Do YouTube's new rules make any sense? - TalkLinked

[RILEYISMYNAME]

Riley and James discuss a future where all of that personal data that's being collected anyway paves the way for a cuss-word-filled utopia.

 

 

 

In November 2022, YouTube released updates to their ad guidelines. Some of these guidelines strongly affect gaming YouTubers. The platform decided to give a very strange 8 second timeframe for no profane language, or "standard gameplay where gory injuries are present" Sorry, did I say 8 seconds? I meant 7. Some policies are vague, such as what constitutes as using profanity "consistently throughout the video".  Drug content is also grounds for restriction, including within gameplay.. However, dealing drugs or mentioning drugs in gaming content does not suffer those restrictions.  Another big change is now treating all profanity equally, where before certain language was more restricted than others (See update from April 2021 where they specifically refer to “moderate profanity”).

 

Many creators have spoken out against the changes, including:

• Charlie “MoistCr1TiKaL” White, aka penguinz0 on YouTube, who gives an example of a video with 15 second a gory animation after the first minute of his comic series Godslap (that he claims is not the focus of the video). 

  • He states that he only found out about the change “after being hit by it and doing digging”

  • Allegedly, Charlie's YouTube rep was also unaware of the change until Charlie told him

• MoistCr1TiKaL again, to discuss the possibility of YouTube's own auto-generated captions causing demonetization when they mis-transcribe innocent words as profane ones

  • Charlie further mentions that a comic book reviewer got demonetized for showing images from the Godslap comic

• Short-form sketch comedy/board game reviewer ProZD posted a short video lamenting the new changes and attempting to follow the new rules while doing it

  • He released a follow-up revealing the original had been ad-limited.

  • He said one f-word in the follow-up and promised to update if it also got age-restricted

• SomeOrdinaryGamers postulated that you could put "8 seconds of black leader" into your uploads to skirt the policy

Timeline of Daniel Condren of RTGame’s experience with YouTube’s new policy:

 

• Dec  25 2022: Release of the "Best of 2022" Video, which is a compilation of clips from videos released throughout the year of 2022

• Dec 27: (Scroll Up)  Daniel tweets the video has now been age restricted 

  • Team YouTube responded that they were looking into it

• Dec 28: His video for "The Quarry" was restricted;

  • Other creators in the replies share  similar experiences

• Dec 29: (Scroll Up) Multiple additional videos are flagged, including a Lego building video, “Best of 2020” video, and a private video from 11 years ago

  • Daniel claims this happened because he asked YouTube for help

  • That same day, Daniel says YouTube has upheld the restrictions of any of the content

  • YouTube says that you can only appeal age-restriction once, so even if he removed the “violative parts” of the video, the status of the video would not be restored.

  • This is especially troubling since YouTube only SOMETIMES gives rationale for ad-limiting the content, and even when it does, Daniel claims it can be inaccurate

    • The appeal process requires you to give a reason for appealing; this is very difficult if you aren’t given an accurate reason for restriction, or no reason at all

    • i.e. if you don’t know what parts caused the ad-limiting status, it would be VERY difficult to dispute the age restriction the first and only time you’re able to

• Discussion: What is the reason for the “one claim” policy? Do you think there is a reasonable way for YouTube to fix the dispute process?

 

Rush’s take

These rules could cause issues especially with long play-type videos, where story and continuity is maintained and minimal editing is used, or episodic playthrough content where the following video begins “in media res”, right where the last video ends.  It could push more gaming YouTubers to increase the length of their videos, something that has already been occurring and (IMO) disincentivizing viewers (me) from committing to watch their content (e.g. Game Grumps going from 15 minute episodes to 40 minutes).   It may also motivate some creators to play games with foreknowledge of its story, which would detract from the original appeal of let’s plays, which was that they are simulacra of playing a game for the first time with your friend. This would also defeat the entire purpose of “blind play” content, where creators know nothing about the game and experience it without outside knowledge or assistance from chat or the comments.  

 

[ahuckphin]

I got a Pulseway advertisement before this video... a calm Linus reading Pulseway's USPs.... then I'm greeted with Riley swearing. A rare role reversal. 

[Daft_Vader]

The whole situation is a mess, has been since 2016. Ever since they shot that gorilla

 

Ideally, all content should be treated equally. Content neutrality. So advertisers don't get a choice where and on what they put their ads on. They probably could not afford not to put ads on because a competitor probably will. If you know what I mean. Advertisers would shit bricks over it but they would have to accept it or lose out. But it would be a gamble for Google.

 

A compromise would be something like this. Advertisers who want their ads on family friendly stuff, have to pay more, because thats the sort of content they want their ads on. If they don't want to choose or don't really care about what their ads go on, they pay less. So if Disney advertising team is distraught at the fact their ad may appear on a video of some youtube gamer throwing a few swear words around, they can avoid it but it will cost more for them to do it. Google should like this idea because they can sting advertisers for more cash this way. There could be a third option where they can specify some content their ads would go on but not all or something.

 

Before 2016 youtube was doing well, there was hope for the future of content creation. As youtube/Google has gotten bigger, it has forgotten where it started. Punishing those who helped make it great.