Photo from YouTube.com

By Joe Goncalves
Blogs Editor

Over the last month, YouTubers have really been taking it in the shins. This is partially due to advertisers being overly picky about their ads, and youtube completely giving in to the whims of those advertisers.

For those who don’t follow the strange at times world of YouTube, essentially advertisers have decided that they don’t want their content posted on videos that some would consider controversial. This all started from reports by The Wall Street Journal of Coca-Cola company ads appearing in videos that were considered racist. In an attempt to keep advertisers from fleeing, Youtube began to demonetize videos by taking off ads on those that fit a rubric of what YouTube deems offensive.

It has really spun out of control in recent weeks as some channels are losing over half of their income due to these changes. It’s worth noting that most of these decisions on what is or isn’t “ad-friendly” comes from YouTube’s algorithms and not from employees. Now we see how it has spun out of control.

The criteria for demonetization has been increasingly broad, and in many cases has been totally unwarranted. For example, one of the videos that was supposedly a “terrorist video,” was actually a video made by a man who was testing out police gear in an attempt to tell officials that they need better equipment. Uninformed viewers and some news outlets regarded this as “terrorist” content, and the video was demonetized and subsequently removed.

This trend continues as YouTube’s algorithm wreak havoc on some of it’s biggest users. One content creator, H3H3Productions,  as openly criticized the system on several occasions. He recently posted this picture on his twitter showing the qualifications for demonetization:

As you can see just about anything can be considered worthy of demonetizing. We’re talking about perfectly tame videos, with any work at all related to a sensitive topic: religion, race, etc. can lose it’s ads.

So many people have made a living off of YouTube, and in an entertainment world that’s incredibly difficult to break into YouTube has been a blessing for so many entertainers. It’s truly disappointing to see an amazing website treat it’s content creators so badly. While it’s true that YouTube is entirely within their legal right to do this, it’s just a massive disrespect to everyone who spent years on this platform making it what it is today.

How do you guys feel about this? Do you think what YouTube is doing is right? Do you agree with myself and people like H3H3? Do you not care and think I should shut up? Tell us in the comments.

Disclaimer: This is a blog post in which an opinion is established. We encourage our readers to reach their own conclusions based on reading several articles that support and refute an opinion. The opinions established in this article do not represent the beliefs or ideals held by the Stony Brook Independent.