Last week 2018 started off with a bang. Everyone was super excited about the start of a new year. Out with crappy
2017. In with 2018. A new hope. And then, less than 24 hours in, boom.
(explosion sound)
First YouTube controversy of the year.
Now, I'm sure most of you have already heard this story like a hundred times over at this point, so I'm not going to belabour it
but, so we're all operating with the same level of knowledge,
Viner-turned-social-media star, Logan Paul, uploads a video from his recent trip to Japan, only this video is him visiting a forest
that's known as a place where people go to commit suicide.
His video features graphic imagery of someone who had just taken his own life
including featuring that person in the thumbnail
itself. His video
ends up on the trending tab and racks up six million views before he finally takes it down due to the bad press that it's
getting. The bad PR, the negative reaction that it's prompting from people. He then goes and issues two apologies, a good one and
one that ended with a self promotional hashtag so, you know, a less good one.
But, of course, it doesn't end there.
Over the last few days, more troubling footage of Logan and his brother, Jake Paul, have started to surface. Things like, "Hey, here's Logan
mimicking getting shot in the back of his head while his fans look on" or Jake Paul using the n-word multiple times,
Logan disrespecting more of the Japanese people and their culture, Jake Paul
simulating sex with his girlfriend in a thumbnail for a video titled, "I lost my virginity.'"
Finally, over a week after all of this has come to light,
Youtube has, finally, made a response and here is what they had to say:
"An open letter to our community: Many of you have been frustrated with our lack of communication recently."
You think?
"You're right to be. You deserve to know what's going on. Like many others
we were upset by the video that was shared last week,
we expect more of the creators who build their community on YouTube as we're sure you do too. The channel
violated our community guidelines, we acted accordingly and we are looking at further consequences.
It's taken us a long time to respond,
but we've been listening to everything you've been saying. We know that the actions of one creator can affect the entire community.
so we'll have more to share soon on steps we're taking to ensure a video like this is never
circulated again."
We acted accordingly?
By what?
As far as I understand the story, you just sat there until Logan Paul, finally, removed the video on his own, because of the bad
PR. A video that, mind you, you just openly acknowledged, broke your Community Guidelines.
I wouldn't necessarily call that acting accordingly, but hey,
We'll just agree to disagree, but what has me really concerned is that last line.
"We're taking steps to ensure that a video like this never gets circulated again."
I don't know if you guys have ever really noticed this but YouTube tends to
over correct itself in situations like this. And not so much solve the original problem
but instead cause more problems to the tens of thousands of creators
who are working their asses off every single day to create content for this site. YouTube,
before you fly off the handle and start instituting a whole series of new yellow badges to decorate our upload screens,
listen for a second.
I understand your problem
and I think I know the solution, and I think it's important that everyone else on this website
also hear this out.
Your algorithm, as it currently operates, has an exploit in it that rewards the sort of bad
behavior that we've seen from the likes of the Paul's.
I like to call it, "the Logan loophole." It had a better ring to it than the Paul hole, anyway, regardless.
let me explain. In my videos outlining how to create YouTube trends and how viners, like Logan Paul have been able to see such
explosive growth on the platform, I mention this paper written by your engineers.
Deep Neural Networks for YouTube Recommendations, with such super memorable quotes as:
"A key advantage of using deep neural networks as a generalization of matrix factorization
is that arbitrary continuous and categorical features can be easily added to the model."
Whoa boy, do you know how to talk to a guy, at least buy me dinner first. In this paper, and in on stage
presentations given by your engineers at conventions like VidCon, you specifically mentioned that a factor your algorithm considers when deciding to recommend a video
including recommend that video in places like the trending tab is
embeds from trusted publishing websites. In other words, get just a little bit of traffic from the likes of cnn.com
Fox News, MSNBC,
ABC News, Forbes, Variety or any other online
trusted publication and your system is then triggered to give that video extra
promotion in places like the recommended feeds, the home page, and the trending tab. And the system
usually makes a lot of sense things that get embedded onto news websites are
generally considered to be pretty important for people to know about. So this system ensures that the videos that are surfacing highest on
YouTube, are the ones that are going to be relevant to the outside world. People are getting informed about what is most important
videos that are generating buzz.
But, one of the fastest ways to game this sort of system is to create controversy.
This is the Logan loophole, creating controversy gets you featured, getting featured, gets you embedded,
embedded gets you more exposure and thus more views. Now, up to this point Logan and his brother were just doing it among themselves
Stupid little diss tracks to create fake news and drama between the two channels for the fans.
But now they've taken it to a whole other scale.
