The Youtubers Union teams up with IG Metall, makes demands and legal threats against Google/Youtube

[Formless]

For those who don't know, the Youtubers Union was founded by Joerg Sprave of The Slingshot Channel last year in response to the Adpocalypse and the perception of him and numerous other creators that it is no longer about appeasing advertisers, but rather rebranding the platform through censorship to cater to big media companies instead of individual creators and small businesses who make up the majority of channels still. IG Metall is one of the oldest and biggest unions in the world and have teamed up with Joerg, legitimizing the Youtubers Union as a union, and given them access to their legal expertise. Their website can be found here and makes the following demands:

FairTube is a campaign to get more fairness and transparency for all YouTube Creators.

Our proposals:

• Publish all categories and decision criteria that affect monetization and views of videos
• Give clear explanations for individual decisions — for example, if a video is demonetized, which parts of the video violated which criteria in the Advertiser-Friendly Content Guidelines?
• Give YouTubers a human contact person who is qualified and authorized to explain decisions that have negative consequences for YouTubers (and fix them if they are mistaken)
• Let YouTubers contest decisions that have negative consequences
• Create an independent mediation board for resolving disputes (here the Ombuds Office of the Crowdsourcing Code of Conduct can offer relevant lessons)
• Formal participation of YouTubers in important decisions, for example through a YouTuber Advisory Board

Here they explain everything in video format (and the german version of the same), including the legal actions they intend to take in EU courts if Youtube doesn't enter into negotiations in four weeks (they even put a countdown timer on their website to make a point). Apparently in the EU and/or Germany, its illegal to create a platform or agreement that effectively makes someone an employee but treats them as self-employed (and given that getting kicked off of Youtube can end a content creator's whole career, they may very well have a case). They also think that Youtube's notorious secrecy over categories, the actions of its bots, and the overuse of form emails contradicts EU data protection law(s), and will also pursue that in court as well if Youtube doesn't respond.

So what do you think? What are the odds Youtube will even give them the time of day without a pending lawsuit against them? What points will they fight over the hardest if they do enter negotiations? Which legal strategy is more likely to work in a European court? And will these demands benefit the platform for creators and small businesses, or do you think the corporateization of Youtube inevitable at this point?

[The Romulan Republic]

Best of luck to them. Most or all of their demands seem reasonable, and no company (especially one as big as Youtube) should be allowed to profit off someone's work without extending the rights and benefits of an employee to them (ie college athletics, for another infamous example).

[bilateralrope]

Publish all categories and decision criteria that affect monetization and views of videos

This one might be problematic for Google. Mainly because I'm expecting the answer to be: The AI said so.

Still, it needs to happen.

[RogueIce]

What if YouTube just decides to not monetize at all?

[bilateralrope]

What if YouTube just decides to not monetize at all?

That's going to get anyone creating Youtube videos for their job to stop creating Youtube videos. That will be bad for Youtube. Some will establish themselves on competing video platforms, which is even worse for Youtube.

I doubt anyone at Youtube/Google will be allowed to make a decision that stupid.

[Lord Revan]

What if YouTube just decides to not monetize at all?

That's going to get anyone creating Youtube videos for their job to stop creating Youtube videos. That will be bad for Youtube. Some will establish themselves on competing video platforms, which is even worse for Youtube.

I doubt anyone at Youtube/Google will be allowed to make a decision that stupid.

Yeah the monetization is how Google gets most of its money on Youtube and even Google isn't really stupid enough to give a potential competor such an obvious advantage, since even the big companies will leave if no-one is watching their videos.

The problem isn't so much monetization itself but rather Google arcane and unclear way of governing it.

[Starglider]

Best of luck to them. Most or all of their demands seem reasonable, and no company (especially one as big as Youtube) should be allowed to profit off someone's work without extending the rights and benefits of an employee to them (ie college athletics, for another infamous example).

Authors are usually not employees of publishers; when they are, the copyright rests with the publisher. YouTube video copyrights remain with their creators. YouTube and similar platforms have an airtight legal argument that they are publishers not employers, which makes sense as then every single platform that allows users to sell IP would potentially have 'employees' instead of users.

[Formless]

The argument has nothing to do with copyright, from my understanding it has everything to do with Youtube withholding money from youtubers as if they were employees who did something wrong, not telling them what they even did wrong when directly asked, and all of that may not be legal in Europe. The "False Self Employment" laws from my understanding work more like an anti-scam law than a copyright law. They are there to prevent a certain form of labor exploitation which Youtube may be engaging in, and Youtube doesn't behave like a traditional publisher because a traditional publisher enters a contract with the author. Youtube on the other hand treats all Youtubers like hobbyists. But treating Youtuber's like hobbyists is no longer a reflection of reality, and has not been in years; most Youtubers are professional creators now, many hire professional editors and other behind the camera employees, and expect Google to treat them and their crews as professionals. If they were being treated the way publishing houses treat novel writers things would be mighty different. I imagine the rationale for many of their demands is to keep the company and the creators independent, while ensuring Google doesn't have the power to screw whoever it fucking likes.

