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YouTube’s Independent Creators Are Mad That They Can’t Say ‘Coronavirus’
To prevent the spread of misinformation, the platform has been prioritizing traditional news sources
YouTube, like other social networks, has sent home its contractor-staffed human moderation teams in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus. That means moderation decisions are increasingly left to an automated system that no one is really sure is up to the job. To make the job easier, YouTube has decided to prioritize what Susan Wojcicki, YouTube’s CEO, called in a letter to creators “authoritative sources” in any search terms related to coronavirus.
That has taken effect: Search the site now for “coronavirus” and you’ll mostly be served up clips from established news programs and publications. In the U.K., that means videos from the BBC, ITV, and the Guardian are presented high up in search results; in the U.S., you’ll see ABC News, CNN, MSNBC, and the Washington Post. YouTube has also stopped serving ads on most videos related to coronavirus, which means those videos don’t earn revenue for their creators.
As a result, creators who would ordinarily focus on news commentary have shied away from creating videos around coronavirus. Or, they’ve developed odd codes (like calling coronavirus “CV”) to try and subvert the new policy. Some of them say that the restrictions are hurting their ability to earn money from YouTube, which has not yet figured out how to moderate the type of independent content it encourages them to create.
“Giving high authority to the mainstream media and auto-demonetizing normal creators discourages YouTubers from talking about important news, and trains viewers to watch cable TV,” says Nerd City, a YouTuber with 840,000 subscribers whose videos comment on YouTube’s policies and creators, told OneZero. “This is the last thing YouTube should want.”
“It’s insulting to see YouTube treat all this legacy media as superior to endemic content in every way,” says Nerd City. “It clearly isn’t, and that’s why so many of us moved on from it years ago.”
YouTube responded to backlash from creators like Nerd City by allowing some videos from independent publishers to earn money, saying “we will enable…