Logan's suicide forest video, and then the subsequent apology were featured on every news site
I mentioned, and then some. And as a result YouTube's neural network responded and said, "Wow! This must be a
fantastic video!
Let's make sure it gets shown
everywhere." And as a result Logan's apology was number one on trending for multiple days getting recommended against every other
video out there on YouTube. The thought process of the neural network was probably something like, "Wow! This video is getting embedded everywhere,
It must be a great video. Let's make sure everyone sees it."
Except there's a problem with that. His face and his brand were everywhere and in the aftermath of what was a
disgusting and exploitative video his channel is the strongest that it's been in months.
I mean the numbers don't lie. Despite his last upload, the apology video, happening on January 2nd,
January 3rd and 4th were two of his highest view days ever in the history of the channel. Before the video
he was earning around 40 thousand subs a day. Now, it averages to about
65 thousand a day. And this is without him even uploading every day, bro! Dab on them haters!
He is currently the sixth
fastest growing
YouTube channel, after he uploaded a video about a man hanging himself.
And that is the power of the Logan loophole, and here's why all this algorithm
talk is so important. Because what this situation has taught creators, not just the Paul's but all up-and-coming creators
who are looking to quickly make a name for themselves in a crowded ecosystem, it's taught them that by doing more and more distasteful
over-the-top, extreme stunts like this that they're able to get themselves exposure,
headlines, and most importantly of all those sweet, sweet youtube dollars. "Demonetization!"
I hear you saying YouTube, "These sorts of videos get demonetized which discourages them from getting made."
But one of the things that you're not accounting for in that
situation is the trickle down views and subscribers that these sorts of giant stunts get.
One video like this, demonetized or no, translates to millions of views on other videos on the channel that are
monetized and the subscribers that come in from
controversies like this just mean that when Logan decides to start vlogging again, like his dad.
just announced, way to have your dad speak for you there, Logan. Means he's gonna come back stronger than he was before.
When you actually stop and look at it,
there is no real penalty here put in place by the system to discourage this sort of behavior. In fact
it's almost the opposite. The system rewards you for doing things that generate these sorts of headlines.
And so shameless creators will continue to exploit that Logan loophole looking to make a name for themselves and make those YouTube millions.
Now, based on your open letter, it sounds like we're on the same page about this, but it bears repeating,
when top creators behave like this the only losers in that situation are the thousands of other creators on YouTube, and
YouTube itself. I mean, you've just gotten back from the brink of two separate massive ad crises and you've made system wide
changes to ensure that you never risk losing the trust of advertisers again. Situations like the Paul controversies don't help
I mean
I just got back from the Consumer Electronics Show which is one of the largest tech and digital video events in the
country, and I sat watching panels dedicated to why brands don't trust digital video.
And I had conversations with marketers and brands who said that when situations like the Logan Paul controversy pop up,
They pull all their ads, and I don't mean they just pull all their ads from the Logan Paul channel,
I mean they pull all their ads from the platform it happened on.
ie YouTube. And when stuff like that happens,
Thousands of creators who have worked hard on this platform lose out.
And you lose out on money too YouTube. Look, I get it,
Logan and Jake Paul have made you a ton of money over the last year
and I have no doubt that you'd worry about the bad press that would come with two of social media's largest stars suddenly up and
leaving your platform. But as someone who works with creators,
brands and the agencies that are physically out there buying your ads, I assure you, that every time a news headline reads,
"Youtuber reaches a new low." The long-term viability of your platform takes a hit and a
substantial one and one that's a lot more costly than the hundreds of millions of views that those guys earn you every month.
Let me be a hundred percent clear. I'm not saying that you should go and delete Logan Paul's channel. Nothing like that,
I totally believe that Logan deserves a second chance
Or third chance, or fifth chance, or whatever chance he's on at this point.
But what I am saying is that currently your system doesn't have a penalty in place to discourage this sort of Logan loophole behavior.
In fact, it rewards this mentality of constant one-upsmanship.
What is the bigger and more extreme thing that I can do to get even more headlines?
For years, you, YouTube, and I, and hundreds of other creators have had to fight against the stigma of
YouTube being a place where people just go to watch cat videos. But now because of this automated system
you're creating a new stereotype for yourself. The place where teenagers go to make millions by acting like idiots.
I don't know about you, but that's not a lot better than the whole cat thing
Close the Logan loophole YouTube, and when you go and make whatever changes that you're gonna make to the platform, please,
please try to ensure that whatever you're doing, it's not affecting the thousands of creators
who are working day in and day out to create quality
positive content for the platform. That they don't have to suffer on account of a couple of bad eggs.
Maybe now you're a bit more empowered to act accordingly.