So, its been over a years since I uploaded a blog up onto here and I thought there's no better way to get started then putting up my assignment for Media Analysis from college. I did the assignment on the monetization on YouTube and all the the problems surrounding it. Hope you enjoy it
Demonetization on YouTube
For my assignment on media
ownership I’m going to talk about the issues surrounding demonetization on
YouTube, on people/business’s channels.
To start I am going to
explain what demonetization and monetization mean in regards to YouTube and the
content creators, it’s when a content creator uploads a video or several videos
onto YouTube and have the ability to run ads on or next to these videos, this
is called monetization. If one of these videos aren’t deemed by YouTube to be
advertiser friendly it becomes demonetized, so they can’t run ads on the video
and make money from their content. Over the last few years this has become an
issue because of the following reasons.
We have to go back to 2012 where
YouTube made changes regarding demonetization because some terrorist
organisation were able to place ads on videos they uploaded, when these
advertisers found out they got onto YouTube to change how a video would be able
to get monetized.
However, YouTube only decided
to let this be public knowledge in 2016, when content creators started to
notice the yellow dot alongside one or more of their recent videos they
uploaded. It was when the stories started to pick up a bit of traction with
news sites and news channels on YouTube.
In the guidelines of
uploading content onto YouTube they say if the video contains a news item that
is deemed sensitive even if no graphic imagery is shown it is not advertiser
friendly and will be hit. Even if they didn’t have the sensitive new story as
part of the tags or the title of the video
They kept to their guns with
creators on the platform such as Casey Neistat, one of YouTube’s biggest
creators, uploaded a video about the shooting at a Las Vegas shooting in 2016.
In the video, he did not show any images from the aftermath of the shooting or
did he show the gun man’s face. In the video, he also stated that he’s going
GoFundMe fundraiser page to help the victims of the shooting and any money he
got from the video through ads he would send towards the help of the victims of
the shooting.
However, the video was
demonetized because he was talking about a sensitive situation. So, he could
not send any extra money towards the help.
The statement YouTube made to him when he questioned them about it was,
‘no matter the intent of the video our rules are our rules.’ Which to me is
bullshit because how are people supposed to spread relative news, awareness or
raise funds if they can’t earn somewhat of living off the content they create
and upload.
It turns out that Jimmy
Kimmel, a big talk show host in America who has a YouTube channel for clips
from his show, uploaded a video talking about the same incident in Las Vegas,
had ads from GMC (A car company in America) running on the video. So, this
makes it seem like they have one rule for one side and another rule for the
other. YouTube didn’t give a proper statement about this and we do not know if Jimmy
Kimmel’s team has an advertising department and is able to run ads on YouTube themselves
This doesn’t just cover
people who talk about sensitive news topics like Casey and Jimmy, but creators
who would talk about depression and anxiety would get hit with this as well.
So, people can’t even talk about their personal lives and be able to sustain a
liveable wage from the content they create. In a way, these people are put
through a tougher time because of it. They could now believe that nobody even
wants to hear about it on YouTube because they can’t run ads on their videos.
About a year later, Casey
made another video in which he talks to the Indonesian president which was just a
basic sit-down interview with him. This video got demonetized as well. In the
video, he has a walk around the capital city has a talk at convention then he
has the sit-down talk with the president. It’s a basic one question sit-down
nothing sensitive or controversial about the sit-down or the video itself yet
it still got the demonetized.
YouTube
has not been clear with its creators on the issue of demonetization and what
could cause a video to be ‘hit’. They are doing everything they can to keep the
money coming in from advertisers then trying to keep the creators informed
about the issues, the reason their website is so big now, the reason they have
such a vast income with ads on their site.
Another
big YouTube personality, Philip DeFranco, also had a big problem with his news
channel. Philip talks about topics that may be deemed sensitive to some people.
When the news broke about the demonetization Philip and his crew found out that
the majority of his videos got hit with the yellow dot.
Philip
was one the people who ‘led the charge’ into getting an explanation from
YouTube about the whole situation. From when this story broke Philip stated
from when he started out on YouTube, he built out his company in a way that in
the future he would not need to depend on the ads that run on his videos, also
known as AdSense.
However,
he knows that if a bigger YouTuber like himself, who now has 6.3 million
subscribers, left it to smaller channels to talk about this issue probably
would not get an answer from an official from YouTube. So, he kept contacting a representative for
an answer and kept talking about it in his videos that he uploads daily.
This
is when YouTube came out with the statement about the changes to monetization
on channels. In the statement, they said the changes came about because of
pressure from advertiser companies who threatened to pull their money and ads
from YouTube.
Eventually,
YouTube changed how they dealt with the demonetization of channels. They gave creators
the chance to try to regain ads onto their videos. But, with this turn around to
keep content creators happy comes another smaller issue. The amount of
time it took for the review of the strike on the channel to be overturned and ads to be
reinstated to their video they usually are past the majority of views where
they would make their money off the video.
While
it may seem like a turn in the right direction, but people still lost out on
money for no reason. This turnaround took the phrase, ‘while everything changes
everything remains the same’, to heart. YouTube gave their creators the option
to get a strike on their video reviewed. The time it would take YouTube to
review the strike on a video the creator’s video would already have gained the
majority of the views on the video, so it would make very little difference to
their overall monthly income from their content.
Recently,
YouTube introduced a new system for being able to monetize a channel and its
content. This new rule was for the channel to have 1000 subscribers and 4000
watch hours which is the equivalent of 166 days’ worth of viewership from
people. This at first seemed like a problem for smaller creators who were
getting the views but were not able to gain 1000 or more subscribers. While
some bigger creators like Peter McKinnon who made a whole video on it said,
when he started out on YouTube at one stage, he had 800 subscribers and about
1600 watch minutes so not close to the new guidelines (rules) but that was
before the guidelines and for all that watch minutes, he made 0.55 cents. His
reasoning behind the new guidelines was that people would not have a big enough
revenue for the monetization
In
review, YouTube have done their best to keep both sponsors and content creators
happy with new guidelines about monetization on videos. But, they did it in a
way for the sponsors to stay and drove a wedge between them and the creators
who made the site what it is today with how they implemented the changes and
their lack of listening and response to criticism about the changes to the site
from user and content creators.
YouTube did their best in a bad situation
when those videos started to get attention and could not get it sorted properly
for the betterment of the website in the short term if not the long term as
well.