[LaCroix]

Indeed - right now youtube will monetize/demonetize at a whim, and when appealed, you get a email of oops, our bad.
At the same time they rank your videos lower or higher on searches depending on how it is monetized and other arcane rules that they don't tell anybody.

If you were an author publishing a book, and the publisher would randomly decide not to pay you for sold copies because of some rules that are "kept secret so you can't find a way around them", but at the same time insist you are a "Partner", you'd call it a scam pretty quickly.

And "False Self Employment" is a big thing here - we pretty much rule that relationships like Youtube, Uber, or all these sales-provision based door-to door jobs,pyramid models and other things are pretty much a scam. If you are in a working relationship where one partner unilaterally decides how much they pay you for your work done, it means that you are actually an employee, but without the legal worker protections.

The fines for that are huge - Google would be raking over all their youtube profits for the last couple of years to the creators if there were a ruling against them. Pretty much all they have to do is to publish the rulebook they operate on (and if the AI is doing obscure decisions then they will need to stop using it), and get a few bodies to provide contact for inquiries and the threat goes away - or lose billions. They will cave before they let it come to this.

[Starglider]

YouTube will make the argument that they are acting as an agent to market and sell the material to advertisers on a best effort basis. Obviously there is no breach of contract because the agreed contract is the YouTube (partner programme) terms of service and it not (and cannot) guarantee that any particular video is monetised, only that if YouTube are willing/able to monetise it, a certain rate will be paid. This model is effectively selling products on commission, with the large company in the salesman role. Furthermore video creators are free to simultaneously publish their videos on as many other outlets as they like, including competing platforms such as DailyMotion. No employee relationship involves selling the same work to multiple employers at the same time: the closest analogy is commissioning artwork where the copyright is left with the creator, and even there the commissioner gets to chose what is produced which is clearly not the case for YouTube.

The actual cause of this upset is that network effects and connection to the pre-existing large scale Google advertising business have given YouTube a commanding position, despite the fact that their technology platform is easily replicable (with modern cloud computing, even the entry barrier of equipment capital cost has largely been removed). Creators behave as if they are a monopoly either because their viewers are genuinely too lazy to subscribe across multiple sites, because the creators themselves don't want to do the work of driving traffic to YouTube competitors, or because the monetisation rates on competitors are lower due to having less leverage and appeal with advertisers. Only the last point is a genuine grievance; it could theoretically be remedied by anti-trust action to break up Alphabet, but more likely one of the other tech/media behemoths with similar depth of advertiser income will successfully displace YouTube.

[Formless]

Are you not listening, Starglider? The problem isn't their attempts to market to the advertising world, its that their rules for monetization are completely opaque! Moreover, the Youtuber's Union's concern is that they aren't acting on good faith, but rather using their secrecy to hide the fact that they are playing favorites with the big media companies. There are plenty of examples of news outlets getting to monetize content that would be immediately be demonetized if it were a small or independent channel reporting on exactly the same thing. That's the reason their number one demand is to have the monetization categories made public, so Youtube can't get away with that kind of crap in the future. All of that is what potentially violates both the data protection laws and the False Self Employment laws in the EU. If you don't understand that, you shouldn't be arguing the point. Legislation is given priority over contracts. This is a universally agreed upon fact in every country, and allows parties to contest the validity of contracts or the contents of contracts. Moreover, what use is a contract when one party is able to arbitrarily change the contractual obligations of the other party and neither tell them nor explain the change? That obviously violates all sorts of rules of what constitutes a fair, reasonable, and most importantly legally valid contract. Yet that is exactly what Youtube's Terms of Service have become in the last few years (if not from its inception). A blank check for Youtube to do whatever it wants, and no one gets to contest it.

Now I would love to see an Anti-Trust suit break up Alphabet or even just major parts of Google, but that is neither happening nor is it the only legal remedy the Youtubers Union and IG Metall can pursue. So its not the option they are pursuing.

[LaCroix]

Suddenly, his demonetized channel is getting remonetized, and making a projected 2000$ a month. He's posting about it right now, saying this bribery won't help them. People are havong a great laugh about it in the youtube union Fb group.

Classic union breaking tactic - give the leader a sweet deal and hope everything falters.

At least we now know that they are afraid. As they should be.

[The Romulan Republic]

Good. Hope they keep sticking it to the corporatist fucks.

