Much like my fellow classmates I only experienced algorithmic audiences through social media. When I hear the word algorithmic I think of algorithm which then leads me to thinking about how terrible the current youtube algorithm is. Right now the youtube algorithm is dubbed as the “adpocalypse”. I found out by reading this post that the “adpoclaypse” came around after “companies like Coca-Cola and Amazon pulled ads from the platform after finding their content paired with hate speech and violent extremist content. YouTube — which places ads using a theme-guided algorithm, and at that point relied majorly on user flagging to catch inappropriate content — scrambled to appease the advertisers after mass outrage over the breach of trust.”(Dunphy) This was a huge scandal when this first happened and everyone and their mothers discussed what YouTube had been doing. Then we have YouTube’s response to the problem, a new algorithm we read about in the same article, “Guidelines for content that might be deemed “Not Advertiser-Friendly” (a term now so ubiquitous in YouTube creator discussions that it’s mostly said in shorthand, “NAF”) include categories like “sensitive social issues” or “tragedy and conflict,” (Dunphy). If this sounds vague that’s because thats exactly how YouTube deals with problems basically all channels have to become “family friendly” unless the creator will not get any ad revenue. Now, you have amazing content creators being told they wont get paid and who’s video will never be recommended anywhere on the site.
With this is mind YouTube creators have to adjust and be careful on how to run their and channel in a way that will get promoted by the website if they curse just once there is a huge chance of being demonetized. However when a video get’s demonetized or taken down the website does not inform you completely on why they did so. They leave you with a vague reason of “language” or “inappropriate” to describe a whole video when in actually it could just be one part of the video so they leave the creator in the dark of what happen and they have to go back and see what they did wrong. YouTube has really hurt a lot of creators and hopefully soon there will be change
Work Cited:
Dunphy, Rachel. “Can YouTube Survive the Adpocalypse?” Select All, 28 Dec. 2017, nymag.com/selectall/2017/12/can-youtube-survive-the-adpocalypse.html.
Final Word count: 385