 the next year. In two thousand and six, there is 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:25.200 something called the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:31.120 and Publishers sent them a takedown request and they said, hey, YouTube, 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:36.080 you got more than thirty thousand things that you got 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:40.000 to take down. And Comedy Central, which is actually known 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:44.560 for being cool and comedic, also sued for copyright infringement. 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:48.960 But yeah, those companies, those producers of content, right, the 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.200 traditional ones, TV, radio, movies, all that kind of. 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:53.720 Stuff, we call the legacy ones. 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:57.280 Yeah, the only way they make money is if you're 0:03:57.440 --> 0:03:59.960 watching it through one of the channels that's been curated 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.760 for you to watch stuff on, right, where there's huge 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:03.480 ad dollars. 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:05.280 Well, of course, know, then they take on that. If 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.400 you can't beat them, join them. Mentality where then, you know. 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.120 Are vigorous, massively presence on YouTube. 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.120 In fact, I think we could argue that they probably 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:19.480 make just as much money off of viral YouTube clips 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:22.120 of like The Daily Show and stuff than they do 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:25.200 from people actually watching it on TV. 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:30.160 Yeah, it's the old joke. It's the old joke. Good 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.080 friend of the show. John Stewart also pointed as how 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:39.320 years ago, it's weird that The Daily Show published DVD 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.800 collections and later Blu ray collections because it was such 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.960 a topical show. And what we're seeing here is a 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:50.680 paradigm shift, right, a deep sea change wherein people are 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:55.800 thinking less deeply about things. Right, I explain it to 0:04:55.839 --> 0:05:00.320 me in three minutes, Right, I just learned. I just 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:05.640 learned that maybe Syria and Jordan don't always get along. 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:09.279 But I've only got so long on my smoke breaks. 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:12.320 So just explained it to me. Don't make me quote stuff, 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.040 give me some stats that make me sound smart. That 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:16.120 is what is happening. 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.480 Let's think about the residual checks that got destroyed through 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:24.240 all of this. That was the way artists made money, right, 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:27.240 Bright Bright in two thousand and six, that's not that 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:30.880 long ago. Twenty years ago. But it this advent of 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:35.279 YouTube destroyed that entire way of making money, like just 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:35.800 killed it. 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:40.960 Yeah, that's a great point, Matt. And further, Okay, it 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:45.119 gets stranger, folks, it gets more dangerous, the water gets 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:50.040 ever deeper because we have been talking about corporations primarily. 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.719 But around the same time, just within a year of 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:59.839 YouTube going public for the people, various state powers also 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.960 found YouTube problematic. This is when we see, you know, 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:08.279 user generated content. I'm an activist, I'm a protester. I 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:12.360 want people to know that this school is getting bombed 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:18.080 by some world's military. I'm sharing news that my government 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:23.000 doesn't want out there. Right, I'm becoming part of things 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:27.359 like on the ground reporting of the Arab Spring for 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.960 a few years back. Right. This is a This is 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:37.440 a shift that is similar to American civilians seeing real 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:42.640 world footage from the Vietnam War, testimonies of political prisoners, 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:48.320 arguments against state suppression and their policies. By two thousand 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.719 and eight, again just three years or three if you 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:55.800 want it, in glorious bastard style, just three years after 0:06:55.960 --> 0:07:01.799 YouTube debuted, multiple countries have blocked part of YouTube content 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:06.200 or block the platform entirely. And yes, of course this 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:11.400 includes problematic, you know, authoritarian countries like Syria and China 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.920 or Pakistan, but it also includes things like Brazil or 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:19.840 Thailand or Turkey. YouTube was getting jammed up and their 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:23.480 boardroom decided to make some changes. They said, hey, what's 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:27.080 the point of making this if fewer and fewer people 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:28.240 can actually use it? 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:28.600 Right? 