I think content creators are owed not being gas-lighted by Youtube. Whatever you may think of these rules, the truth is that these will only be applied selectively, and then YouTube will deny that they are applying them selectively, and lie to us by saying that this is a platform for all.

The truth is, there is a whitelist that big corporations and celebrities are on, where they always get monetized no matter what.

For example, when Logan Paul infamously uploaded video of a corpse in the Japanese "suicide forest"[1] he continued to monetize the video of a corpse, in blatant violation of YouTube policy, until he chose to take the video down on his own. His video was never flagged. His video was never demonetized. Despite a torrent of complaints and blatant violation of policy. However, people who criticized Logan Paul's actions not just had their videos demonetized, some of them had their entire channels deleted. The reason for this is that suicide is not advertiser friendly, so if auto-generated captions talked about it, they were demonetized. And if the title of your video is too similar to a much more popular video, then it is considered misleading metadata, and that can get your channel that you've had for years nuked. So reality tv show buffoon gets to make thousands of dollars off his video where he gawks at a dead body, but people making sincere criticism of this behavior are severely punished, and so have to tiptoe around criticizing him.

But, I think the most egregious hypocrisy on YouTube's part is their handling of mass shootings. The YouTube channels for CNN and Fox News were heavily monetized during the Las Vegas shooting. I mean, these corporate YouTube channels increased the number of ads because they knew lots of people would be watching them. But at the same time, any smaller channels that even mentioned guns or shootings had large swaths of their videos demonetized.

Dr Pepper and Coca Cola are thrilled to appear in ads every five minutes during a mass shooting, care of CNN[2]. But they act as if their sacred brand is too good to appear on a smaller, more authentic channel that wants to have serious discussion about issues. You can see a more complete account of this double standard here. [3]

This narrative about caring where ads appear is nothing more than a dishonest tactic to increase their leverage, as well as punish independent media that might rock the boat and provide an alternative viewpoint.

I know people who have spent years making a living from YouTube ad revenue, making frankly innocuous videos, like alternative history animations, who have had their YouTube careers virtually ruined, and have had to put in a huge amount of effort to please the YouTube algorithm, while big corporations and celebrities can revel in clickbait and salacious fetishization of violence for money. [4]

The most interesting and unique content on YouTube is what is being demonetized. The content that is being most monetized is what is already monetized on cable television. YouTube piggybacked on small independent creators to build their platform, and then drove them away by gas-lighting them with inconsistent demonetization policies to make room for reality tv channels and Fox News. Egregious.

If money is involved, and YouTube is being dishonest about what their real policies are, then I think this easily falls under antitrust laws, if not outright criminal fraud. They are lying when they say that they are an open platform. They are actual a platform where they mislead people into working to create content, and then unfairly picking the winners through back-channel agreements.

And, on top of YouTube's borderline fraudulent practices with demonetization, they are also the largest video platform in the world, and are increasingly a de-facto "channel" on nearly all smart tvs, through the ubiquity of their app. So, I really really hope that the federal government comes down on them hard. I hope that they are forced to have transparent and equally applied policies, and I hope that there is a pathway for small YouTube creators to get some justice.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-42752039

[2] https://twitter.com/h3h3productions/status/91474720399799091...

[3] https://medium.com/@devinmcnulty/youtubes-latest-double-stan...

[4] http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/12/can-youtube-survive-the-a...