YouTube Attack

[raptor1956]

Did anyone else think the video of the attacker, standing in front of a stary background, think for a moment that she was some kind of virtual reality character or avatar?  Upon a closer look it appears to be an actual person doing a green-screen thing, but when I first saw it I thought VR.  Weird looking person or perhaps the weirdness is related to the green-screen thing.   

I know there been a lot of talk of a YouTube adpocalypse and she indicates she's been demonetized but her rambling didn't specify in what way and for what reason.  These are scary times.


Brian

[helius]

She was a militant vegan and had videos of animals being tortured, which I guess was (or is) against YouTube's TOS. The whole situation is unfortunate and I don't think it augers well for the internet in general.

[Halcyon]

Thankfully no innocent people were killed.

[Ampera]

It's an unfortunate topic that is further dampened by the overlooking political implications.

I could get into those, but I happen to like Dave in general and don't want to dirty the floor with the mud that comes with bringing that cat in.

It's just proof that stupid people can do anything. I have somewhat close friends with more subscribers than she did, so the fact that this was about lack of dosh being thrown at her is frankly disturbing and doesn't bode well for humanity as a whole.

Besides that, there is nothing else to say that belongs on this forum. I don't mind getting controversial, but when I do it here, I, for once, prefer to keep it on topic. It overlooks an issue I sadly believe will plague the US for decades to come, but that is again, an argument for another pub.

[raptor1956]

It's an unfortunate topic that is further dampened by the overlooking political implications.

I could get into those, but I happen to like Dave in general and don't want to dirty the floor with the mud that comes with bringing that cat in.

It's just proof that stupid people can do anything. I have somewhat close friends with more subscribers than she did, so the fact that this was about lack of dosh being thrown at her is frankly disturbing and doesn't bode well for humanity as a whole.

Besides that, there is nothing else to say that belongs on this forum. I don't mind getting controversial, but when I do it here, I, for once, prefer to keep it on topic. It overlooks an issue I sadly believe will plague the US for decades to come, but that is again, an argument for another pub.

To obtuse for me and I get the feeling I best not inquire further.

I mentioned the story mostly because the video they posted of her didn't look real, looked like VR or an avatar.  Clearly she had some issues that finally manifest in violence -- a violence that corrected itself at the end. 

There are a lot of people trying to make a living on YT but only a few ever will.  You either have to be first with something or have something about your personality that draws people and simply wishing to be the next Casey Neistat isn't going to work for 99.9999% of people.  Some folks play the shock angle and that works for some like Logan Paul but you kind of have to be at the sociopathic end of the personality spectrum to pull that off.


Brian

[Mr. Scram]

Thankfully no innocent people were killed.

At least one was critically injured and another seriously, which may very well mean their life will be forever different from this point on. That's not a good outcome. People always focus on deaths instead of the wounded, but the impact of the latter can be just as big.

[Mr. Scram]

I obviously can't condone what happened, but it does illustrate that Youtube's policies have real consequences for real people. Cutting off revenue for people can leave them destroyed and Youtube has so far hidden behind a fairly faceless wall, leaving people guessing what happened and why. Though this woman choose to express herself in a completely unsuitable manner, her actions do seem to reflect the feeling of being treated unfairly that many Youtubers have felt. Thankfully most people are more sensible.

[Ampera]

I obviously can't condone what happened, but it does illustrate that Youtube's policies have real consequences for real people. Cutting off revenue for people can leave them destroyed and Youtube has so far hidden behind a fairly faceless wall, leaving people guessing what happened and why. Though this woman choose to express herself in a completely unsuitable manner, her actions do seem to reflect the feeling of being treated unfairly that many Youtubers have felt. Thankfully most people are more sensible.

She had 5000 subscribers and was upset that her 300,000 lifetime views only got her 10 cents. That's not destroying any livelihoods any time soon.

[Mr. Scram]

She had 5000 subscribers and was upset that her 300,000 lifetime views only got her 10 cents. That's not destroying any livelihoods any time soon.

Is it fair, though?

[Ampera]

She had 5000 subscribers and was upset that her 300,000 lifetime views only got her 10 cents. That's not destroying any livelihoods any time soon.

Is it fair, though?

As I see it, YouTube is stuck between a rock and a crazy place. They already had a load of major companies pull their ads from YouTube because places like the WSJ freaked out that some chuckleduck had a Pepsi ad on a mean video. So now that all advertisers are freaking out, YouTube is forced to put bullshit measures in place to make sure that they don't freak out again.

I understand both side's dilemma, which stems directly from being reliant on a higher group of benefactors.

[EEVblog]

She had 5000 subscribers and was upset that her 300,000 lifetime views only got her 10 cents. That's not destroying any livelihoods any time soon.

Is it fair, though?

"Fair" would have been about $300 for those 300,000 lifetime views. That's $300 across all the years she has been doing it.
Just putting Youtube earnings into perspective.

