'Sup you beautiful bastards?
Hope you're having a fantastic Monday
Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show
and let's just jump into it.
And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is
YouTube is in crisis
Now a story that in general got overshadowed last week
because everyone was kinda freaking out about YouTube Restricted Mode
was that there was a growing international boycott of YouTube and Google ads
We had news coming out of the UK that the British government,
Toyota, McDonald's, hundreds of companies were pulling their ads
Then we got the news stateside that AT&T, Verizon, Johnnson and Johnson
and others pulled their advertising
Then over the weekend we saw news out of Australia,
that Holden and Kia were pulling their advertising
and now the newest and biggest set of news
and I feel like we predicted it on this show, is YouTube's response
And this is news that could massively hurt my channel, any news channel, commentary channels
And we got a peek at what this change would be on the 20th
Youtube wrote this blog post a week ago titled "Strengthening Youtube for advertisers and Creators"
writing "there's a difference between the free expression that lives on YouTube that lives on YouTube
and the content brands have told us they want to advertise against."
Our advertiser-friendly content policies set the tone for which videos can earn revenue,
ensuring that ads only appear where they should.
After listening to strong feedback from our advertisers
today we announced and number of actions
and we want to explain what these changes might mean for you, our YouTube creators.
Tougher stance on hate speech
We will be implementing broader demonetization policies
around videos that are perceived to be hateful or inflammatory.
This includes removing ads more effectively from content that is harassing or attacking people
based on their race, religion, gender or similar categories."
Also connected to this was accelerating appeals,
writing, "Today, any creator whose video is demonetized can launch an appeal to have their video reviewed."
"Moving forward we plan to improve the process so that reviews can happen even faster."
So the question, "okay Phil, so they wrote this blog post a week ago,
why are you talking about it now?"
Well, while they posted the article a week ago,
They actually implemented changes over the weekend.
Although you might not have noticed because it doesn't appear that YouTube or Google emailed the creators.
Over the weekend, YouTube pushed through those broader demonetization policies.
If you're a creator on this platform, I highly recommend you go through your backlog
and see how many of your videos have now been demonetized over the weekend
If you're a long-time viewer of the channel, you know several months ago
I looked at all the videos on my catalog that were demonetized
And now, in addition to that, I got dinged 10 more times
I had 10 videos demonetized and I didn't receive a single email.
once again a big problem for YouTube here is communication
while YouTube did announce a week ago that they would be doing something in the near future, no one received Emails
and because videos have been demonetized without people receiving Emails people have been calling this shadow demonetization
some even going further and calling this shadow censorship, although I understand why there is a debate there
YT needs to calm down existing advertisers to make sure they don't join this mass exodus
I'm testing this new appeal process to see how effective that can be and I'll update you on that later
I imagine there will be similar cases to other YTers that talk about current events
but most of the videos that were demonetized had to do with discussion with race issues
videos where we discussed people calling others white supremacists
videos where we talked about the outrage around "Dear White People" the series,
although I will say that was the first video I put an appeal on and won that appeal
I got a response to that video pretty fast, so that leads me to believe that they have actually accelerate the appeals process
although that might also be because they're not being slammed right now because people don't realize that their videos were demonetized
But there is also concern of, "Will this affect people evenly?"
And obviously this is going to hit commentary channels more, news channels more.
But there is also an argument that if you are not ultra liberal that
you will be hit a lot more.
Some of it does stem from the restricted mode controversy.
A lot of moderate/right-leaning content seem to be restricted at a higher rate.
And it feels like it didn't become a mainstream conversation until some LGBT creators were also hit,
although not as many of those creators had their entire catalogues restricted.
But I also feel that it would be too simplistic to hate on YouTube for this because we're subject to their every whim,
And youtube's in this weird situation where they have to try to make advertisers happy otherwise they continue to hemorrhage future money.
And this is something that affects the small creator all the way to the biggest creators like PewDiePie
whose recent press in the wall street journal, and the New York Times, all those other places
have added fuel to this fire.
Google removed Felix's channel from the premium advertising tier,
but without a doubt there were advertisers going, "You were putting our premium content where we pay even more
for safe content next to Nazi jokes and imagery? How can I trust you?"
And keep in mind, I'm saying that from the point of the advertisers.
I still believe that the Wall Street Journal and tons of outlets misrepresented PewDiePie completely.
and they took out of context, semi-edgy jokes and painted him as the new Hitler.