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:32.360 If we were global and people across the globe can't 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.480 use it, then what kind of weird don quixote stuff 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:41.760 are we doing? So YouTube started suspending user accounts. One 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.480 I think we all remember back in O seven, the 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:50.080 platform suspended the account of an Egyptian activist named Wail 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.400 Abbas and part of my pronunciation there he was a 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.440 blogger or a vlogger with a V as we would 0:07:56.440 --> 0:08:00.800 call them. He was an anti torture activist. And his 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:03.960 whole thing was like he wasn't trying to sell bone, 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:08.480 broth or gold. He said, hey, police in Egypt are 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:13.360 torturing people, including women and children. I've got clips of 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:18.200 this I could show you, and YouTube shut the guy down. 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:25.400 And still they're rumors. We're being very diplomatic calling them rumors. 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:31.360 There are sh as no ones say rumors that YouTube 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:35.760 bent the knee to the Egyptian government, but they said 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:40.680 their official stance has always been that no other users, 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.680 just like you, they're the ones who complained. That's why 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:47.160 we covered up these Egyptian war crimes. 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:51.000 Well, and that's sort of the advent of the concept 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.080 of deplatforming. You know, this is really kind of the 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.280 early days of that, because I think that's one of 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:01.360 the first mass you know, reach platforms other than like 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:03.840 Facebook or whatever, which isn't really in the conversation so 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.360 much anymore in that respect. That's why Facebook had to 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:10.960 stay relevant by like buying Instagram. But we start to 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:15.240 see later even like people on the right being deplatformed, 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:19.600 and that kind of leading to radicalization on the on 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.240 the right, further radicalization because they had to start their 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.680 own companies like you know, truth Social and things like that, 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.120 because they were no longer allowed to be on these 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:34.760 more mass platforms like Instagram and YouTube specifically. So it's 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:39.120 a fascinating kind of beginning of this whole culture war stuff, right. 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.080 Yeah, So he did debate about censorship. 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.520 Yeah, and we saw the splintering occur in real time 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:49.240 in two thousand and six, two thousand and seven, when 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:54.640 places like Shock. Websites like Orgish turned or I think 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:57.800 it was Orgish Orgish, I can't remember, but they turned 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:01.040 into livelyek dot com in like two thousand and six, 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:03.840 two thousand and seven, and that's where you could go 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.400 to you go to this new video channel place and 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:10.560 watch Saddam Hussein get executed or if you wanted to 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:16.319 see actual live battle Warm. 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:16.120 World Star hip hop. 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:18.680 Yeah, and and some of it is like like Orgish 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.440 was gross, like Shock, like rotten dot com ference of 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:25.600 type stuff. Yeah, but places like Lively tried to step 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:27.560 up and say, hey, you can actually see what is 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.720 happening in you know, war torn areas. You can see 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:35.320 what's really happening on the ground in places, and you 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.439 can just see that while YouTube is kind of changing 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.760 and going towards the money and the advertiser happiness thing 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:45.120 and trying to get the content the DCMA and the 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:48.079 content stuff right, all these other places are attempting to 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:49.120 fill in those spaces. 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.719 Yeah, that happened with cable TV or you know, okay, no, 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:54.400 let me let me phrase it's the same thing that 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:57.520 happened to network TV when cable TV kind of swooped in. 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:00.200 It's just an extension of that to a degree, right, 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.120 because cable TV had a lot more freedom. Network TV 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:06.400 had to play much nicer with the advertisers than eventually 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:08.400 so did cable TV, and it just kind of like 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:10.200 it just you know, kicks the can down the road. 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:14.079 Right in the in the Abbas case in particular, YouTube 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:17.679 claimed and has always claimed that censorship was not the 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:22.760 end goal. The public, including by the way yours truly 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:27.960 was skeptical. Now there are countless allegations that are only 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:32.800 growing arguing that YouTube bends its own rules and will 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:38.160 act on behalf of powerful companies or powerful countries and 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:43.360 even authoritarian autocratic regimes and dictatorships. A lot of these 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:49.160 haven't been proven. But at the same time we also see. 