- What's up, you beautiful bastards?
Hope you're having a fantastic Tuesday,
welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show.
Buckle up, hit that like button
and let's just jump into it.
The first thing we're going to talk about today
is another YouTube scandal.
Although there's probably
going to be a few of those this week, potentially,
that's what the YouTube weather man is predicting,
but what we're talking about here
is going to be based on business.
If you have not seen, there's
this new controversy around demonetization.
When we're talking about YouTube monetization,
we're not talking about
the fantastic brands that support
this content during the TIA segment,
we're talking about the ads that YouTube serves you:
the pre-rolls, the post-rolls, the mid-rolls,
the little boxes that say, "bye".
It's what a lot of creators
and companies rely on to continue making more content.
While demonetization of course, is not a new topic,
there is a new focal point, thanks to
a collaboration between several channels.
With YouTube Analyzed, Sealow, not that one
yeah, and probably, most notably Nerd City
who released a video on their account.
For those unfamiliar with the monetization system,
the way it usually works is YouTube representatives
like CEO Susan Wojcicki have repeatedly talked about,
is that the platform
has a machine learning program,
meaning your video, your title,
all those tags, pass through an algorithm
that determines whether or not they're ad friendly.
Of course, because machines do make mistakes,
there is an appeal system that allows
human beings to look over the video
and then, depending on that human's understanding
of the content, they could decide to re-monetize.
So, in theory, having this algorithm, this program,
whatever you want to call it, also working with
human beings who say,
"Oh, you know what, you got it wrong there."
That should help reduce future instances
of incorrect demonetization,
but one of the main things here, is
we don't know what that algorithm actually looks like.
There's no transparency.
In walk in these three YouTube channels
just swinging their dicks, demonetized,
they decide to play with this algorithm over two months
and in their report, the looked through
roughly 15,000 different words.
Those words came from a mix of heavily Googled terms,
as well as ones that
are commonly viewed in various dictionaries.
Then they assigned a color to each word.
Green, or yellow.
Green meaning a video was monetized
and yellow, meaning demonetized.
The creator Sealow actually says
that the way monetization is decided
is more like a 0 to 1 scale.
- [Sealow] The de-monetization bot classifiers
have a hidden confidence level ranging from
0 to 1.
- All right, so certain words near the middle of the scale,
they might be green one day, and yellow the next.
So, what they did here was they put an asterisk
next to words that gave mixed results.
To create this list,
to test things out,
they uploaded two-second clips that
they said had no demonetizable audio, or video,
just keywords in the title.
If a video is demonetized because of
a keyword, they would replace that keyword
with 'happy' or 'friend' and see
if the video would re-monetize.
Here they say they found some weird results.
For example, using 'antivaxx' with two XX's
sometimes got their video demonetized,
but when they used 'antivax' with one X,
or even 'Anti vaxxer', it was always monetized.
Also, oddly enough, North Carolina turned out
to be a demonetizible word,
but not North Korea.
YouTube Analyzed actually tried
to explain this, saying that if a word
has too much negative association with it,
a bot might be prone to flagging it.
Right, so that North Carolina example
might be because
of news surrounding transgender bathroom laws
making headlines back in July.
It's something that was happening
while these creators were compiling their data.
They also, oddly enough, had other words
like 'restaurant', 'you', 'sunglasses', 'photos', 'profit',
and even 'Shrek', reportedly causing
their videos to get demonetized.
And while common terms that you might expect,
like slurs, cuss words,
and other words like 'Hitler' were flagged,
on the other side of things,
if the bots haven't seen a word
or phrase used enough, YouTube Analyzed suggests
that it just might not catch.
Which could possibly explain why words
like 'incel' and phrases like 'how to murder'
weren't demonetized.
But, one of the big reasons we're talking about
this report is, if accurate,
it seemingly provides evidence that YouTube
is demonetizing LGBTQ videos.
So, for example, common LGBTQ terms tend
to be flagged yellow on this list.
Though, again, this system is highly variable.
You have 'gay' being context sensitive,
you have 'homophobia' being allowed,
but not 'homosexual'.
You also have 'lesbian' sometimes being green,
but never lesbians,
which makes sense because lesbians in a group, dangerous.
Everyone knows that, it's just science.
Unfortunately, someone's gonna take that serious.
Also, 'transgender' is fine,
but not always 'trans',
while terms like 'straight' and 'heterosexual'
were both always green.
And here are some of the titles they tried,
included 'Lesbian Princess'
and 'Kids Explain Gay Marriage'.
Both were demonetized,
but both later monetized
when changed to 'Happy Princess'
and 'Kids Explain Happy Marriage'.
