(deep sighing)
- Let's cut to the chase.
Did you know that any comment from a complete stranger,
you've never even met in your life, could completely
and entirely derail your channel, your business,
your livelihood and your passion on YouTube?
Yeah.
- [Man] vidIQ.
- [Woman] vidIQ.
- [Man] vidIQ.com.
- Unfortunately, there is no easy, fun, entertaining way
to talk about this.
Whether, it's Adpocolypse 2.0, 3.0, 2019,
it all stems from something that is pure evil.
I don't want to spend too long on the cause
but we need the context.
Last week, a video creator called Matt Watson published
a video that sent shock waves around the YouTube ecosphere
when he discovered that child predators
could effectively game YouTube's recommendation algorithm
to discover entirely innocent videos of children
and turn them into something far more sinister
through the comments system.
If you want to watch the original video,
there is a link in the description.
On a personal note, irrespective of the impact on YouTube
as a whole, I think Matt should be applauded for bringing
this awful situation to light.
The impact has been immediate from
an advertiser's perspective.
Epic Games, you know, the folks behind Fortnite,
which is basically half of YouTube right now,
have pulled their ads along
with Disney, AT&T, and several others.
YouTube themselves took rapid action as well
at deleting 400 channels and,
this is incredible to believe,
10's of millions of comments.
I feel this highlights two things.
First of all, just how big YouTube is these days.
Two billion monthly users, 400/500 hours
of content uploaded every single minute.
Everybody, and in this case, unfortunately everybody
is using YouTube these days.
And whenever a platform is so huge
there are always going to be tiny cracks in the system
that go unnoticed that can be exploited
for criminal gain by, in this case, sick people.
So, it goes without question.
YouTube has to act to protect users,
protect vulnerable children, to protect advertisers.
But, where does that leave you, the video creator?
Already, channels are being caught in the crossfire.
Jessica Ballinger's YouTube family vlog channel
with over a million subscribers,
includes content about Parker, a five year-old gymnast.
They soon found that their content
was being flagged as being unsuitable for advertisers.
And then, all of their comments
were disabled on their videos.
There's likely dozens if not hundreds more channels
who suddenly find themselves in a similar situation.
YouTube are taking a fast
and aggressive stance, disabling comments on videos
in the name of child safety.
And in 99.999% of the cases, the video creator
is the most innocent party involved in the whole thing.
You know what this reminds me of?
It's when you park a car in a parking lot
and you see a sign that says
that the management is not responsible
for any theft or damage done to your car.
It's like, what am I supposed to do?
Just sit there and watch the car 24 hours a day?
Monitor my comments 24 hours a day?
It's just unfeasible.
But YouTube's actions to tackle this don't end there.
In a memo that they sent out to major brands
in the wake of this incident, one of the key steps
they are taking is to reduce the discoverability
of videos similar to those flagged in an effort to make
it harder for innocent content to attract bad actors.
Now, YouTube already seemed to know that this
is going to cause major issues within the creator community.
Because, they say it will take some time for us
to get this right, but we are committed
to protecting minors on YouTube.
So, while they get that right, video creators
will ultimately suffer.
So, in summary, not only may YouTube demonetize
your content, even though it's not your fault,
they may also make it less discoverable on YouTube.
And, it's still not your fault and get this,
for the comments that are still on YouTube,
you could be accountable for them.
In that very same memo, YouTube stated that while
the burden of addressing controversial comments remains
on them, monetization is a privilege for creators
that keep YouTube's ecosystem thriving and healthy.
We are looking into ways,
for example, auto-moderation tools,
we can hold monetizing channel owners to a higher standard
with regards to moderating their comments.
Alright, YouTube, understand what you're asking for here.
Let me just check how many comments I've had recently.
We're a medium sized channel with 300,000 subscribers
and we've got 5000 comments, we can't do that.
There is, as you might imagine,
a lot more we could talk about here,
but Derral Eves has already done an excellent video
that really dives deep into this whole story and what
it means for the YouTube audience, creators and advertisers.
So, I highly recommend checking out that video.
A link is on the screen now.
So, it looks as if, once again in the short term at least,
there are going to be hard times for video creators.
Is there anything you can do about it?
The short answer is yes.
If YouTube is playing hard ball with comments, you can too.
In the new studio beta, click on settings,
and then click on community,
and from here you can go to your default options
which is at the top.
And you have the option to simply disable comments
for your entire channel.
If you are in the classic creator studio,
you want to go to community settings
and on this page scroll all the way down
to the bottom and you will see
the same option, disable comments for your entire channel.
Of course, that is a very extreme action to take,
so if you want to do it for individual videos,
in the new beta studio, click on videos,
then the video you want to remove comments from, go to
the advanced tab at the top and if you scroll down,
you have the option here to allow all comments
and check that or you can filter by these options here.
And for the classic studio,
it is pretty much the same procedure.
On the video manager page, click on
the video you want to change comments for.
Then go to the advanced settings and at the top
you should find the comments options here
which more or less match those in the beta studio.
From a viewer's perspective, this is an extreme measure.
Cutting the community off from the video creator.
Turning a channel into a TV station effectively,
because they can't interact between each other.
But from a video creator's perspective,
what choice do they have?
Now this is a hot YouTube political potato
and I know lots of you are going to have many thoughts
and opinions on the topic.
And we are not about to start disabling our comments.
So, as always, I'm gonna love reading
what you think in the comments below.
And I will end the video with this final thought.
Once again we're talking about Adpocolypse,
the adverts that you can put in front of your videos,
during your videos that will earn you maybe
a few dollars from 10s of 1000s of views.
If that is your business plan going forward
to rely solely on one source of income from one platform,
then you are at the mercy of YouTube
and whatever changes they make
which they can do just like
(finger snapping)
that.
Brand deals, sponsorship, merchandising, selling
your products and services off of the platform.
That is where you will make the serious money
if you want to take this seriously.
So, yes this is a serious issue
for YouTube and video creators.
How serious is how tied you are to the relationship.
Enjoy the rest of your video making day
and I'll see you all again soon.