[raptor1956]

I am not inclined to check out her channel and I guess it's been pulled down by now anyway so I can't say for sure just how justified she may have felt about being cheated.  But, if the fixation of showing animal abuse videos is her thing and she discovered that those videos were never going to be monitized, then I can't see how she could have expected any different.  I have a video about 911 and only later realized it wasn't monitized, I hadn't given any thought about monitization, but the mere fact that the title had 911 in it meant it could not be monitized. 

A lot of the alt right types that focus on hoax's and fake stories about 'crisis actors' etc are being demonitized and whining about being singled out because there conservatives.  So, we could see more outburst against YT for a similar set of reasons -- I hope not...


Brian

[Galenbo]

No glass ceiling in the terrorism industry.
She/it failed to kill (other) people, will that result in a bigger paygap ?

[David Hess]

I obviously can't condone what happened, but it does illustrate that Youtube's policies have real consequences for real people. Cutting off revenue for people can leave them destroyed and Youtube has so far hidden behind a fairly faceless wall, leaving people guessing what happened and why. Though this woman choose to express herself in a completely unsuitable manner, her actions do seem to reflect the feeling of being treated unfairly that many Youtubers have felt. Thankfully most people are more sensible.

She had 5000 subscribers and was upset that her 300,000 lifetime views only got her 10 cents. That's not destroying any livelihoods any time soon.

YouTube has been playing their obtuse demonetizing game to deliberately reduce payouts so it does not surprise me that they managed to push someone who was marginally stable over the edge.  They have taken their stand but I doubt they were expecting this kind of repercussion.  Why were they expecting everybody else to follow the rules when they do not?

[Ampera]

Regardless of what YouTube's policy was, this is nothing near an excuse or a cause for what has happened. If someone was this close to going out and icing some people, the same thing could have happened from being laid off at any other job. YouTube is their own platform, just because they make up policies that may even screw some people over, is nothing close to anyone being justified in saying that it is anything close to a true cause to the situation.

The woman's dead, and with it one less person who seems to have only been here to abuse the innocent.

[rsjsouza]

I obviously can't condone what happened, but it does illustrate that Youtube's policies have real consequences for real people. Cutting off revenue for people can leave them destroyed and Youtube has so far hidden behind a fairly faceless wall, leaving people guessing what happened and why. Though this woman choose to express herself in a completely unsuitable manner, her actions do seem to reflect the feeling of being treated unfairly that many Youtubers have felt. Thankfully most people are more sensible.

She had 5000 subscribers and was upset that her 300,000 lifetime views only got her 10 cents. That's not destroying any livelihoods any time soon.

Despite the revenue stream was small (US$0.10 or US$300.00), the hurt pride was probably the strongest factor that contributed to this person's distorted reality.

Having just watched Louis Rossman's live interview with two producers of a documentary against Yelp, I would adjust Mr Scram's sentence and mention that internet private companies' policies have real consequences for real people. In the case of Yelp, that is much more damaging as it impacts physical businesses with a lot more financial investment than a person with an idea on his head and a camera on his hand.

The interview is here:

[MyHeadHz]

She had 5000 subscribers and was upset that her 300,000 lifetime views only got her 10 cents. That's not destroying any livelihoods any time soon.

Is it fair, though?

"Fair" would have been about $300 for those 300,000 lifetime views. That's $300 across all the years she has been doing it.
Just putting Youtube earnings into perspective.

Here is the original screenshot (from one of her websites, archived):



She had multiple channels on youtube, and she was on several other platforms.  That screenshot was from just one channel on one platform for one month... after she was demonetized.  I'm not sure what was wrong with her (autism? schizophrenia?), but she was making a passable living for someone with her issues, while living with her parents.  Her revenue went from several hundred a month, perhaps over 1k+ a month... to just a couple dollars per month at most, and she had no idea what to do with her life after that.

The whole story is quite sad.  It seems like she spent all of her time devoted to her media channels and her site  She seems to have started with a basic template on her site and manually added massive amounts of code to make it function at a basic level... probably 100x more code than was needed.  The whole site was a mess... but she did it herself, and she was quite proud of it.

The same goes for her video content.  I was able to rip one of her channels before it was deleted and scanned over some of the videos.  She went to great length to not break any rules, including copyright.  Here she can be seen recording the screen with copyright info from the producer to prove she could use it, so she wouldn't be taken down or get a strike... even though it only says she needs to put a link in her description.

When her music seemed to stagnate, she went to cooking.   She literally made food that looked like piles of dog crap and she had no idea there was anything wrong.  She really tried, but she missed the mark on everything she did.  Still, she was doing well enough for her modest needs, until some more stricter regulations on smaller channels came into force.

She started blaming others and getting paranoid because she genuinely tried her best to follow all the rules and make the best content she could.  That was all she knew, and all she could do- all day, every day... but it was suddenly completely taken away from her without any real "fault" of her own (at least in her mind).  I think all this together was too much for her to comprehend and she simply had an acute psychotic break.

I don't know if anything could have been done differently to avoid what happened, but I find it an incredibly sad and unfortunate story all-around.

[BravoV]

The internet is affecting and at the same time exposing lots of sick people, not sure if its good or bad on the exposing part on sick ones, as privacy vs pro-active prevention.

Interesting yet scary time we are living now as everything happened and changed so fast.