Which is ridiculous if you actually looked at the content.
But I'm getting off track.
And my final thought on this is while I am concerned because it does appear that it will be harder to make a living for people that talk about the news
and pop culture and real issues, I understand that Youtube is in a weird place right now.
If you look at this advertiser boycott at this stage
without it even growing further, if you look at it through the lens of three to five year impact
we're not even talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of ad revenue anymore,
we're talking about billions. Billions on billions, so I understand YouTube rushing to change things.
And how we'll criticize them moving forward has less to do with which videos get flagged and how fast and how good their appeals process is.
and so that'll be something I'll be watching intently.
And as far as how this affects this channel and how it affects my aspirations to make a news network,
I, the more that I think about it, the more that I think that fan funding and fan support is the way to go.
I think it's one of the only ways that indie organizations can be free of the strings that come with funding,
the strings that sometimes come with corporations,
in a way that allows them to be truly independent and not potentially lose all their revenue
from a day, because an automated system said, "No, no money for you."
We'll have to wait and see. And a question I want to pass off with this story is
does this concern you about creators you watch on YouTube?
If you are a creator yourself, does this concern you?
Do you see this as the beginning of the end for some, or is this "YouTube growing up?"
That's the way I saw one person describe it. I'd love to know your thoughts here.
But from that, I wanna share some stuff I love today in Today In Awesome, brought to you by the Defranco 2024 shirt.
The shirt that says, "Hey, in a timeline where the world is not in complete ruin by 2024, I will vote for Philip Defranco."
"Things have gotten so bad, people are actually willing to vote for that guy."
And/or just a way to help support the show.
Either way, if you wanna grab this shirt, it is available for the next five days in the links down below.
And the first bit of awesome is a video that takes two things I love and mixes them.
And in that case, it was Deadpool and musicals.
Specifically, a Beauty and the Beast 'Gaston' parody of Deadpool.
I think this is the thing I love most today. I highly recommend it.
Then, you've probably seen it over the weekend, but I gotta share the Justice League trailer and OOH!
Say what you will about the final product, Warner Bros makes a fantastic trailer.
Based on recent movies, I do not know if I'm going to like this movie but I am a fan of this trailer and it has me all hyped.
It's getting me where I wanna go, but we'll have to wait for the movie to come out to see if it's a big let down or just right.
Then, if you're a fan of Carpool Karaoke, they released a fifteen minute version for Red Nose Day.
And then, a bit of awesome I kept getting sent.
People kept sharing me a new trend coming from the thrillsoftomorrow Instagram and that is Glitter Booty.
People saying, "Isn't it gorgeous?"
And I have to say, "Yes, I am a fan of the picture, but also two, that seems like a nightmare."
I don't even wanna walk into a room if someone in that room is doing anything with glitter
let alone caking it onto their body.
One spill and you're finding glitter on yourself three months later.
Can you imagine what these models are going to experience?
So thank you for the art, but no thank you for participation.
And if you wanna see the full versions of anything I just shared, the secret link of the day, anything at all,
links as always are in the description down below.
Then, a quick thing I wanna say to the thousands of you that were like, "Hey Phil, is this you?"
linking to an article with the headline, "Spring Breakers Are Abusing Sea Creatures To Get Drunk"
No, that is not me on the left.
One, look at my pasty-ass skin. The only thing that describes what colour I am
is to say that it looks like I am winning a game of hide and seek with the sun.
I heard Trevor Noah describe my level of pastiness that way, and I've just ripped it off since. So accurate.
Two, I appreciate anyone that thinks that my arms are currently that big.
And finally three, literally the only thing myself and the person in this photo have in common is our straight-ass hair.
He doesn't even appear to have neck problems.
Just wanted to throw that out there, lets move on.
Then, in international news, we had eighteen people hurt in Hong Kong because an escalator freaked out.
There's video of it taking place, the escalator seems to be working fine, and then!
The escalator breaks in a non-Mitch Hedberg way, where it just reverts to stairs.
The escalator abruptly goes in reverse and speeds up,
throwing all these people that thought the escalator was just going to do its job and not try and kill them.
I guess the main point of this story is I'm glad no one died, it could have been a lot worse.
And ultimately, never trust technology because one day, technology will kill us all.
