YouTube demonetized Onision for violating its Creator Responsibility policies off the platform

[Distinctly Average]

13 minutes ago, Rugg said:

I don't think he actually broke any laws.

That has yet to be seen, accusations of abuse and grooming. That is why I said “If”.

[PocketNerd]

And... how is this tech news, exactly?

[Rugg]

51 minutes ago, PocketNerd said:

And... how is this tech news, exactly?

Because it happened. . . newly?

For the tech part, its Youtube, which is tech.

[Quackers101]

while one could say some of these cases youtube have been slower or more "delicate" with. There is a lot of other content that just gets removed without notice, and this being long running channels and all content deleted. BS copyright abuse still happens, even if they own all the content in the video.

 

these platforms are far from perfect, and its sad when the system can just ruin your day without doing anything.

[whm1974]

Personally I Think that YouTube should have more Employees double checking on Content Creators accused of Copyright Violations and Breaking the Rules. To ensure they actually did.

 

Anyone can be accused of anything by anyone.

[Quackers101]

5 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

Personally I Think that YouTube should have more Employees double checking on Content Creators accused of Copyright Violations and Breaking the Rules. To ensure they actually did.

I wish the whole system was updated. Also one could specify every content used in the video so if they use the wrong timestamps etc, it would be verified and maybe by the huge selection through youtube a verification of the actual content it supposedly misused. if having access to content from another user/creator etc, you can attach them and it will notify them if they were allowed to use it.

 

Were timestaps should be important both for the copyright holder and the content creator, knowing what is flagged and knowing IF it goes under that type of copyright.

I guess it would hurt bigger companies with their strikes like from nintendo etc, unless they get a free pass?

[JZStudios]

15 hours ago, Distinctly Average said:

Here in the UK there is a very famous case involving a serial scumbag, Jimmy Saville. There were rumours about him for years, but lack of proof as well as seemingly some institutional protection meant he died without being punished for his actions. Many people had suspicions about him, one or two even spoke out as far back as the 70s, even on live TV. However, there was never proof. That case has had a big impact worldwide making many media outlets including YouTube more aware of their duties and how it could affect their business. 
 

I too have never heard of this chap. If the allegations are true then he should be punished as far as local laws allow. YouTube seem to for once be doing the right thing and have obviously taken their time in coming to this decision. It is a big case and one where human intervention has obviously been at play rather than just AI. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Yeah, well I'd still like to stick to "Innocent until proven guilty." If the #MeToo movement taught us anything, it's that people will lie and try to get someone put in jail because they got cheated on or had a bad breakup and a lot of those were confirmed false. Even still, a lot of people have had their lives effectively ruined over false claims and blown out by media and the business owners.

His name is Mudd.

[Distinctly Average]

2 hours ago, JZStudios said:

Yeah, well I'd still like to stick to "Innocent until proven guilty." If the #MeToo movement taught us anything, it's that people will lie and try to get someone put in jail because they got cheated on or had a bad breakup and a lot of those were confirmed false. Even still, a lot of people have had their lives effectively ruined over false claims and blown out by media and the business owners.

His name is Mudd.

When it is one or two cases, sure. Plenty of stars have had that and gone on to clear their names. It usually causes a short term issue but they then often go on to a strong future. When it gets to many cases, such as this then employers have to act. They are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Any responsible employer has little choice, but they have to work with their employee with plans based on the final outcome. If they don’t they risk litigation. They cannot however just turn a blind eye until things play out to their conclusion.

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, JZStudios said:

Yeah, well I'd still like to stick to "Innocent until proven guilty." If the #MeToo movement taught us anything, it's that people will lie and try to get someone put in jail because they got cheated on or had a bad breakup and a lot of those were confirmed false. Even still, a lot of people have had their lives effectively ruined over false claims and blown out by media and the business owners.

His name is Mudd.

I don’t have a difficulty with that. These are multiple accusations and accusations of a rather awful nature even for a sex crime.  This has been abused as well in the past as “if there are enough of them and they’re awful enough they don’t need to actually be true” thing sadly has been proven to be a thing.   It puts Google in an awkward position though.  They have two choices: act or don’t act.

if they’re false Google is in trouble if they do act because falling for B.S.  Likewise if they’re true, Google will be in trouble if it doesn’t act, even by doing something as reasonable as waiting for proof.  If they can divest themselves of him for an unrelated reason though it no longer matters.  Apparently they looked for one and found one though they had to dig pretty deep.  There are two sets of ramifications.  One; This person loses a major source of income, which is also the source of celebrity, and Two; other people with that same position are worried that this close rule reading may apply generally, unless Google has a good enough reason to bend things.  I rather doubt myself that it will apply generally.  As to the other stuff, kinda up in the air.

