Sunday, July 3, 2016

YouTube Terms of Service and Demonitization

It has come to my attention that some videos are being demonitized with no reasons given.  My friend Oskar Jungell recently had one demonitized in this fashion.  It's happened since the new Terms of Service have been instituted on YouTube.  It seems that YouTube is having a very difficult struggle with understanding how free speech and fair use actually work.
Does this look like it should be punished to you?
On second though, let's keep that question rhetorical.

Fair use allows for the critique, in part or in whole, of the works of others, regardless of the copyright claims on them.  A copyright claim only protects a user from having their video copied verbatim, or used in a manner that doesn't coincide with free speech.

It's important to note that, under United States law (since that's where Google is headquartered, and still has probably the majority of its servers) it is illegal for anyone to file a false DMCA request.  By selectively singling out certain kinds of videos that YouTube finds unfavorable, but not others of the same kind, YouTube is creating a double standard in this regard.

The Terms of Service are much too broad now, and things that should legitimately not be affected by it are.  Meanwhile, things that should clearly be taken down as a violation (like the sort of video 'responses' that GradeAUnderA talked about a short while ago), are being given a basic sort of free reign.


Grade is clearly an expert.
Give your views to his longing chin.

Let's make YouTube Great Again!  I'm gonna try to get a #RevertTOS thunderclap going for two weeks from now.

Gender Designations


I just added another video!  





As it's related, I wanted to make one final point regarding gender identity.  The video claims, over and over, that the machine is the one determining genders.  Red or blue, as they put it.  However, the woman narrating the video is actually the one determining new genders.  She's arguing, in exactly the same way as the strawman piece of crap she created, that we should actually divide the lines finer and have a more diverse set of genders.  This argument is made in the same breath as the implication that having these genders in the first place is wrong somehow.

It's no wonder followers of Buzzfeed get so confused.  I'd be confused too if I were simultaneously complaining about the establishment of gender groups while simultaneously establishing new gender groups.

Is your head hurting yet?