YouTube responded to the outcry over its decision to punish “controversial” opinions by demonetizing videos by insisting that the policy had already been in place for three years.
The Google-owned platform recently released new “advertiser friendly” guidelines that stipulated how discussion of “controversial or sensitive subjects and events” would be punished by the user being unable to collect advertising money on such videos.
This prompted a huge backlash from the YouTube community, with many seeing the move as a way of disincentivizing the creation of any videos that touched on contentious political or social issues.
However, instead of amending the policy to satisfy the content creators who have fueled the growth of YouTube, the company simply doubled down and insisted that it had already been punishing controversial opinions for years.
“YouTube insists it has not changed its policy on which videos will have adverts attached to them since 2013 but has merely improved the way it communicates with its users,” reports the Daily Mail.
“While our policy of demonetizing videos due to advertiser-friendly concerns hasn’t changed, we’ve recently improved the notification and appeal process to ensure better communication,” said a YouTube spokesperson.
This response doesn’t explain why numerous prominent YouTubers suddenly saw videos on subjects like depression and acne being demonetized. We also had dozens of videos newly demonetized, disproving YouTube’s assertion that the only change was the way in which it notified users about an already existing policy.
“Other channels like Seeker Daily have apparently had adverts removed from 150 of their videos, including one about freedom of the press,” reports the Mail.
As prominent YouTuber Philip DeFranco highlights in the clip below, videos by large corporations such as CNN which feature images of war have not been punished by being demonetized, suggesting the rules are only being enforced against the little guy.
CNN featured a video of the Syrian boy with blood on his face, but the clip was not stripped of advertising.
.@TeamYouTube I'm confused because my content isn't ad-friendly, but "Syrian Boy Covered In Own Blood" is… pic.twitter.com/52Avb1Urg8
— Philip DeFranco (@PhillyD) September 1, 2016
In addition, YouTube’s policy of demonetizing ads that feature “sexually suggestive” content is not being enforced against Vevo – the channel that posts mainly music videos, about half of which contain scenes that are sexually suggestive. Vevo is owned by Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group.
About half of VEVO's music videos on YouTube have "sexually suggestive" content. Will they be demonetized too? #YouTubeIsOverParty
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) September 1, 2016
YouTube has adopted a clear stance in who it decides to punish for “controversial” content – one rule for the big corporations, another rule for everybody else.
As Matt Drudge warned about when he appeared on the Alex Jones Show nearly a year ago, creators allowing their content to be swallowed up by social media ghettos was always going to lead to this outcome.
“I don’t know why they’ve been successful in pushing everybody into these little ghettos, these Facebooks, these Tweets, these Instagrams,” Drudge told Jones. “This is ghetto, this is corporate; they’re taking your energy and you’re getting nothing in return.”
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com.
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