Youtube to delete content December 10, 2019
 

https://straightlinelogic.com/2019/11/16/youtube-is-planning-to-delete-all-accounts-that-arent-commercially-viable-starting-december-10-by-ethan-huff/

In the “Account Suspension & Termination” section of YouTube’s “Terminations by YouTube for Service Changes,” guidelines, the company explains that, as of December 10, 2019, “YouTube may terminate your access, or your Google account’s access to all or part of the Service, if YouTube believes, in its sole discretion, that provision of the Service to you is no longer commercially viable.”

In other words, if you have a YouTube channel that YouTube employees decide isn’t profitable enough for Google, then the company has now granted itself the option to completely shut down your account without warning or consequence.

Interesting question here: At what point, if ever, does a privately-owned enterprise become deeply enough ingrained in society that it should morph into something publicly controlled? At one end of the spectrum, we'd argue youtube can set whatever terms it wants to its service. At the other, we'd argue that youtube has become so ubiquitous in the business models of so many that they have detrimentally relied on youtube forever showing their content. It has become, in effect, like a utility, subject to regulatory oversight.

Complex question.

Look at how the telephone companies, shipping companies (common carriers), utilities, etc. have been dealt with over time.

Monopolies get broken up. Distribution channels are split from content/goods. Discrimination against content/goods is barred, except when it is physically unsafe.

Like anyone else with a Youtube channel, I was recently required to certify whether or not my content was "child friendly" (or whatever term it was they used). I found that kind of odd, but fine, whatever - it's their service. All I have on there are a bunch of old track videos and backroads driving/riding videos. It would make no difference to me if they were gone tomorrow. I bet they will be, since none are "monetized" in any way. Oh well.

I can't wait to see how politicized this all gets. Youtube has already suffered countless accusations of manipulating content with certain political motivations driving their decisions. My reaction has always been as ambivalent as it would be to seeing them delete my content - so what? It's their service. They should be able to do whatever the hell they want. Let viewers decide if it is worth their time to tune in.

That's my "free market", or "individual responsibility", or "freedom of choice" take on it. Terry, however, with a much more professional, legal viewpoint of such matters, does raise some very interesting points. I'm quite sure the fight will evolve along the lines he suggests. Likely with political underpinnings... should be interesting...

The problem I have with youtube is that they initially let ANY content on their platform without moderation. They worked very hard to attract videos from all over the place. Then the second they were the dominant platform, they started banning, shadow banning, demonetizing, and deleting content they didn't agree with--often content they actively courted a few years earlier.

It seems their master plan was to draw everyone into their platform then, once there were no viable alternatives, destroy any content they did not agree with.

That would be typical Google behavior.

Put yourself in their position for a minute, though. Youtube, worried about negative repercussions of certain content--let's say it's some Charles Manson type figure urging teenagers to commit suicide--pulls it. Just like that, they jump into the wonderful world of content moderation. They'll take a beating from whomever they censor, but that's hardly the biggest concern. The big swinger is the cost to the company and attendant liability of reviewing literally billions of uploads from all over the world. At present, this is a task largely being done by humans (AI is not advanced enough), and the burnout rate is incredible. Imagine spending your day screening videos of all the horrible things folks can dream up doing. Here is a 2017 article where youtube claimed it would be hiring 10,000 reviewers in 2018. Not sure if they did, but that's a gigantic expense and a swan dive into an ever increasing morass of cost and potential liability.

Eliminate content that doesn't jibe with their agenda ?....never ! LOL !

Not only that the cost and potential liability will be like a muddy swamp.

Many of the peeps who made "Help me with this noise" or "Look how I fixed this" videos will be bottom sliced.

Here's an article about what the content reviewers' lives are like. Weird job.

I like to toss this issue to my undergrads to wrestle with. Their perspective on online society is different from that of older folks.

I would expect they would likely only do this to highly viewed content from users with massive followings but make "objectionable content".

Your track videos are probably safe.

Interesting how the cited article makes it sound like it's a pogrom on conservatives.

And if you're making your living on YouTube, you need to start thinking about getting a real job.

I do hope so. I would kind of defeat one of the original attractions to YouTube.

Another interesting site: a list of all the projects google has killed - https://killedbygoogle.com

I personally have a vimeo account, but not a youtube account.

Some of the big players that youtube might close down are smart intelligent people that figured out how to connect with a large base. That base will look them up wherever they go.

From a business perspective, youtube should be in it to make a profit. This policy helps promote that. That said, they may lose customers that don't like youtube moving from open content, to opinion approved content.

Let's say YouTube pulls all the helpful, but uncommercialized content from their site. Doesn't that mean there's an open opportunity for another rival service to host those? Maybe this is just a case of clearing the dead wood - all the accounts that haven't been used in five years.

Notice it says "may".

Youtube is simply giving themselves options.

There are people on youtube making millions a month. About as real as a lot of the jobs out there.

From a Google employee:

To clarify, this section is not about terminating an account because it’s not making money. It’s about discontinuing certain YouTube features or parts of the service, for example, removing outdated/low usage features. This does not impact creators or viewers in any new ways.

But think of all the millennials, and their "careers"...

:D