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.720 We of course they will like it just seems like 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:57.000 it's common sense that the degree to which they've become 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:00.840 the big guy, that it behooves them to do just 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.840 that they're no longer out there to spread quote unquote 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.760 truth and unfettered information. They have a lot more shareholders 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.720 to answer to. That's why you need the live leaks 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:13.600 and the more kind of underground versions of what YouTube 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:14.520 maybe used to be. 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.319 Yeah, it's interesting because at the same time, we see 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:22.720 that there are numerous videos and accounts that are not 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:28.920 publishing copyright infringement stuff, right, They're not publishing something that 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.400 hits the narrative of a bully regime, which is all 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:35.720 the bad guys are. They're just jerks who are bullies. 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:40.280 But they these accounts are putting out heinous things, depictions 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:46.440 of illegal acts, calls to violence, racist material, gross sex stuff, 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:52.000 and so on. So now YouTube hit this Road to 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:59.080 Damascus moment, right, they hit this moment of recognization, realization, 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:02.080 something we call had come to Jesus moment. In the 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:06.040 American South, they say, we're everywhere in the world. All 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:10.679 these countries have different laws. Which laws of a given 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.559 country do we as YouTube follow? And so in two 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:17.880 thousand and eight they put out their rules for what 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:22.760 they call violations of community guidelines, and it's a three 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:26.600 strike thing. You screw up once, in their opinion, you 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.680 get a warning. After six months you're back in the game. 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:32.319 So they give you a yellow card. You know, they 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:35.120 put you in time out. And I think everybody in 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.600 the audience tonight is aware of the concept of time out, 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:42.960 especially if you are a bad kid growing up. It's 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.600 nuts because then They also had again to the point 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:50.679 about power players. These are the real dangers for YouTube. 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:56.080 Folks like Senator Joseph Lieberman called on YouTube to remove 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:01.520 any video that had a logo of Outida Right, a 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:07.439 terrorist group, and they said, also take away any videos 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:12.760 that have any depiction of a logo or a sigil 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:16.960 associated with a known terrorist group. And then YouTube bucked 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:21.320 back and they said, look, these videos don't violate our 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:26.120 policies against violence or hate speech. We have people singing 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:30.480 songs a capella, or we have people who are talking 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:36.200 about Al Qaeda in an analytical way, so you can't 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:42.280 just automate taking that signal out. It's weird because you know, 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:47.200 I mentioned the Arab uprisings for the Arab Spring in particular, 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:52.400 this was another watershed moment. People around the world are 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:59.160 seeing self immolation, They're seeing massive acts of horrendous violence 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:04.000 and inspiring protests, and the company has to change its 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:08.880 approach to moderation. This is where we have pretty nasty 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:09.640 stuff happening. 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:14.440 We're also seeing leaked footage of things that at this 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:19.120 time twenty ten, around those time, things that active military 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:24.400 and like private military US troops are doing in Afghanistan 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:28.480 and Iraq in particular. We're seeing videos like that show 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.440 up on YouTube and get shared from it and then 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:31.080 get taken down. 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:31.800 Right. 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:36.680 That was happening rapidly in that time. Yes, so there's there, 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:38.600 really is. You can see why Lieberman and a bunch 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:40.160 of other appeal I heard that name in a long time, 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:44.880 just Y too, leabermen. But just you can see why 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.280 there was a major push to censor the things that 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:51.720 could get published, right, and you want you want to 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.080 stop them before somebody has to take it. 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:57.480 Down because you're powerful and you want to control the narrative. 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:00.320 For sure, but you also don't want to seem like 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.800 you're doing that, yes, exactly. So then it becomes a 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.040 matter of public relations. And then you found this great 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:11.960 comment from the manager of YouTube News, or YouTube's manager 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:14.880 of News, Olivia Maw who in twenty eleven, referring to 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:17.320 the kinds of content we're talking about, said, normally this 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:20.240 type of violence would violate our community guidelines in terms 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:22.120 of service, and we would remove them. But we have 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:24.680 a clause in our community guidelines that make an exception 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:28.560 for videos that are educational, documentary, or scientific in nature. 