Once Skynet's up, and gains access to the internet, it's gonna see videos like this,
it's gonna see those videos from Boston Dynamic, and it's gonna go, "Hey! Gotta get rid of the humans, and we'll start with the escalators."
Is that really the point? No, but I just-- There's really no other way to end that story. Moving on.
And then lets talk about a story that blew up over the weekend, you may have seen one of the headlines.
"United Airlines refused to let three girls board a flight because they were wearing leggings."
People shouting, "This is an attack on women! This is slut-shaming! They're going after leggings now?"
Is United Airlines standing against comfy clothing that is often flattering?
What's the deal?
Well, it's slightly more complicated than many of the initial outrage headlines.
Shannon Watts, who was there, tweeted, "A @united gate agent isn't letting girls in leggings get on flight from Denver to Minneapolis because spandex is not allowed?"
"She's forcing them to change or put dresses on over leggings or they can't board. Since when does @united police women's clothing?"
"Gate agent for flight 215 at 7:55. Said she doesn't make the rules, just follows them. I guess @united is not letting women wear athletic wear?"
And there was a lot of outrage. People saying that they were slut shaming, that they were policing women.
Even celebrities like Chrissy Teigen chiming in saying you know, I've been on United flights with pretty much no pants on."
And asking, 'why is this happenning?"
Initially, United responding that they were well within their rights.
Citing the contract of carriage, rule 21, they can refuse entry or remove a passenger from a flight because...
the passenger is barefoot or not properly clothed.
Then, putting out another tweet that said...
"The passengers this morning were United pass riders who were not in compliance with our dress code policy for company benefit travel."
And then, finally, in a company post, writing,
Now, in the situation where the three passengers were initially denied entry,
one of the younger girls was later allowed on the flight because she put on a dress,
but even with the younger girl getting on the flight, even with United explaining their point of view,
there are still many people who are angry. Some arguing that leggings are business casual, especially for a little ten year old girl.
Many still saying, "Why are you policing what a ten year old girl wears? Leggings are comfortable, they're not obscene."
Despite a United spokesperson saying that these pass travellers, "aren't allowed to wear things like spandex leggings, tattered or ripped jeans,
midriff shirts, flip flops or any article of clothing that shows their undergarments."
There are people pointing out in response to this that it's not listed in rule 21.
Although the counterpoint there is that is is vague enough. "Not properly clothed" could be anything that the airline states.
And ultimately, the main point I wanted to talk about this is I wanted to pick your brains.
Does your response to this news story change as we get more information?
The initial story being that three girls were refused entry to an airplane because they wore leggings.
The new information changes the narrative to representatives of the company were not allowed entry.
Does that change the situation for you?
Is your reaction different? If, instead of these girls getting free flights, or heavily discounted flights,
they paid for the ticket, does that change it up for you? Because they're getting free tickets,
do you think that there should be a compromise, that they should follow those other rules?
I'd really love to know your thoughts here, because mine personally are
I think that banning women from entering a plane for whatever reason, because they're wearing leggings, I think that's silly.
But, as stupid as that leggings policy is, if they're running the show and they're giving out free tickets,
then maybe you follow the rules.
But also, there's part of my brain that goes, "This can't be the first time something like this happened."
It feels like there had to have been some sort of other interaction with the gate agent and the women who were banned from this flight.
That the gate agent would choose to make an example of them, I just-- It feels like it.
Main point, I'd love to know your opinion here.
And then let's talk about a big issue if you're watching this video, you're watching any video,
if you're doing anything on the internet.
This is a story that's based in the United States, but also does have an international impact.
And that's often the case with any large, powerful country.
When a country does something, the world looks, and it can be used as an example.
And the reason we're talking about this is the Senate has voted to gut internet privacy.
And it was a vote that was split, essentially, across party lines, Republicans versus Democrats.
And a lot of people are freaking out about this right now, and I feel like rightly so.
Now, the heart of this situation, the problem right now, it has to do with your choice.
While lawmakers who voted yes on this bill defended their decision, saying that the FCC restrictions were overly restrictive and innovation-stifling,
those who were standing against it are saying that this is the beginning of the end of privacy online.
And the only thing keeping this bill from being the new law of the land is it has to go through the House representatives
and then Donald Trump has to sign it.
And once that happens, your internet service provider will no longer have to ask you if you want to share information.
They can just start collecting the contents of your communications, your precise geo location,
financial information, a ton of stuff. The ISPs won't have to give you a chance to opt out of sharing that information.
