Some issues with YouTube

    YouTube is a quick, convenient place to access content of all sorts.  It's available on my TV (which is otherwise not a smart TV), on my laptop and on my Android phone.

    Lately I've been consuming a lot of true crime content, and YouTube is a quicker place to access it than taking the extra few minutes to get to Google podcasts.  (I know, I'm totally revealing my laziness here!  It's for a good cause, though.)

    True crime content creators have been having a hell of a time of it on YouTube, lately, because their 'community guidelines' seem just slightly off the mark.  Or, how they are applying the 'guidelines', perhaps.

    The majority of these creators have been commenting that they've been flagged, demonetised and had content removed (or age restricted) recently.

    A lot are considering ditching YouTube altogether and finding an alternative platform.  I wouldn't blame them (although if they all go to Patreon I'll have to stick to my Google podcasts, only).

    Those creators who are currently persevering are having to use all sorts of code words to talk about the cases they're covering.  Or otherwise censor themselves (literally bleeping out certain words, even when including clips from news reports which were originally broadcast on the TV).  Numerous have also mentioned their notifications being turned off (by YouTube it appears, not their subscribers) and even one says he has had many subscribers unsubscribed (again, not by the subscriber themselves).

    And I get it, in one regard.  YouTube can't be seen to be promoting violence, for instance.

    But many of these content creators are providing a form of educational content.  Their research is sound, being derived from court affidavits and such.  They're by no means promoting violence, or crime, or any such thing.  They are in fact trying to promote awareness, encouraging the public to contact authorities if they've any information about recent unsolved cases.

    So certainly, flag and clamp down on hate speech, or content which is actively promoting violence against others or whatever.  It's my belief that that stuff would be easy to distinguish, if they bothered to devote appropriate resources.  (E.g. employing some humans, instead of dumping most of the 'responsibility' with an AI.)

    I believe there's very likely a big difference between e.g. an incel's or a neo-nazi's manifesto video, and someone respectfully recounting a missing person or murder case.  (I don't go and watch these incels etc, but some of these very true crime content creators have covered some of their cases and included clips.  They make me utterly sick, by the way!)

    And where does YouTube get off turning off notifications and 'managing' peoples subscriptions, if that really is what's happening?!  I choose what I want to consume.  Not You(Tube).

    Because then on the other hand YouTube's quite content to promote content which is actively dangerous for regular folks as though it's no big deal!  Like encouraging people, via their Facebook page, to give themselves food poisoning &/or burn their kitchen down!  (See the first 1/2 of this video: Debunking DEADLIEST craft hack, 34 dead | H2CT Ann Reardon)

    And if you've still not seen the ridiculousness of this yet, consider this:  a true crime content creator covering a missing child case cannot even include a partially blurred photo of the missing child in their coverage!

    Get some more real human personnel, YouTube, and learn to censor only where censorship is really warranted.

All photos from Unsplash, unless otherwise specified in the image title (hover over, on a PC)

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