Let me start off by first saying that no, I'm not a youtuber/content creator, I'm only a "content consumer" - if you will - so this is not affecting me in a revenue sense in any way. But that being said, what the hell is going on at Youtube HQ!?
A couple of days ago, Youtube updated their ToS (Terms of Service) about what's considered advertiser-friendly content, and... well... let's just say alot of youtubers are losing their shit right now...
The new "guidelines"
What,,, the,,, fuck...!?
Perspective
One thing you've gotta understand is that alot of youtubers are doing it as a job and you don't even have to go to extremes such as e.g Pewdiepie, Markiplier, Game Grumps, etc. because - as far as I've gathered - just as much as 200,000 subscribers (which is alot in it's own right, but it's far from 2,000,000) can earn you a fair sum of money per month, ergo, you can make a sustainable living off of Youtube given the fact that you can stick your head out of the mass of others and find your demographic.
So here comes good old Youtube along and start waving their goddamn fucking political correct dick around and updating these terms (probably) in order to try and hamper cyber-bullying. Don't get me wrong, the goal is noble and I support it, but I can't for the love of fuck agree to these means, not when it comes to Youtube where it's been all about YOU!!
Picking apart the points
So let's pick these stupid-ass bullet points apart and let's look at why this is the dumbest shit they could have ever tried to enforce onto the Youtube community:
Sexually suggestive content, including partial nudity and sexual humor
Right off the bat, this is confusing as fuck. "Sexually SUGGESTIVE content", I'd like to argue that this is just a matter of perspective and overall what you find to be sexual. Look, there's some fucking weird people on the internet, that's just a fact, so besides the usual of boobs and ass, somebody is probably gonna find a fucking bottle "sexually suggestive", so until further guidelines... what? However, partial nudity is still a little more clear, the only problem here is that they haven't specified what is considered as partial nudity, in the sense that where's the line drawn? Besides, you're telling me that there aren't allowed to be anymore dick jokes in any video on Youtube if you want to be eligible for revenue from that video? Yeah, good luck with that...
Violence, including display of serious injury and events related to violent extremism
Violence!? What, so every fucking gaming channel ever is just gonna have to play fucking Golf with Friends or some shit!? This might just refer to real life violence, to which I concur, but once again, they are being so fucking vague here... define what type of violence you're referring to. Display of serious injury and events related to violent extremism, I mean, yeah, people probably shouldn't upload some video in which terrorists beheads people or something on Youtube (given the fact of how many kids browse around on the site) but once again, since they didn't specify if this is only limited to real life events or if this even "transcends" to fiction.
Inappropriate language, including harassment, profanity and vulgar language
Now this one is just flatout fucking stupid!! Obviously I'm not counting the harassment part, but the rest. Inappropriate language, profanity and vulgar language... come on, seriously, Youtube... get your fucking head out of your fucking ass... this is the internet, you know, where people tend to express themselves in ways that's not acceptable on say TV. Let's say for example here, Game Grumps, the Let's Play show that basically lives off of profanity and vulgar langage, you're telling me that atleast something along the lines of 90% of their videos suddenly aren't eligible for monetization? Because once you've been doing Youtube for long enough (and do it successfully), things start to snowball at some point and you might win someone new over and that new person might perhaps wanna check out what else you've done. So before these new ToS (if they actually brute force them) you would still generate revenue from older videos just by new people wanting to watch what you made before they discovered you or your longstanding subscribers wanting to re-watch your older videos... NOT ANY MORE!!
Promotion of drugs and regulated substances, including selling, use and abuse of such items
Again, vagueness, if this actually applies to fiction = no more (amongst other games) Fallout let's plays!! And for the record, I've yet to see someone successful on Youtube actually showcasing selling, use or abuse drugs and regulated substances.
Once again, if this only applies to real life; NO SHIT!!... if it applies to fiction; get your head out of your fucking ass!!
Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown
Oh, oh my god... this political correctness is killing me!!
All jokes aside... vague as fuck... and also, this is probably the dumbest shit in these "guidelines". One of my biggest inspiration and favourite youtuber of all time, Boogie2988, has several videos where he talks about how he handled his suicide thoughts back in the day, how to prevent people you know from committing suicide, how to recognise suicidal thoughts before they get to serious, depression stuff, etc. and basically all of those videos were flagged for braking these ToS, i.e they've become non-monetized because suicide is a very sensitive subject, I get that, but the videos aren't about how to commit suicide, they're meant to help others who are dealing with these things and helping them overcome those thoughts and live a happy live. But you don't even have to go to such serious topics for this to be true... if this means what I think it means, people aren't allowed to give their thoughts on things like the presidential election, the ongoing war in the middle-east and whatnot. I also can't fathom why they would have to include that last part - "even if graphic imagery is not shown" - beacuse this seems to indicate that if I as much as mention anything about something that could be related to, let's say, hurricane Katrina, my monetization rights to that video is thrown out of the window... yeah, seems fair right?? Can we also touch upon the fact that this is dumb as shit? Literally ANYTHING can be interpreted as controversial or sensitive subject depending on individual history with that subject... and how much of an attentionwhore somebody wants to be.
Own thoughts
As I mentioned before, this is probably an attempt from Youtube to try and stop cyber-bullying... atleast that's what it looks like at first. But if we take into the consideration that they first included the option of watching full movies on Youtube if you pay a sum of money and then later on released the concept of Youtube Red - which in it's own right is a great platform for content creators because they get direct revenue from their fans for watching that video, but at the same time probably makes alot of their fans turn away and lose interest -, this seems to me like some "higher force" is putting pressure on Youtube and trying to turn Youtube into a sort of internet TV platform, which it is in a sense, but Youtube has never before had an issue with people spewing their opinion.
Granted that they never condoned hate speech and such and they've actually enforced this by having some channels removed throughout their history. But this is just shady as fuck... And it's also weird that they try to basically "starve off" the people who would make this content in order to not get sued for killing of a channel (or something)... I don't know... this is just a kick in the nuts as far as I'm concerned.
Conclusion
If they actually go through with this and alot of youtubers are forced to quit, I feel like it's not gonna take long before somebody like Twitch or Netflix start their own Youtube-like platform because now there's all of a sudden a bunch of content creators looking for a new platform without censorship to this degree.
The only good thing that can come out of this - as far as I can see - is that perhaps now, the embodiment of internet pestilence know as Keemstar might finally die off so that the internet might be a slightly happier place.
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