And that's massive, if true,
because that could negatively affect thousands
of LGBTQ creators on YouTube.
And around this, you had LGBTQ creators saying
that this has pretty much always been an open secret.
And, Hell, I mean, we even talked about it.
Back in August, we saw
a group of YouTubers suing the platform
and claiming that, among other things, YouTube
is demonetizing their LGBTQ content.
But, it also goes further back than that lawsuit.
In December of last year,
you had a YouTuber asking YouTube chief product officer,
Neal Mohan, this.
- When I upload a video that contains
the word 'gay' or 'transexual' or anything related
to LGBTQ community, it gets demonetized,
and that happens.
It has happened to me maybe three times.
Why is this?
Why does the system react this way?
- I can just tell you categorically
that there is no list of words or keywords
or terms or anything like that
that is going to go into our classifiers making
a priority decisions about whether
a video's monetized or not.
And there is nothing,
in terms of how our monetization algorithms work,
that should be based on any kind
of a pre-described or predetermined list.
- [Philip] Which is a thing that Sealow actually refutes.
- [Sealow] Given our testing results,
it's made clear that these comments are not accurate.
While the current situation may certainly
be better than two years ago,
it is far from what most LGBTQ creators
would deem as acceptable.
- And you also notice that Mohan's comments
are troubling, because as CPO,
he has the power to fix this problem.
Another example of that was provided
with Susan Wojcicki having an interview
with Alfie Deyes.
There she says:
- We do not automatically demonetize LGBTQ content.
- 'Cause I've heard of rumors, like,
have the word 'lesbian' in your tags
or your thumbnail or your title, instant flag.
- There's no policies that say
if you put certain words in the title
that that will be demonetized.
- There's no flag words from, specifically,
that community that is more likely to be demonetized?
- There shouldn't be, no. - Shouldn't be?
- And the specific use of the word 'policy'
there has been pointed out.
As Nerd City argues:
- That's a lie.
It's a lie by omission.
It's sneaky language
from a very smart woman
who talks to a lot of lawyers.
There's no policy to demonetize gay words,
but there is a protocol where bots are doing exactly that.
- And then, finally, the last thing
that these group of creators kind of target
is the review process.
An important note is YouTube has said
they're taking steps in the reviewing process,
like last year they added roughly 10,000 reviewers.
And around this, you have the creators arguing,
well, there may be a problem with the reviewers.
According to Nerd City, YouTube
is possibly outsourcing some of these 10,000 workers
from a company called Lionbridge,
which he says appears to employ people
from a number of countries
that have anti-LGBTQ laws.
This including Somalia, Afghanistan, and Indonesia.
And so he asks if there
is no standardized policy
in place for LGBTQ content,
could reviewers keep a video demonetized based
on their own bias.
Though I will say it is extremely important
to note here that we don't actually know
how many workers, if any, are from those countries,
or if that bias is actually being taken into account,
but we do know that it appears
that former workers with Lionsbridge
have complained of unclear guidelines.
So, this video is made,
it starts gaining traction,
it really starts blowing up inside
of the creator community,
which is why yesterday
we actually ended up seeing YouTube respond,
on Twitter, saying, "Wanted to let you know
that we've watched your video are deleting your account."
I'm kidding.
"We've watched your video
and the right teams are reviewing your concerns
in detail.
We want to make sure that we give
you some clear answers,
so we'll follow back up
when the teams have been able to take a good, hard look."
But, ultimately, right now,
that's where we are.
You know, you did have
a YouTube spokesperson reportedly telling The Verg,
"We do not have a list of LGBTQ+ related words
that trigger demonetization
and we are constantly evaluating our systems
to help ensure that they are reflecting
our policies without unfair bias."
But, still, there you have that argument
from these creators saying,
'well there can be no specific list',
but if the system is doing
what these creators are saying the system does,
I mean, it's 'just not a list' in name.
But, ultimately, that's where we are
with this right now.
It'll be interesting to see what else YouTube says.
They've already now responded publicly,
so there's gonna be even more pressure
for them to actually follow trough here.
I will say, on a personal note,
for those hoping for transparency regarding this,
I don't think that's gonna happen.
I believe that YouTube will once again
use their bad actor argument,
that if they kind of share the secrets
of the algorithm or even give you
a kind of a snapshot, bad actors
will take advantage of the system,
get monetization on, maybe, really horrible videos
that they just title differently.
But, then the argument there
is that the community can rely
on the community, people could use report features,
which, I mean, maybe you could trust,
but not if you can't trust the human reviewers, as well.
Also, I mean, some of you remember the news cycle.
The media loves to hit YouTube whenever possible.