[bilateralrope]

Pretty much all they have to do is to publish the rulebook they operate on (and if the AI is doing obscure decisions then they will need to stop using it),

I wonder if the Youtubers Union would be happy with Google just telling them what they have told the AI to optimise for, how it gets its training data and who gets exceptions.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, I'd like to know why Youtube keeps recommending me Alt. Reich-ish videos.

[Lord Revan]

Well, I'd like to know why Youtube keeps recommending me Alt. Reich-ish videos.

the algorithim(sic) used for suggestions is simple as hell, it's likely you've browsed pages related to the subject (it doesn't matter if it's for or against) so it gives you "more of the same".

Personally I get that from time to time, I simply ignore those suggestions and click on stuff I want to see and it'll eventually reset.

[Vendetta]

Well, I'd like to know why Youtube keeps recommending me Alt. Reich-ish videos.

the algorithim(sic) used for suggestions is simple as hell, it's likely you've browsed pages related to the subject (it doesn't matter if it's for or against) so it gives you "more of the same".

Personally I get that from time to time, I simply ignore those suggestions and click on stuff I want to see and it'll eventually reset.

Youtube wants you angry, because angry people stay engaged by watching more things like the thing that made them angry, and get drawn further into its ecosystem by getting into fights in the comments.

Preferably it wants you angry for about ten to twenty minutes at a time, with adverts in the middle.

[bilateralrope]

Just so people understand how much of a shitshow Youtube's policy is

YouTube has removed videos of robots fighting, citing “animal cruelty”

The videos’ removal raises some intriguing questions about YouTube’s automated take-down process.

The news: YouTube has been taking down videos of robots fighting, mistaking them for videos that show “deliberate infliction of animal suffering.” The removals were first noticed by YouTuber Maker’s Muse, and affected a number of channels run by contenders on the TV show BattleBots, a robot-fighting series. Sarah Pohorecky, who had multiple videos removed, told Motherboard that 10 to 15 other contestants had been affected. They received emails from YouTube stating that videos of animals being forced to fight are not permitted on the site. YouTube said it has since reinstated the videos, and notes that people can challenge the decision when their content is removed from the site.

But why were they removed in the first place? Given the lack of clarity about YouTube’s internal processes, it’s hard to say. Some of the videos had animal names in the title, but we don’t know whether it was one of YouTube’s notorious algorithms or a human reviewer that made the decision to remove them.

A fine line to tread: YouTube has come in for a lot of criticism over the presence of violent videos or hate speech on the site, and there’s evidence its recommendation engine has helped push people toward radicalizing content. It’s under pressure to ramp up moderation efforts, but at the same time, if it relies too heavily on automated video removals, it risks upsetting the very people it relies on for its livelihood: channel owners themselves.

Robot feelings: While this was obviously a mistake, research has shown that we humans feel uncomfortable when they see robots being treated unfairly. MIT’s Kate Darling has spoken in the past about how we often treat robots as if they are alive and thus hate to see them in “pain” or being mistreated. Perhaps YouTube knows us better than we think.

Oh but it gets worse. A post on the Linus Tech Tips forum has screenshots of messages from Youtube saying that the videos were "flagged for review". Then reviewed. Then removed. Before seeing this post, I assumed that the review processes involved humans looking at the video, but that's clearly incorrect. Which makes me want to know about the review process. Do videos normally skip the algorithms unless someone complains ?

[His Divine Shadow]

It's not the guillotine, but I'll take it.

[Vendetta]

Indeed - right now youtube will monetize/demonetize at a whim, and when appealed, you get a email of oops, our bad.
At the same time they rank your videos lower or higher on searches depending on how it is monetized and other arcane rules that they don't tell anybody.

I suspect they don't tell anyone because they don't know.

They've trained a deep learning AI to recognise certain types of content in speech and images and let it loose to make decisions, and at this point after this amount of iteration they basically can't get a sensible set of information out of it about how it's making those decisions.

But for reference one of the channels I watch did two versions of an interview, a longer version for patreon backers and a shorter version for general release.

The shorter version was demonetised. The longer version, despite containing 100% of the content which was in the shorter version and 20 minutes more content besides, was not.

[Steel]

The shorter version was demonetised. The longer version, despite containing 100% of the content which was in the shorter version and 20 minutes more content besides, was not.

While, of course, it is not quite this simple, you can make something objectionable by leaving things out. To reduce it to an extreme example:

Full version: "Racism is not good"
Short version: "Racism is good"

Your channel having the short video demonetised is most likely to be youtube being rubbish and their algorithms randomly slapping things, but I could see situations where there was genuine change in the meaning of content when you cut a discussion differently.