[Mr. Scram]

Regardless of what YouTube's policy was, this is nothing near an excuse or a cause for what has happened. If someone was this close to going out and icing some people, the same thing could have happened from being laid off at any other job. YouTube is their own platform, just because they make up policies that may even screw some people over, is nothing close to anyone being justified in saying that it is anything close to a true cause to the situation.

The woman's dead, and with it one less person who seems to have only been here to abuse the innocent.

That's a bit of an apples to oranges comparison. It's not about being fired, it's about being marginalized and pushed around without any recourse. That's happened in work places too and has also been known to lead to people responding in violent ways.

Without wanting to get into politics too much, I think the feeling of being pushed around again and again is what leads to much of the violence in the world. Some people accept it, some people fight back through peaceful or legal means and a few respond with violence.

[IanMacdonald]

Also worth bearing in mind that humans experience 'displacement activities' which may be unrelated to the real problem in their lives. Therefore you should not assume that YouTube was the root cause. Someone may have been giving her an ongoing stream of verbal abuse, or battering her around the room, for example. YouTube created a minor annoyance that was one too many, and took the rap.

[Ampera]

That's a bit of an apples to oranges comparison. It's not about being fired, it's about being marginalized and pushed around without any recourse. That's happened in work places too and has also been known to lead to people responding in violent ways.

Without wanting to get into politics too much, I think the feeling of being pushed around again and again is what leads to much of the violence in the world. Some people accept it, some people fight back through peaceful or legal means and a few respond with violence.

I mean how is it an apples to oranges comparison when you admit that the exact same thing can happen in a work environment too? I just don't see how YouTube could possibly be blamed for this. It's like blaming someone for pressing an elevator call button that inadvertently causes the elevator car inside to fail all safeties and plummet to the bottom of the shaft, seriously injuring the occupants. YouTube might not be as innocent in this case, but it's still a remote action that nobody could truly say is a proper cause.

Being pushed around and marginalized is a way for a lot of people to get angry, mad, and even revolutionary (Sudan and South Sudan for one example), however I think the two greatest causes of violence and death is stupidity and poverty. You need to have some brain to know when you're being marginalized, and to move against the oppression to try to destroy it, but it only requires an idiot with not much to live for to fling shit aimlessly.

[helius]

In most cases there are warning signs that in retrospect look pretty obvious, but there's a saying about hindsight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_murders

[Mr. Scram]

I mean how is it an apples to oranges comparison when you admit that the exact same thing can happen in a work environment too? I just don't see how YouTube could possibly be blamed for this. It's like blaming someone for pressing an elevator call button that inadvertently causes the elevator car inside to fail all safeties and plummet to the bottom of the shaft, seriously injuring the occupants. YouTube might not be as innocent in this case, but it's still a remote action that nobody could truly say is a proper cause.

Being pushed around and marginalized is a way for a lot of people to get angry, mad, and even revolutionary (Sudan and South Sudan for one example), however I think the two greatest causes of violence and death is stupidity and poverty. You need to have some brain to know when you're being marginalized, and to move against the oppression to try to destroy it, but it only requires an idiot with not much to live for to fling shit aimlessly.

It can happen in a work environment too, but the different conditions is what makes it an apples to oranges comparison. It's not just someone who got laid off, it's someone who is consistently bullied by co-workers with reports not being taken serious, or someone who worked many extra hours without getting paid for it, only to get laid off or fired for no reason given or even for a concocted reason. It's not the negative experience that's the key here, it's the feeling of lack of control and perception of being taken advantage of.

Research has made it abundantly clear that stress is compounded by the inability to act against what induces pressure. It's not necessarily what's done to you, it's not being able to do anything about it that makes blood pressures soar and nerves fray. This is why patients that are able to administer their own sedatives tend to use less of it while also experiencing less pain.  Recent Youtube behaviour seems to score high on this scale. Videos or whole channels people worked hard on are wiped out seemingly indiscriminately, without obvious rhyme or reason. The how or why tends to stay obscured for the person it concerns. There's no real recourse either. You can sometimes challenge a decision, but that process is equally opaque. Youtube giveth and Youtube taketh and the only one judging Youtube is Youtube. It's the faceless machine tossing work and people aside without a second thought that gets to people.

Does that make the response appropriate? Of course not, nobody in his right mind wants this to happen. But if you keep dicking with people the chance of someone finally lashing out becomes ever larger.

[PA4TIM]

 don't want to dirty the floor with the mud that comes with bringing that cat in.

No problem as long as it's Schrodingers cat, that comes with a box, so no mud on the floor...   

[David Hess]

It's like blaming someone for pressing an elevator call button that inadvertently causes the elevator car inside to fail all safeties and plummet to the bottom of the shaft, seriously injuring the occupants. YouTube might not be as innocent in this case, but it's still a remote action that nobody could truly say is a proper cause.

I would blame them if they advocated against and removed the safeties and instead installed signs saying "falling elevator free zones".

If you are going to use obtuse policies to further your business interests at the expense of your participants, then you should be prepared for the long distribution tail to increase unlikely responses.