We've covered reactions from the media in the past,
where there's some bigoted video
that has 11 or under 1,000 views,
and, you know, some journalist takes a screenshot
of an ad on that.
All of the sudden
we're looking at the adpocalypse again.
But, understand with all that said,
I do, personally, believe that
the system needs to be better.
Just, really, I'm very thankful
for our fantastic sponsors.
People that support on Patreon.
Because, demonetization is an annoying part
of our everyday and if we didn't have the other stuff,
it would be a crippling part of our everyday.
But, ultimately, hey, that's where
the story is right now.
Of course, we're gonna have to wait
to see what happens, but, of course, as always,
I'd love to know your thoughts on this.
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And the first bit of awesome today,
after today's show,
if you want more news,
we've put out a brand new deep dive.
This time taking a look at new anti-protest laws
that are sweeping The United States.
It's definitely worth a click and a watch today.
Then, The Infographic Show gave us 'YOU vs GHOSTFACE'.
Binging with Babish giving us secret ingredient soup
from Kung Fu Panda.
We have Al Pacino breaking down
how he became Jimmy Hoffa in 'The Irishman'.
Then, and I'm gonna watch it because Ryan Reynolds is in it,
we got the trailer
for the Netflix movie '6 Underground'.
Then, almost the same thing,
you put Margot Robbie in it, I'm gonna watch it.
We got the official trailer for 'Birds of Prey'.
And if you wanna see the full versions
of everything I just shared,
the secret link of the day, really,
anything at all, links, as always,
are in the description down below.
And then let's talk about the brief,
but also huge, update around Amber Guyger.
And she, if you don't remember,
is the now-fired Dallas police officer
who shot an unarmed black man in his home.
As far as how that happened, Guyger claimed
that she thought that she was entering her apartment,
and that the person in her home was an intruder.
You know, and she ended up being fired,
she was facing a manslaughter charge,
and, so, you know, it's been a while,
the case has been playing out in court,
and before the jurors came to a verdict,
they were told one, jurors could consider
the Castle Doctrine as a defense,
which as NBC News explains,
"Such laws generally dictate when a person
can use force, including deadly force,
when they feel like their home (or "castle"), property
or life are being threatened."
and two, the jury was told to decide
if Guyger was actually guilty of first-degree murder,
and if not found guilty of that,
the jury could then consider first-degree manslaughter.
And this is the result we saw today.
- We, the jury, unanimously find the defendant,
Amber Guyger, guilty of murder
as charged in the indictment.
- So, right now, that means Amber Guyger
is facing up to 99 years in prison.
And so, that's where we are right now.
It'll be interesting to see what the sentence is.
And something that I will say,
that kind of stood out to me around this news, one,
the number of people that were actually surprised
that she was found guilty,
and, two, the number of people
that were pointing out how odd it is
that something that seemed so blatantly obvious
was still surprising to us.
That, for many, there is this expectation
that the system does not work,
that the system is not geared in their favor,
or even close to neutral.
Even in a situation described
as 'unarmed man in his home'.
But, yeah, we'll have to keep
our eyes open to see what happens here.
And then, we need to talk about Hong Kong again.
Now, for those that watch the show,
you know that we've been covering
these ongoing protests since they started back in June,
but, a quickie, oversimplified explainer
to get us all up to speed;
the demonstrations in Hong Kong started
as a series of largely peaceful protests
against a proposed extradition bill,
and, notably, a bill that would allow Hong Kong
to extradite people accused
of certain crimes to mainland China,
so many people didn't like this bill
because they were concerned
that it was going to give mainland China
too much influence over Hong Kong,
which is an autonomous city state.
Worried that it would take away
the personal freedoms that they're granted
in Hong Kong, that mainland Chinese citizens just,
they don't have, like free speech,
but, as time went on,
we saw this situation become increasingly more violent,
with protestors and police clashing more frequently
and aggressively, and as time went on,
as the demonstrations progressed,
the protest expanded to go beyond
the extradition bill, becoming
a broader movement calling
for democratic political reforms
and police accountability.
Which, actually, on that note,
since we last talked about the situation,
Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam
announced last month that she
would fully withdraw the extradition bill.
And that may seem like a big win for the protestors,
as it was one of their main demands,
but there are two important things of note here.
First, something that really
isn't being reported a lot is
that Lam specifically said that
this bill would formally be withdrawn
when Hong Kong's legislature meets in October.
So, the bill has not actually been withdrawn yet.
And, second, by the time that she
has made this announcement,
the protest movement has morphed
into something much, much bigger
than this one bill.