Edited January 26, 2021 by Bombastinator

[Commodus]

3 hours ago, JZStudios said:

Yeah, well I'd still like to stick to "Innocent until proven guilty." If the #MeToo movement taught us anything, it's that people will lie and try to get someone put in jail because they got cheated on or had a bad breakup and a lot of those were confirmed false. Even still, a lot of people have had their lives effectively ruined over false claims and blown out by media and the business owners.

His name is Mudd.

To elaborate on what Distinctly Average said:

 

When you see a pattern emerging, "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't really fly. There are several allegations of similar activity; unless you want to suggest there's an elaborate conspiracy to frame Onision, there's likely some merit to the claims. And YouTube certainly has reason to be nervous about appearing to support someone with that kind of creepy behaviour.

 

I look at it this way: imagine if you were a casting director considering Bill Cosby just as allegations of sexual assault gathered steam. You might not have turned him in or blacklisted him, but you (hopefully) wouldn't have waited for a conviction to decide against hiring him — he'd be box office poison even if you didn't have moral objections. Likewise, YouTube probably doesn't want to be seen profiting from Onision even if he hasn't definitively violated policies just yet.

[JZStudios]

3 hours ago, Distinctly Average said:

When it is one or two cases, sure. Plenty of stars have had that and gone on to clear their names. It usually causes a short term issue but they then often go on to a strong future. When it gets to many cases, such as this then employers have to act. They are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Any responsible employer has little choice, but they have to work with their employee with plans based on the final outcome. If they don’t they risk litigation. They cannot however just turn a blind eye until things play out to their conclusion.

I'm not talking about stars, I'm talking about normal people having false claims set on them and them consequently being fired or expelled from college and being saddled with student loan debt and no degree or option to get one anymore.

Anyone with a large following will have crazy people come out the wood works. It's unfortunate, but until there's actual proof, it's just hearsay. Probation or maybe a leave of absence is one thing, but they typically don't do that and it still sucks for the affected person if they're innocent.

2 hours ago, Commodus said:

To elaborate on what Distinctly Average said:

 

When you see a pattern emerging, "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't really fly. There are several allegations of similar activity; unless you want to suggest there's an elaborate conspiracy to frame Onision, there's likely some merit to the claims. And YouTube certainly has reason to be nervous about appearing to support someone with that kind of creepy behaviour.

 

I look at it this way: imagine if you were a casting director considering Bill Cosby just as allegations of sexual assault gathered steam. You might not have turned him in or blacklisted him, but you (hopefully) wouldn't have waited for a conviction to decide against hiring him — he'd be box office poison even if you didn't have moral objections. Likewise, YouTube probably doesn't want to be seen profiting from Onision even if he hasn't definitively violated policies just yet.

Again, a person can just be disliked and a group of otherwise disconnected people can hop on the same train to discredit them or worse. It's like online death threats. They don't all have a meeting to send them out, people individually decide to send out vitriol because they have nothing better to do.

I don't know this guy or the claims, but if it's as frequent as I'm being told why is there seemingly no evidence? A single person reporting it to the police could have warrants brought up to check phone records and social media. I'm long past buying into unsubstantiated claims regardless of what it is.

 

I look at it this way: Imagine you're a famous person and someone decides they want their 15 minutes of fame so they set a false accusation against you. You're suddenly and immediately unemployable, but it's getting good news coverage, so some other person decides to hop the train and make another false accusation. Now people trust you even less, and you've never seen these people before in your life.

 

It's the flip side of what you said. Remember how long and drawn out those Bill Cosby accusations were. Imagine that all turned out to be total bunk.

[Kisai]

On 1/26/2021 at 4:45 PM, JZStudios said:

I'm not talking about stars, I'm talking about normal people having false claims set on them and them consequently being fired or expelled from college and being saddled with student loan debt and no degree or option to get one anymore.

