AWKWARD ZOMBIE

This is the problem right here, 90% of companies do not want risk advertising cheddar on something that could give bad press at all. Yes, Youtube is well within their rights to censor anything on their own site they daisies well please, but they could also tell advertisers they don't want to bother with curating the absolutely massive amount of content they receive on a daily basis. This will likely lose them some cheddar but I'm sure they'd be swimming in it regardless. It's a form of greed, going this far to cater to corporate to rake in more advertising cheddar is leading them to disincentivise content creators which will likely lead to less interesting content which will lead to them losing my and others viewership.

First off, YouTube operates at a near-loss. Second, how is accidentally removing ads from tons of legitimate videos through false-positives that trip an algorithm "a form of greed, catering to corporate"? That's a problem for all parties involved. With this update, YouTube was likely trying to appease advertisers (via more clear indications that videos were becoming demonetized, that they were actually following through with something that's been in their ToS for a while) and creators (providing them with more visible indication of demonetization, creating an appeals process for them) at the same time, but they're likely not earning the respect of either group with how much they've mishandled the rollout.

If they follow their own policy, all of those ad removals are technically legit since it's incredibly easy to violate the policy. Probably they don't intend to apply the policy as strictly as it is written, especially for their big partners like Vevo, but that hardly makes things better for smaller youtubers who will have to wait and lose income before their videos get monetized again, if that will even happen at all. The problem isn't the videos that are being demonetized, it's the wording of the policy that allows Youtube to take down pretty much anything, making it impossible for content creators to match the policy and ensure their videos don't get demonetized.

The article you linked is behind a paywall btw.

Here are some more sources that discuss YouTube's lack of profitability.

This article offers more details about the current situation. Most important is that it seems that 1.) Demonetization stems from metadata, which includes things like the tags that a person uses for their video, 2.) Notifications for years of demonetized videos are coming in all at the same time, making the problem seem larger than it really is, and 3.) There is a high rate of re-monetization among videos being appealed, and they are being successfully appealed within at least 12 hours. The article goes on to discuss areas where YouTube can improve the system so that it screws up less. One suggestion from the article:



Under the ownership of such a data-reliant company as Google, this is likely already happening.

This just in: The European Union continues to ruin the Internet. And people thought China would deal the most damage to Internet freedom...

October 1st is supposed to be an important day for the Internet. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is supposed to transfer authority from the U.S. Government to a multi-stakeholder model, under the non-profit group known as ICANN. This process was started in 1998, and Obama only sped up the process in 2014 shortly after the Snowden/NSA revelations.

That's what's supposed to happen. Instead, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz has taken it upon himself to crusade against this, acting like if this transition happens the Internet will instantly fall under control of China or Russia. That isn't true. In fact, the opposite is true; the longer that the U.S. retains control of IANA, the more fidgety those countries will get.



Back in 2012 the Internet almost came under control of the United Nation's International Telecommunications Union (ITU). If Senator Cruz convinces Congress that IANA should stay under U.S. control and the government contract is renewed or funding for the transition is blocked, it could renew calls for the ITU to gain control of it.

Byron Holland of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, who was at the ITU talks in 2012, has more to say on this subject. It's a very worthwhile read.

EDIT: And here's a likely plan of how the likes of the U.N. and Russia will take over large amounts of the technical aspects of the Internet if the U.S. doesn't go through with the IANA transition.

The first general election debate was last night. Trending topic? Trump's wife's dress.

I want to die.

Update on the ICANN stuff: Cruz's plan to stop the handoff of complete oversight of IANA functions to ICANN fell through, but the Attorneys General of Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona have joined together to sue Obama in a last-ditch attempt to block the transition, which is supposed to happen in two days time.

If they manage to block the transition, then that'll be one of the biggest instances of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory that I'll have ever seen. I'm tired of people who have no idea how the Internet works having the ability to ruin good policies.

So, that court case those district attorneys filed did not work, and we've been living with ICANN and the multi-stakeholder community alone overseeing the functions of IANA for the last 17 days. If you haven't noticed anything different, then that's good; that's the way that it should be.

In other news, a Canadian company started a campaign to tell America that, while we're going through some tough times, we're still great. In the middle an incredibly divisive political climate, this is something that was very much needed:

American Elections! Who else is voting for Trump?

The school I teach at is holding mock elections, so posters of all the candidates have been going up in various places. We've had a problem with students tearing down the posters of candidates they don't like, though.

So I'd say it's going well so far

So glad this election is almost over. With any luck, this means we won't have to deal with the spoiled pumpkinhead much longer. We'll just have to deal with all the cretins he's drawn out of the woodwork.

Praying for you peeps over in USland to manage to elect Clinton instead of the disgusting mess of racism and sexism that somehow took human form

He's down by a lot in the polls, so I'm not TOO worried about Trump winning, I'm worried about what happens afterwards. Claiming that the election is rigged is no joke and I hope he comes to his senses and just gives his concession speech and goes away.

He's probably won't win, but I'm afraid that voters might become complacent if they become too confident that he'll lose. I'm worried that people who would've otherwise voted for Clinton will feel like they don't even need to vote.