violent content – Techdirt (original) (raw)

YouTube’s New Content Policies Around Mature Content Results In Chaos

from the surprise! dept

You will recall that we spent a great deal of words and posts in 2021 discussing the problems Twitch created for itself by deciding to suddenly change the way it enforces copyright infringement claims for its streaming community, mostly without informing that community of those changes and remaining extremely opaque and vague about the standards and processes after it went into effect. While some of the ways Twitch decided to enforce copyright on its platform were fairly silly in my view, the real problem stemmed from Twitch’s inability to properly and proactively communicate to its own community. That’s what set everyone off as much, or more, than anything else.

Given the highly visible nature of Twitch’s no good, very bad time with all of this, it’s more than a tad surprising to see its rival, YouTube, going through the exact same issue after it updated its mature content standards for YouTube videos.

Members of YouTube’s gaming community are calling out the video hosting site for adding new regulations regarding profanity usage and violent content, disproportionately affecting gaming creators who produce unscripted videos such as let’s plays of M-rated games. Worse, the policy is retroactively deeming their videos in violation of new rules and affecting their ability to make money on the platform.

The rule changes in question was originally made in November of 2022, and the blog post announcing it says that YouTube now treats all profanity equally (meaning “ass” is just as bad as “fuck”), and any usage of such in titles, thumbails, or in the first seven seconds of a video may result in complete demonetization. While you can swear after the first eight seconds, if you use profanity “consistently throughout the video” it may also be demonetized according to this new policy. The same restrictions apply to violent content, as well.

Except that an additional change to violent content was made, with the restriction no longer applying only to IRL violence, but now depictions of violence in media content, such as video games. This policy too was applied in a retroactive manner, meaning that videos that were fine to post previously are suddenly being demonetized.

Members of the streaming community are understandably unhappy with all of this. In the case of one streamer, Daniel Condren, it appears that in attempting to appeal one instance of a video of his getting flagged, the end result was YouTube flagging even more of his videos.

After escalating the issue, Condren says he saw a mass flagging of around a dozen more videos that he attempted to appeal through the same channels, all of which were immediately denied. Eventually, after being put in direct contact with YouTube, Condren was told these videos were being age-restricted and demonetized due to these new policies, and he says he believes these older videos were being affected because he escalated the situation with the original video.

“As you are aware, all content available on the platform must follow these guidelines, regardless of when they were uploaded or when the policy was implemented,” a YouTube rep told Condren, as shown by screenshots in the video.

Making this all the more frustrating have been comments and guides coming from other streamers on how to get around these new restrictions. These largely involve simply adding buffer content at the start of a video to push any objectionable content beyond the 8 second mark.

Not that the streaming community finds any of this acceptable, still.

As knowledge of the retroactive effects this policy change has on creators has spread since its implementation in November, other YouTube users like Charles Christopher White Jr., better known online as commentator and streamer MoistCr1TiKaL, have also posted about the issue, criticizing that platform’s lack of communication.

“If you’re just now figuring this out and wondering why your channel got demonetized over the last 24 hours, I’m sorry I had to be the one to shit out this bad news onto your plate,” White says. “Would’ve been a lot more palatable if it came from YouTube’s mouth as opposed to my ass. But it is what it is. I am very, very convinced they will never actually communicate policy changes ever. At least, not in any effective manner.”

Competing with Twitch by taking on its worst practices is probably not a great way to do business, YouTube.

Filed Under: content moderation, mature content, profanity, streaming, video games, violent content
Companies: google, youtube

from the shut-up-and-sideload-whiners dept

Donald Trump has spent much of this week raging over on Truth Social and passing on nonsense QAnon conspiracy theory bullshit. And now it comes out that Google has so far refused to approve the Android app of Truth Social for the Google Play store, in large part over Truth Social’s failure to moderate violent content on its platform. Google is noting that the problem is Truth Social’s and the ball is in their court:

“On Aug. 19, we notified Truth Social of several violations of standard policies in their current app submission and reiterated that having effective systems for moderating user-generated content is a condition of our terms of service for any app to go live on Google Play.”

“Last week Truth Social wrote back acknowledging our feedback and saying that they are working on addressing these issues.”

NBC reports that Trump Media and Technology Group is pushing back on this saying that Truth Social was a “vibrant, family-friendly environment.” As I recall, TMTG’s CEO Devin Nunes had promised early on that his site would be heavily moderated to create a family friendly environment. However, studies that have looked at how Truth Social moderates have found that it appears to be somewhat arbitrary and capricious. The site is quick to remove criticism of the former president, but not great at banning violent content.

Anyway, this is somewhat reminiscent of Parler, which was removed from the Google Play store (and elsewhere) over its weak moderation efforts.