 

It's quite a claim to say that "most" are false. It's far more likely if you comb through social media posts of anyone who made a #metoo claim when it was hot, you'll find that they were a victim of some kind of minor sexual assault and just didn't do anything about it because they didn't realize it was. Just laugh it off and next time have the cameraphone ready so you can embarrass the perpetrator on social media next time, or send it to law enforcement.

 

Me, I'm not above reporting people to law enforcement. I may not personally feel that annoyed about minor aggressions, but if that person has done that to me, they've absolutely done it to others.

 

[CarlBar]

I'm not going to beat around the bush. i'm not a fan of this. Forget the question of weather he's actually upto anything for a second, (i'll address that further down).

 

What YouTube is doing here, and has done in the past is having it's cake and eating it. Nearly worldwide it's not responsible for the content posted on it's platform, (ditto social media e.t.c.), yet it still gets to pick and choose what it allows. There's a clear double standard here.

 

It's a similar situation with it's stance towards it content creators vs it's viewership. it treats both as if it's providing a service, despite the fact that it's also a sole source of income for many content creators.

 

The first one is a situation with no real non-internet equivalency. Other sources of media and entertainment are governed by various government regulatory agencies on whats not allowed and they don't have to deal with mass public submitted content. it's a unique situation that various liability exception laws where created to deal with, (or where not updated to cover the internet in some other cases). It's a mess but it needs a solution thats fair and equitable to both sides. Right now Youtube, social media, e.t.c. gets all the power and control, and all of the benefits, but none of the negatives.

 

The second is a clear case of laws having not kept up with reality. Employment laws around the world exist explicitly to protect people from having their source of income suddenly cut off for a whole range of reasons and otherwise protect employees from a whole range of actions by their employer.

 

Now if these allegations turn out to be true and it's proved in a court of law or sufficient pre-court evidence accumulates in the public domain to provide youtube with probable cause, youtube is in a much better legal position to dismiss him if this where a normal employment law covered situation. No explicit idea how good or bad any evidence against him may be but it all comes down to whats out there. But given i haven't heard anything definitive i'm going to personally have to go with innocent until proven guilty. But it's the side-stuff not related to the details of this case that bothers me the most. Which is why I've focused on them above.

[Commodus]

On 1/26/2021 at 7:45 PM, JZStudios said:

Again, a person can just be disliked and a group of otherwise disconnected people can hop on the same train to discredit them or worse. It's like online death threats. They don't all have a meeting to send them out, people individually decide to send out vitriol because they have nothing better to do.

I don't know this guy or the claims, but if it's as frequent as I'm being told why is there seemingly no evidence? A single person reporting it to the police could have warrants brought up to check phone records and social media. I'm long past buying into unsubstantiated claims regardless of what it is.

 

I look at it this way: Imagine you're a famous person and someone decides they want their 15 minutes of fame so they set a false accusation against you. You're suddenly and immediately unemployable, but it's getting good news coverage, so some other person decides to hop the train and make another false accusation. Now people trust you even less, and you've never seen these people before in your life.

 

It's the flip side of what you said. Remember how long and drawn out those Bill Cosby accusations were. Imagine that all turned out to be total bunk.

I'm sorry, but while this isn't completely out of the realm of possibility,  it's highly unlikely that several unconnected people would happen to make similar accusations.

 

Sexual assaulters like Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein skated past accusations for decades in part because many downplayed the pattern of behavior. Weinstein already had a reputation well before the trial that took him down, and Cosby had admitted (admitted!) to giving women quaaludes a long time before he was held accountable. People were hesitant to do the right thing (that is, call them out or deny them work) because they were waiting for a "smoking gun" moment rather than accepting that the pattern itself was a sign of something wrong. You ask me to imagine if the Cosby claims were bunk, but that's a red herring — they carried weight precisely because there were numerous similar incidents. Once it became clear there was a pattern, people should have been making serious inquiries... certainly much sooner than they did.

 

I agree that YouTube and other internet companies ought to be careful when responding to accusations. Unless it's particularly damning, a single accusation probably shouldn't be the end for someone's account or monetization. But that's not what we're looking at here. There are multiple reports with a common theme and no viable reason to dismiss them out of hand. I'd say YouTube is responding proportionately.