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:30.720 In these cases, we actually make an exception and say 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:34.640 we understand that these videos have real news value. That's 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:38.360 a great way of characterizing it. But it would seem 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:40.640 to your point earlier, Ben or I can't remember who 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.280 said this. They also have a way of bending their 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:48.640 own rules depending on what the footage in question is 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:52.440 and maybe what government is yelling at them about it. 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:57.120 Yeah, we all know, folks, how rules are. When you're 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.280 the one who makes the rules. It's a lot less 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:03.880 like saying thou shalt or thou shalt not. It's a 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:07.520 lot more like saying what do I feel like eating tonight? 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:11.440 I know I said I was gonna get something vegan, 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:16.560 but it might be barbecue nite'. That's what often happens 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:23.080 when these these entities don't have an outside authority and 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:27.000 YouTube is doing its best right. YouTube is the Mickey 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:31.159 Mouse sorcerer's apprentice who never knew there would be that 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:35.200 many mops or brooms or a flood. So at this point, 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:39.480 YouTube has around eight hundred million users. At this point 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:43.680 in time, it's the third most visited website on the 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:48.200 planet entire and Google has noted by this time that 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:54.480 a lot of those DCMA takedown requests are coming from 0:17:54.840 --> 0:18:00.359 not private entities. They're coming directly from governments. So what 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:02.640 if we take a pause for a word from our 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:11.920 sponsors and dive even deeper into the water. We're back. 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:16.600 We've got to recommend a phenomenal journalist, Gillian c. York. 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.800 Jillian c. York is writing for Vice back in the 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:26.199 day and says the company's decision making YouTube has become 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:35.040 considerably more questionable. They went up against US intelligence agencies 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:40.920 who were claiming that a short film, though was quite Islamophobic, 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:46.520 called The Innocence of Muslims, was partially responsible for the 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:52.080 attacks in Benghazi. If everybody remembers when US facilities in 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:55.760 Magazi were attacked. YouTube had a call directly with the 0:18:55.800 --> 0:19:00.720 White House. They blocked the video only in Libya and Egypt, 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:05.000 and protests were already beginning to erupt because this film 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:07.760 had already been dead. To your point, Noe, this film 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:14.760 had already been aired on Egyptian broadcast television. The Libyan 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:20.320 government and the Egyptian government civil organizations in either country. 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:23.600 They were never in the conversation. It was from the 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:28.040 United States, half a world away, and YouTube, nobody else 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:34.160 on the ground is included. And other countries started demanding, hey, 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:39.119 remove this video. YouTube played along with some of those countries, 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:44.840 but they they iced out or stonewalled others. And one 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:48.840 country in particular, great example named by Yorke in their 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:53.080 article is Pakistan. Pakistan said, hey, you're not going to 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:58.680 respect us. Nobody gets YouTube, nobody about YouTube for you, 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:02.720 No YouTube for you. Yeah, it's weird because there are 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:09.200 it's always the bag of badgers of censorship. Right are 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.960 we inciting people to violence? Where we allow people to 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.440 speak their minds even if we know they're incorrect or 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:21.960 racist or evil. YouTube is trying at this point in 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:29.400 time to respond to these. Again, not corporations, state level actors, 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:35.520 governments say take down this specific video and anything like it. 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:40.280 That's what YouTube was and is in such a tough spot. 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:48.440 It's an economy of scale that incorporates, incorporates controversy as 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:51.879 well as profit. The company is under so much fire 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:54.879 because there are people who feel it is not doing 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:58.960 enough to curb the spread of hateful content. And there 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.680 are people who are saying, and you are going way 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:06.320 too far. We don't have to get too much into 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:08.760 the weeds of this. It is a bag of badgers, 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:13.200 chock full of controversy in the modern day. The main 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:17.760 thing you have to know is that powerful, very powerful 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:23.040 entities want to be able to control this platform. They 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:30.680 have contradictory demands. They also have they got int a 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:34.200 Kobyashi Maru. For any Star Trek fan, there is a 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:39.000 a no win situation. You cannot please all your customers 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:42.320 and all your masters. And maybe here guys at the end, 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:46.600 because we have so much, because we do have personal experience, 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:51.639 we can talk about demonetization. This is on the ground 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:52.560 threat well for. 