Of course, even as some are saying that this means Truth Social cannot be accessed on Android, that’s false. You can still sideload apps onto Android phones, even if they’re not in Google Play (this is in contrast to Apple where things need to go through the app store).

I know that some are up in arms about this, but again, this is just kind of basic stuff. If you want to be listed on someone else’s directory, you need to play by their rules. The fact that Android still allows sideloading should make this somewhat uncontroversial — but, of course, Trump’s fans are flipping out, because they’re nothing if they can’t play victim.

Filed Under: content moderation, devin nunes, donald trump, google play, violent content
Companies: tmtg, truth social

Sen. Rockefeller Continues His Quest To Regulate Free Speech With His 'Violent Content Research Act'

from the because-we-love-our-elected-reps-pursuing-personal-agendas dept

Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s pet project — fighting violent media — just got a shot in the arm from the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee (because those three seem like perfect complements…), which “advanced” his legislation directing the National Academy of Sciences to study the effects of violent media on children.

Rockefeller’s bill — the “Violent Content Research Act of 2013” — also drags the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services along for the ride, which indicates the end result of this study is going to be some form of regulation, First Amendment or no.

Why the country needs redundancy in studies of violent media is something only Rockefeller knows for sure. The president himself ordered the Centers for Disease Control to study the effects of violent media on children shortly after the Sandy Hook shooting, although the president’s request also tasked researchers with looking for a link to gun violence.

Both studies are looking for something that hasn’t been conclusively proven to date: violent video games and media make people more violent. Rockefeller has his own ideas, ones which hopefully won’t skew the results. For the past half-dozen years, Rockefeller has made a handful of efforts to regulate or otherwise curtail violent media, to this point mainly concentrating on broadcasters. Every attempt to date has been shot down, mainly due to First Amendment concerns.

But the Sandy Hook shooting breathed new life into Rockefeller’s media-controlling aspirations. One week after the shooting, he fired off a “concerned” press release that made the following claim:

As parents, research confirms what we already know – these violent images have a negative impact on our children’s wellbeing.

But research doesn’t confirm this. Perhaps these two new studies will find a link between violent media and violence, but to date, research hasn’t proven there’s a link. Hopefully, this research will confirm what seems to be obvious — that violent video games and media do not alone turn a person violent.

Lobbying groups for broadcasters and a spokesperson for the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) both issued statements welcoming the new research, with the ESA pointing out that the FTC once again has recognized the voluntary ESRB program as the “best in the entertainment sector.”

With Rockefeller already having decided that violent media is a problem, it will be interesting to see what his reaction will be if this research comes to the same conclusions many others have. He clearly harbors a desire to clean up the airwaves (and beyond) and there aren’t many things more stubborn than a politician with a headful of bad conclusions.

Unfortunately for those on the receiving end of the scrutiny, they’re facing more than one such politician. The bill’s co-sponsors include Sen. Coburn and Sen. Blumenthal, both of whom might be remembered as being in the select group of 18 senators who voted for the PROTECT IP Act back when it was in its nascent, most damaging form. Clearly, both are in favor of regulating free speech. (Or, at the very least, punishing the internet to protect the movie industry.)

Of these two, Blumenthal is the greater concern. While at his post as the Attorney General of Connecticut, Blumenthal waged a grandstanding war against Craigslist and Backpage for hosting escort ads, as well as attacking Myspace and Facebook for their supposedly “inadequate” tracking of sex offenders. (This despite Myspace handing over a list of 90,000 names to Blumenthal.)

Blumenthal also filed an amicus brief (siding with the state of California in its attempt to regulate video games) with the Supreme Court arguing for the ban of violent video games, despite 10 states having already struck down such attempts as unconstitutional. In his brief, Blumenthal made some vastly ignorant claims about the video game industry’s “inaction,” suggesting it “follow the lead” set by the MPAA with its rating system, somehow ignoring (or not realizing) the fact that the ESRB has had a ratings system in place for years and a voluntary enforcement system that routinely outperforms movie theatres (and DVD retailers) in preventing minors from purchasing M-rated games.

Like the industries mentioned above, I too support more studies into the effects (or lack thereof) of violent media. My issue isn’t with the study, it’s with the people calling for it and, more specifically, the timing. Both of these requested studies were announced shortly after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, giving them the reactionary sheen of a witch hunt.

If these groups are allowed to do the research unimpeded by those looking to have their pet theories confirmed, we might finally have some sort of consensus on the relation of violent media to violence. If not, we might find ourselves looking at regulatory action prompted by compromised or badly extrapolated results that “justify” the curtailing of free speech these senators so obviously crave.

Filed Under: free speech, jay rockefeller, studies, violent content, violent media