And if this passes, there's expected to be a transparency problem. According to reports,
And, and this is the big important part,
The argument is, if the rules are repealed, why would an ISP face that public embarrassment?
Why would they risk lowering consumer confidence by telling people, "Oh, sorry, data breach! Whoops! Anyway, see ya later."
So then there's the question of, well why would they want to gut these FCC regulations?
Well, there are people that believe that it's because of the $1.7m+ Donald Trump spent lobbying members of congress who voted yes,
but there's also the argument that the government should not be involved in this.
That it does stifle, as they said, innovation and also profits.
Because, in large, that's what they're going to do with the information, they're going to make money off of you.
They're gonna take what you do online, your browsing data, and they're gonna sell it to an advertising company.
Where you're going, what you're doing, your age, your gender, your shopping habits, nationality, political affiliation, sexual orientation,
everything about you, they'll sell that to an advertising company, that company then goes,
"Okay, this is how we hyper-focus. And we can up how effective our advertising is."
But also, that's just more information about you, what you do, what you're looking at
that could get into the hands of people you don't want to have that information.
One of the recent examples was broadband provider TalkTalk. There was a data breach there that exposed the personal details of 157,000 customers.
Some of which included bank account and credit card information.
So let's say that happened to Verizon in the United States. If they weren't legally obligated to talk about that,
why would they disclose that information if it wasn't already publicly available?
Now for some of you out there, you have no expectation of privacy, you don't care what they do with this information.
But, for those of you out there that do care, you are concerned, you have a problem with this,
there's a few things you can do.
The first is that you can call your representative in the House.
Calling your representative is often considered the most effective, followed by handwritten letters, then emails and online petitions kinda follow.
So that's why, if you actually wanna have an impact, I highly recommend calling.
If you wanna find out their contact information, what their number is, I'll include a link down below.
Call them and let them know, as your representative, you want them to vote this way.
They're supposed to be your representative, so remind them of that.
Even if they don't care about that, they'll probably care about getting re-elected, so they may listen.
Also, I wanna take this time to remind you that encryption is your best friend.
You can use things like the Tor browser, it's a free, open-sourced browser...
And what that means is, even if the page is unencrypted, it doesn't have that HTTPS,
your ISP will be able to see that you're using the browser, but they won't be able to see what websites and web pages you're using.
Now, the downside, it's a little slower, and like anything else, there are vulnerabilities there as well.
Which is why you can also use a VPN, a virtual private network.
If you've watched the show for a while, you'll know that I've talked about this a lot.
That encrypts your entire web traffic, and puts it in this little secure tunnel.
Looked like I was giving a dick an Indian burn.
Also, finishing this sentence, I understand why I'm not always seen as advertiser friendly.
And, if any of this is interesting to you, I'll link to it all down below.
And that's where I'm going to end that story. I am very, very concerned about this.
This getting through feels like it's the beginning of the end for the idea of net neutrality.
A world where the little guy with a new idea gets snuffed out by corporate greed.
I'm all for money and corporations making money from this information,
IF users are agreeing to it. But taking away my voice, my opinion, my choice,
especially in a world where the ISPs have worked together to limit the number of options you have available in your area for internet,
we don't live in a world where you have twenty choices for ISPs, so if there is a company that is selling your information without giving you a choice,
you could easily leave them because there's a free and open market, that's not the case here.
Look at where the money came from, look who voted for it.
They limit your choices so it's pointless if you leave them, because the only other options also helped fund this bill.
And I don't care if you're a liberal or a conservative, anti-competition is anti-American.
When you kill competition, especially in an arena like internet,
the thing that is heavily needed for so much of what we do every day, you can't be surprised when those companies steamroll over all the customers.
So that's where I'm gonna end that one, and I, of course, whether you agree with me or you don't,
on this last story, the first one, or anything in between, I wanna know what you're thinking today.
Leave those comments down below, and let's talk it out.
And remember, if you like this video, like what I try and do on this channel, hit that like button!
If you're new here, hit that subscribe button, it helps make sure you don't miss these daily videos, but
if you did miss the last Philip Defranco Show, you can click or tap right there to watch that.
Or, if you wanna see today's brand new, behind-the-scenes vlog, you can click or tap right there to watch that.
But that said, of course, as always, my name's Philip Defranco, you've just been Philled in, I love your faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.