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:54.960 Sure, and I think we haven't really mentioned the whole 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:59.080 idea of how you Tube became an economy of scale 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:03.520 for a home new class of creators who would come 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:07.440 to rely on the income that their video is generated. 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:12.720 So when you have this potential for depriving these individuals 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:15.919 of their ability to earn a living based on the 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:18.880 nature of the content that they've been making for however long, 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:22.720 all of a sudden those guidelines change and they're demonetizing, 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:25.400 aka pulling ads from your videos. 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:28.120 You then are being. 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:31.479 Threatened essentially, and it's a form of censorship kind of 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:35.240 like shadow bands on Instagram, where you're not outright told 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:38.359 necessarily that if you say this we won't promote your 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:40.399 stuff as much. Just all of a sudden, you are 0:22:40.480 --> 0:22:43.760 noticing that your reach has been diminished significantly, and you're 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:44.800 not really told why. 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:51.120 Yeah, demonetization is one of those fancy words that sounds 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:55.159 good in a boardroom. It's a corporate term for, like 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:58.760 you said, the removing ad revenue, in this case from 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:03.800 YouTube creators. Host anything you want, but we may bury 0:23:03.840 --> 0:23:07.280 it in the algorithm. We won't allow you to make 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:12.600 money even your little you're laughably small percentage of whatever 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:17.560 an ad is, and a lot of frustrated video creators 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:20.560 to your point, recognize what I would call the near 0:23:20.760 --> 0:23:24.440 hominem here. So a homonym is two different words that 0:23:24.560 --> 0:23:27.199 sound the same but mean different things. They feel like 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:34.560 demonetization is really demonization, right and patently unfair, especially when 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:40.040 regarding sensitive issues. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, folks, 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:44.159 you need to know that we have you know, we 0:23:44.240 --> 0:23:48.080 have a crow in the game here because we have 0:23:48.320 --> 0:23:56.439 personally encountered automated demonetization when we created video essays on 0:23:56.800 --> 0:23:59.960 certain sensitive subjects, and you can appeal that. Guys. 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:01.919 I'd love for you to speak more to that on 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:04.560 the YouTube side of it, maybe even talk about some analytics. 0:24:04.800 --> 0:24:07.360 You can appeal that, but by the time you've appealed that, 0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:10.399 as we know, YouTube videos only really hit in a 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:13.640 certain window of when they're dropped, and then if you've 0:24:13.680 --> 0:24:16.639 lost out on that window to make money off of 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:19.240 those hits, it ain't coming back even if your appeal 0:24:19.359 --> 0:24:20.080 is successful. 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:23.040 Yep, it's all a big algorithm. It's all about the 0:24:23.080 --> 0:24:26.679 first twelve twenty four hours. That's every video that drops 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:27.280 on YouTube. 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:32.320 It started in twenty twelve, the automated demonetization. 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:34.200 Which is exactly well, it's around the same time when 0:24:34.240 --> 0:24:37.399 we started our channel, Conspiracy Stuff. We used to make 0:24:37.440 --> 0:24:40.600 stuff on how stuff works on their main channel, and 0:24:40.600 --> 0:24:43.040 then we started posting on our brand new channel, which 0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:46.399 was YouTube dot com slash Conspiracy Stuff October twenty twelve. 0:24:46.920 --> 0:24:48.840 And just to give you an example of these things, 0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:52.919 because we encountered it almost immediately as we were making shows. 0:24:53.400 --> 0:24:55.879 Here's one of the earliest videos we ever put on 0:24:55.920 --> 0:25:00.840 our channel, Edward Burne's three colon the Legacy November thirtieth, 0:25:00.920 --> 0:25:04.040 twenty twelve, had ninety two thousand views. As of today, 0:25:04.040 --> 0:25:07.119 it has ninety two thousand views. It was almost immediately 0:25:07.119 --> 0:25:12.200 switched to limited ad earnings. Content not suitable for advertisers. 0:25:11.480 --> 0:25:15.200 What about it isn't suitable? That's wild Edward Brenees was 0:25:15.240 --> 0:25:16.119 a marketing dude. 0:25:16.440 --> 0:25:19.200 That's like, yeah, well, you also know that's not many 0:25:19.280 --> 0:25:22.560 views at all. So here's something to also keep in mind. 0:25:22.720 --> 0:25:26.160 The number of views you get on a particular video 0:25:26.200 --> 0:25:27.960 has a lot to do with the number of subscribers 0:25:28.000 --> 0:25:30.679 you have that are active, that have notifications turned on. 0:25:31.080 --> 0:25:34.560 Has to do with discoverability of like a video that's 0:25:34.600 --> 0:25:38.720 chosen for suitability to be discoverable by others. It has 0:25:38.760 --> 0:25:41.000 all it's this huge algorithm that has to do with right. 0:25:41.040 --> 0:25:42.879 And if you do really good and you make the 0:25:42.920 --> 0:25:45.560 type of video with the right words in your description 0:25:45.640 --> 0:25:49.280 and your title, and with your metadata correct, with your image, 0:25:49.440 --> 0:25:52.440 your thumbnail, and it doesn't have any profanity, doesn't have 0:25:52.440 --> 0:25:55.000 any sexual imagery, doesn't have all these other things in 0:25:55.040 --> 0:25:58.160