Sanders: YouTube demonetizing YouTubers

Many people, especially those close to the issue, are concerned about the one-sidedness of YouTube’s new censorship policy for its content creators. I’m a firm believer in promoting user-friendly content whether it’s online, on the television or even in print. I think it is our responsibility to protect our children and society against potentially harmful content, and I believe that’s what YouTube is trying to do with its new policy, which came into effect earlier this month.

The guidelines aim to censor against sexually explicit content, violence, inappropriate language, promotion of drug activity and other hot-button topics. The goal is to make content friendlier to users.

However, I also believe in the idea that people should be able to make their living through legitimate activity. For some people, creating and selling content on YouTube is that legitimate business. So, it’s a problem when YouTube’s policy tends to have adverse economic effects on its content creators.

People are outraged — and understandably so. Some channels would either totally shut down or have great chunks of their content taken down under these new guidelines. For this type of YouTuber, who may already be living on the fringes, the impact has created huge financial losses.

For these people, a YouTube rainy day check might be all the difference between legitimate or criminal living.

But, of course, there are the other kinds of content creators, like Philip DeFranco, who are smart, and have a backup source of revenue. Many YouTubers usually add direct merchandise sales to making content and would not be very bothered even if they woke up one day to see all of their content taken down. For them, new guidelines or not, life goes on.

The effect to the other kind of creators, however, extends to the commissions they receive from the ads that accompany their content. If there’s no content, then it makes sense that there’s equally no ad.

Well, we should commend YouTube here, at least for one thing: They refunded payments back to successful content creators who protested the loss of ad revenues. They still lost content-associated income, but their loss was not as severe.

Another sad thing about the guideline implementation is that some content creators are not even aware and notified of the company’s decision to take down their content. They’re shocked to see their revenues drop; imagine putting your rental budget on this check and then going on to your page and seeing all of your content gone. You may well be homeless the next month.

In a response to these victims’ complaints and frustrations, YouTube wrote that “while our policy of demonetizing videos due to advertiser-friendly concerns hasn’t changed, we’ve recently improved the notification and appeal process to ensure better communication.”

Who can possibly contest this righteous attempt to make the internet safer for our children and society, and still be considered sane? I don’t seek to do that either. Yet I can’t condone policies that deny people legitimate opportunities to make a living.

But the ordinary YouTube user should be concerned too. Wouldn’t it be depressing to wake up one day and find out that the channels you subscribed to and so loved have all been taken down because YouTube thinks their contents are inappropriate for you? I would hate to discover that my favorite YouTubers who are just following their passion are stripped of the opportunity to continue doing what they love.

The guidelines in themselves are very vague in my opinion. Most of the decisions are borderline, and, in some cases, you can’t exactly determine which content may be in violation. YouTube can do a better job explaining what constitutes these violations.

Of course YouTube as a private business has the right to censor the content hosted on their website and to decide who gets paid and how much they get paid. But in the same breath, I believe that parents also have a responsibility to their children to ensure that they’re not getting exposed to harmful content online.

Ultimately, I think that the majority of YouTube’s community are capable of self-censorship and are able to decide between good and inappropriate information. We should not unnecessarily restrict people’s rights to decide what they see or not see.

So, let’s protect the kids, but in doing that we should not forget about the folks living on the fringe whose main source of income and livelihood is a YouTube paycheck.

William Sanders III is a sophomore majoring in Journalism.