YouTube has been undergoing some changes, which usually is never good. I’ve been on YouTube for over 5 years now playing, providing commentary and reviewing video games. I also have a newer channel where I try to do more firearms related content (which is the one always linked on this website). However over those past 5 years on YouTube I’ve noticed something. The majority of the people at Google don’t supports any level of liberty or creativity. Firstly they took away simple creative features like being able to change colors on your channel or customize its format. Then background images had to go, making every channel look equally boring as the next. Sadly customization wasn’t where they stopped limiting freedom on YouTube.
Over the years Google has grown a strong hatred against conservatives, declaring their rebellious thoughts of freedom and responsibility “offensive”. Multiple conservative videos on YouTube and articles on Blogger (sites both owned by Google) have been forcibly removed. But wait, there’s even more. Around the same time I partnered my gaming channel with TGN in order to make money as a content creator on YouTube, some genius came up with “YouTube Red”. YouTube Red is a service that YouTube provides that allows famous YouTubers to make exclusive videos along with letting subscribers to YouTube Red completely skip video ads. Now if you’re an economic person you might wonder “well without ads how do content creators get payed?” Great question! YouTube with its very generic terms forced everyone to sign into the YouTube Red agreement, causing widespread panic since no one has any reliable way of tracking their income on YouTube (I literally make pennies a day so it doesn’t affect me as much as it affects those who literally rely on YouTube to pay for their living expenses). From my understanding, when someone pays YouTube monthly to skip ads, YouTube then pays content creators based on the length of time someone has watched their video. That’s as much as I could come to find out as fact due to YouTube’s horribly broken way of informing their customers on what the heck is going on. This wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t keep handing out FREE month long subscriptions for YouTube Red which in that time the content creators do not receive anything. So basically YouTube is then stealing money from content creators by allowing people to skip ads for free. Understandably famous YouTubers have simply opened donation options to stay alive while we figure our what YouTube is trying to accomplish. From my angle of things all I see is a company so desperate to redistribute wealth and make everything equally boring that they’re committing suicide.
Lastly is something so dumb even for Google that I don’t know what to think. YouTube has updated its terms of use again, stating that if one of your videos is offensive through the means of language, humor, violence or politics, that they will take ads off that video. I’d be more ok with this if it was a regular standard from 5 years ago, but at this point there are people who have for years been making a career on YouTube by being offensive or talking about controversial topics. Shutting off people’s income for cursing or making violent action videos on a video entertainment service is insanity. But again, YouTube uses generic terms like “offensive”. With hundreds of millions of people viewing YouTube there’s bound to be something in every video that some person is going to find offensive. However there is consequences for YouTube in this. No ads, no income for YouTube either… except with YouTube Red. Yep so if this keeps up Youtube will either have bankrupted thousands of people or forced everyone to trust in Google to distribute the wealth in good faith. I guess this is what we get for letting Google censor conservatives for so long, they eventually get so power hungry they take freedom of expression out of everything.
P.S. My gaming channel that has been around for 5 years is generally PG unless the game I’m commentating over is a “M” rated game. This should be alright, but then again YouTube has had trouble recognizing fair use and has come after me before for writing reviews on copyrighted material (even though commentary and reviews are suppose to be defended under fair use). So my channel should be ok comparatively, but many other channels aren’t as friendly. Even the YouTube channel connected with this blog might be considered too “offensive” for YouTube’s new advertisement standards. Guns may be considered “subjects relating to war” or “controversial” in their minds. Down below is a list of the new YouTube advertisement standards, notice how the fifth one is worded in such a way it could be used against any video simply reporting on a controversial topic. Keep in mind YouTube is supposably doing this for advertisers, however I’ve had to sit through advertisements on YouTube that have included drug references, extreme sexual references and a large portion of trailers for rated R horror films.
(https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6162278?hl=en)
Maybe later I’ll elaborate on how insane it is that modern marketing requires social media yet social media censors unpopular political language (which basically leaves journalists, commentators and reporters out in the dust). As for now all I can say is pray for freedom of speech, because Google doesn’t recognize it.