[CarlBar]

8 minutes ago, Commodus said:

I agree that YouTube and other internet companies ought to be careful when responding to accusations. Unless it's particularly damning, a single accusation probably shouldn't be the end for someone's account or monetization. But that's not what we're looking at here

 

In the real world in most western countries unless the allegation is either proven to be true or you can show you had very good reasons for believing it was substantially true you can';t actually terminate someone over mere allegations. if you do your going to be on the wrong end of a wrongful termination case.

 

7 hours ago, DutchGuyTom said:

(Note: I am just addressing this portion of your comment)

 

YouTube is not necessarily an employer even-though it pays content-creators. In my common-law jurisdiction (Canada, which is very similar to the US), there is a legal test that must be satisfied for a court to find that there is an employee-employer relationship. People have different rights vis-a-vis their 'income-providers' dependent on whether they are employees, contractors, or just volunteering. Many factors which would find in favour of an employee-employer relationship are not met here: YouTube does not control content creators' schedules or the work they do; YouTube does not provide content creators' with the tools for the job (i.e. video capture and editing equipment); and so forth. 

 

As a result, while some protection for content creators may be fair, they're not really analogous to employees since they have so much liberty and control over their own trade.

 

I wasn't making an argument about what specific category they fall into. Merely that they aren't currently protected at all. So all your example does is prove my point that current laws and the legal definitions surrounding them have not caught up with things like youtube and social media.

[Commodus]

28 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

In the real world in most western countries unless the allegation is either proven to be true or you can show you had very good reasons for believing it was substantially true you can';t actually terminate someone over mere allegations. if you do your going to be on the wrong end of a wrongful termination case.

This isn't termination, it's demonetization, and YouTube is entirely within its rights to do so. Think of this like a record label dropping scum like R. Kelly, or a director refusing to hire an accused rapist like Danny Masterson. You don't need to wait for a conviction to decide you'd rather not do business with someone facing numerous credible allegations.

[CarlBar]

22 minutes ago, Commodus said:

This isn't termination, it's demonetization, and YouTube is entirely within its rights to do so. Think of this like a record label dropping scum like R. Kelly, or a director refusing to hire an accused rapist like Danny Masterson. You don't need to wait for a conviction to decide you'd rather not do business with someone facing numerous credible allegations.

 

In a lot of those cases there's either a penalty the company pays for it, or they explicitly do the contract law in a locale that makes it legal. You can't just cut someone off like that generally in the real world in most places.

[Commodus]

21 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

In a lot of those cases there's either a penalty the company pays for it, or they explicitly do the contract law in a locale that makes it legal. You can't just cut someone off like that generally in the real world in most places.

But there really isn't. At most a label might buy out a contract to be done with it. There's certainly no penalty for a director passing on an actor based on reasonable beliefs about their behavior.

 

I don't get why you're so determined to jump through hoops to excuse Onision and attack YouTube. There are multiple serious allegations that fit a pattern, and YouTube doesn't want to be seen profiting from someone with that kind of reputation; it's not under any obligation to let Onision profit from videos on its channel.

[linuxChips2600]

On 1/21/2021 at 2:43 AM, Moonzy said:

"5.3mil subs across 3 accounts"

And I'm like.. who?

Bruh back when I was in middle school (circa 2011) Onision (this Gregory guy) and especially TomSka (Thomas Ridgewell) were kinda the only big YT channels I knew iirc.

And I can definitely still have a good chuckle every now and then if I go back and watch videos from one of the two channels I've mentioned here, and that's definitely not Onision.  I actually never followed the main Onision channel much anyway cuz I was weirder out by videos like the banana one, but it was only couple of years later that the weird/more "explicit stuff (e.g. "Is It Normal for Siblings to Experiment?")" really started creeping into his Onision Speaks channel, which was the channel amongst Gregory's channels that I had been following more often (key word is had).  Also I followed Kai (back then known as Lainey) much less but was still definitely intrigued when his channel back then (LaineyBot I believe iirc?) suddenly and seemingly inexplicably stopped posting new videos back around 2014-ish.  Stuff that has since come to light about this Gregory guy would explain a lot of these weird behaviours out of these channels, but man this news just puts the cherry on top of all this.

Oh and one more thing...

"LoOk OuT hE's gOT a NOse!" pew-pew-pew! (a like is welcomed if you get the reference)