So you had a large number of protestors feeling
that it was too little too late,
with many activists saying
that Lam did not address their other demands,
like launching an independent investigation
into police brutality,
giving amnesty to those arrested,
and other democratic reforms,
like universal suffrage.
So, despite Lam's hopes
that withdrawing this bill would help slow
or stop the protest,
they have kept going strong.
And, today, October first, marked
the 115th day of protests,
and with this, according to reports,
since the protest started on June ninth,
Hong Kong police have arrested more
than 1,500 people, and fired at least 2,000 rounds
of tear gas.
But, also, October first is significant
for another reason,
and that's because today, China celebrated
the 70th anniversary of Communist rule in China,
also known as China's National Day.
Chinese officials celebrated
with a massive military parade in Beijing.
Speaking before the parade,
in front of the Tiananmen Square,
where nothing bad has ever happened,
wink-wink-nudge-nudge,
Chinese president Xi appeared
to deliver a message to Hong Kong,
saying, "No force can shake the status
of our great motherland,
no force can obstruct the advance
of the Chinese people and Chinese nation."
Also saying that China would "maintain
the lasting prosperity and stability"
of Hong Kong without specifically mentioning the protests.
Now, meanwhile, in Hong Kong, officials
had long anticipated that the pro-democracy protestors
would hold massive demonstrations on National Day.
This, in an attempt
to upstage mainland China, send them a message,
or, at the very least, detract
from their National Day parade.
So, along with this,
we saw police warning of violence
and potential terrorism ahead
of National Day, authorities announcing a ban
on protests, shutting down key subway stations
and commercial buildings,
but that ban didn't stop the estimated hundreds
of thousands of those in Hong Kong
who defied authorities
and showed up to hold demonstrations,
and these protests started out largely peaceful,
with only a few minor scuffles reported.
Protestors could be seen holding flags
and banners and sprinkling fake money,
which is a traditional Chinese funeral custom
that the protestors seem to be mocking
by pretending to mourn National Day.
And along that line of thinking,
some banners and protestors referred
to the day as a National Day of Grief,
and while some
of the demonstrations remained peaceful,
things started to escalate in other parts
of the city later in the day.
According to reports, right before sundown, police
used large amounts of tear gas,
as well as water cannons and physical force,
to clear protestors.
And while a large number of the protestors
were reportedly marching peacefully,
others threw bricks and petrol bombs at the police.
The Hong Kong Police Force saying
on Twitter that rioters in one district
had injured multiple officers and reporters
with a corrosive fluid.
There are also reports
that some vandalized shopfronts, restaurants,
and government buildings across the city.
Reports saying that they seem
to target places that were perceived
to be pro-Beijing.
But, arguably, the most significant thing
that happened all day
was when a Hong Kong police officer shot a protestor.
And this, reportedly, not with a rubber bullet,
but with an actual one.
This is just massive,
because this is the first time
that a police officer has fired a live round
at a protestor since the protests started.
In the video of the event,
the person who was shot can be seen
in a group of people dressed in black, chasing
after a police officer
and tackling him to the ground.
Then it appears that
they're kicking him, beating him
with what looks like metal pipes.
That person is then seen approaching
another officer, standing nearby
with a handgun drawn.
That person then swings at the officer with a pipe,
and that officer fires at the man
from about three feet away.
Now, following this, in a press conference,
a spokesperson for the Hong Kong police force defended
the officer's actions, saying,
"The police officers' lives were under serious threat;
to save his own life and his colleagues' lives,
he fired a live shot."
The spokesperson also went on to say
that the person who was shot was
an 18 year old who had been shot
in the left shoulder and was conscious
as he was taken to the hospital.
But, regarding that, most local
and international media outlets have reported
that the man was shot in the chest,
not the shoulder.
Local outlets in Hong Kong saying
this was a student who attended a local high school,
and it is unclear what condition he is in,
though there have been some reports
that he is one of the two men reportedly
in critical condition
at a local hospital following the days' events.
But, once again, that has not been officially confirmed.
And later, in a separate press conference,
Hong Kong's police chief condemned
the protestors and reiterated
the officer acted in self-defense,
and also adding that the protester
who was shot had been arrested,
and the authorities were deciding
if they were going to bring him up
on charges of assaulting a police officer.
You know, ultimately,
that is where we are with this situation, right now.
Obviously, things are still escalating.
And, of course, like with everything
we cover on the show,
I'd love to know your thoughts about what is happening,
and I'd also love to know what you think will happen.
And that's where I'm going to end today's show.
And, hey, remember, if you like this video,
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Hit that like button.
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you wanna catch up, you can click
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But, with that said, of course, as always,
my name's Philip DeFranco.
You've just been filled in.
I love your faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.