Youtube Adpocalypse
By Logan Pribyl
In March of 2017, Youtube took a stand against unfriendly content on their site by adding abrupt and vague changes to their ad placement rules/guidelines. Youtube stated that they were trying to crack down on “hateful, offensive, and derogatory content.” The new rules banned advertising on videos that feature “sensitive topics or events” including “war, political conflicts, terrorism or extremism, death and tragedies, sexual abuse.” As with most companies using technology these days, an algorithm is mainly responsible for being the enforcer of these guidelines. YouTube acknowledged the fact that the automated process isn’t perfect and so they offered a manual review process, which allowed users to appeal videos marked “Not suitable for all advertisers” the chance to appeal in the hopes of gaining advertisements. YouTube changed these guidelines to not lose their advertisers because of their ads playing on bad content.
These new guidelines caused for many youtubers, large and small, have caused a decrease in supply of advertisements for creators, seriously decreasing their profit from each video they make for the site. For some Youtubers, such as TimDotTV, have decided to switch platforms, or use a substituted good, to Twitch, who pays their streamers easier, more effectively, and don’t have harsh and random guidelines that can be vague and tricky to maneuver through. But the people getting the biggest hits from these new YouTube guidelines are the users posting videos from active wars, crimes, and other ‘sensitive material’ places. All they wish is for the world to know what exactly is happening in such areas, but due to YouTube’s new guidelines and policies, these videos are being mass deleted, preventing the world from truly seeing them. Some YouTubers, such as Philip DeFranco (seen below), are using another method of keeping their channels alive. That method relies solely on the viewers and their love for their YouTuber, because this method is donations and sponsors from viewers to the user to keep them from going under and having to delete their channel. Viewers donate to the channel for certain packages. In this case of DeFranco, a livestream with the user about topics the user didn’t want to make into a video, or videos being released to them personally before being released to the public.
So with the changes they hoped to boost their profits by reducing the bad image of YouTube and hopefully increasing the supply of advertisers that see the new YouTube as ‘Ad Friendly’ and more ‘Family Friendly’, increasing the demand for such videos while also decreasing the supply of most videos on YouTube. YouTube has noticed that these changes in guidelines have caused a decrease in revenue for the mass of YouTubers, and have tried to make their algorithm and guidelines less vague, but with doing so, they created more problems for other YouTubers. This issue is still unfolding to this day, October 26th, 2017, while YouTube loves their users, they are slowly pushing them further and further away from the site with these new guidelines crushing their paychecks and efforts.
Works Cited
Hess, Amanda. “How YouTube’s Shifting Algorithms Hurt Independent Media.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Apr. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/arts/youtube-broadcasters-algorithm-ads.html.
Seavers, Kris. “YouTubers Warn: The 'Adpocalypse' Is Here-and It's Killing Them.” The Daily Dot, 18 Sept. 2017, www.dailydot.com/upstream/youtube-adpocalypse/.
Weiss, Geoff. “Here's How The YouTube 'Adpocalypse' Is Affecting Top Creators.” Tubefilter, 4 May 2017, www.tubefilter.com/2017/05/04/how-youtube-adpocalypse-affected-top-creators/.
I thought you took a really good stance on the issue and I greatly agree with people who decided to switch platforms. I do wonder if the advertisement companies can choose what videos their adds will appear on because if they have a choice I feel like they should not be able to use that YouTubers content against them to deprive them of a paycheck. I also think that YouTube is creating their own substitute with twitch because that website is mainly for streaming but now angry YouTubers are just uploading their videos to twitch and bringing their viewers with them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Cameron that you have taken a good stance on the YouTube issue. It is interesting that YouTube would like to tighten up their restrictions especially due to the fact that the content that would be blocked from the restrictions are actually informational. There are plenty of you-tubers I have come across who post completely inappropriate content, but since it gets so many views, likes, and subscribes, it remains on YouTube. On the other hand, there are some war-related videos now being deleted because the content is "inappropriate." I believe YouTube is just trying to "tighten up their restrictions" for publicity by deleting smaller videos and labeling them inappropriate while keeping the largely viewed videos.
ReplyDeleteI feel like the need for such large companies like Google to publicly acknowledge their obligation to be politically correct is clouding the actual reason for many of these videos existence. They're not tempting to promote violence, but rather are trying to bring awareness to certain situations. It's as if news networks will not receive ad revenue for reporting on violent uprisings. Hopefully, YouTube resorts to their past guidelines and allow ads to continue on all videos.
ReplyDeleteIt was a bad decision for Youtube to create more restrictions for its users. They are now making it harder for creators to upload according to their new guidelines. So, not only are creators switching platforms, viewers are no longer watching Youtube. I agree with Cameron. If advertisers were able to chose which types of videos that their ads were allowed to appear on, then creators can continue to have creative freedom with regards to their video content, and advertisers won't be surprised when their ad is featured in a video that not everyone deems "appropriate".
ReplyDeleteI think that when Youtube decided to create more restrictions for their users, they had the intend to create more income and have a better experience for users. However, it turned out to not bring that outcome. Youtube videos are obtaining less and less view as users are using Youtube less and less.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading this post, it made me think of the phrase, "You want what you can't have." With YouTube creating these restrictions, it just causes users to want more of what they are now restricted from, and they will demand more freedom and access from YouTube. Since they are creating these restrictions, users will starting going to other platforms that give them more access to what they want which will effect the profitability of YouTube.
ReplyDeleteThe reason YouTube starting adding in ad regulations was a misinterpreted joke a popular YouTuber made. This again goes under the topic of people creating problems that don't actually exist in America. Now in order for YouTubers to make money, they have to change their content to being basically G-Rated and lose the ways that originally earned them the fame they have. If they change they potentially will lose consumers and have a smaller paycheck because of this. I think if this goes on long enough, YouTube will change they demonetization regulations more loosely in order to make a bigger profit.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very relative topic both in the sense of popular culture and economics. YouTube is a big part of teenage American culture and is used for entertainment; even if it is inappropriate content. By using these barriers to stop sensitive content from causing conflict, it will contain a large opportunity cost to YouTube. This will mainly impact the teenage users of the website, but will put a large dent in the market.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that this is not nearly as much of an issue as it is presented here, at least for Google as a company. The goal of making Youtube more ad friendly is actually to increase Google's revenue, as ad-makers do not want their content associate with negative Youtube content. Youtube appeals to ad-makers to protect their own revenue. The use of an algorithm to decide where these ads should be allocated is much more of a social issue than an economic one, acting more as an example of a corporate disconnect from their employees (Youtube's lack of care for Youtubers).
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