"Glitches"

Two big events in the social media-tech world went mostly unmentioned over the past weekend. On YouTube, a large number of channels covering the Russo-Ukraine War was demonetized without notice on Saturday morning. The link quotes Denys Davydov, one of those demonetized and a very prominent YouTuber, saying his channel was demonetized because it "exploits, dismisses, or condones the war". The YouTuber at the link says,

So, his daily update videos were averaging about one million views -- one million views in one day -- this makes Denys Davydov one of the largest creators on YouTube, I'm not even joking. But he was entirely kicked out of the YouTube adsense, because he operates more than one channel. He also has the channel Pilot Blog that has over a million subscribers, has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine on this channel, this is his pilot and travel channel, and this was also demonetized. So, it wasn't the channel, it was Denys who was demonetized.

Another well-known YouTuber, Artur Rehi, an Estonian military member who comments on the war based on his military experience, received a similar message.

I discovered today that over the night, monetization has been disabled on all of my videos because I cover the Ukrainian fight for freedom. Some ads are still running and they will be cut also. . . I hope Youtube still allows super thanks and members [alternate means of donating] but I cannot be sure. . . . I read the letter to you now. "Due to the war in Ukraine [unintelligible] of content that exploits, dismisses, or condones the war".

Jake Broe, the YouTuber at the first link, says,

There is the small possibility that this is all a mistake . . . and then YouTube on a case-by-case basis chooses to restore the monetization capabilities. And I partly think this might have been a mistake, because Perun was also demonetized. If you're not familiar with Perun's channel, I mean, this is top quality military content. These are hour-long PowerPoint presentations. There is nothing about condoning or dismissing the war in Ukraine, this is some of the highest-quality content you can find on YouTube. And he also had his channel completely demonetized. So he's Talking to people at YouTube, he's working with them. . .

Later in the day, YouTube issued a perky update that the "issue" was "fixed":

the monetization issue is fixed for all channels & new uploads → creators: you can upload as usual

the fix is still rolling out to some *previously uploaded vids* will send a final final update once fully resolved: https://t.co/VKFCbMXIB5

thx again for your continued patience https://t.co/bQeW0wpzEC

— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) October 9, 2022

This won't fly. Coming from the tech world myself, an "issue" is a problem with how the product works. I press enter, and it doesn't send in the order, say. That's a glitch, and support works with the programmers to fix it. But this isn't an "issue". Somebody, either through human intervention or through an algorithm, implemented a corporate policy, to wit, any channel that in the judgment of the "trust and safety committee" or equivalent body (or an algorithm acting under its authority) who "exploits, dismisses, or condones the war" is demonetized. This is not a "glitch", this is a corporate action that was explained via corporate e-mails.

It apparently required Perun, a prestigious user, to negotiate carefully with said "trust and safety committee" (or someone who could overrule them) to rescind the stated policy. This was not a software update or program fix. In fact, a human operator should have been fired but probably wasn't.

Both Denys Davydov and Artur Rehi announced it had been a big mistake, they'd been remonetized, and indeed, they even groveled, apologizing for jumping to conclusions just because the company had sent them e-mails saying they'd been demonetized for exploiting, dismissing, or condoning the war. Davydov posted,

Channel is being fixed. Many thanks for your support ❤️✈️. I guess I reacted too early… Was sure that my channel will stay demonetized… Now everything is fine and it was a YouTube system glitch where thousands of channels were effected.

The other big unreported event was a similar reversal by PayPal:

In a censorship experiment gone awry, PayPal reversed course Saturday night and said it was withdrawing a new policy that would have allowed the company to fine users $2,500 if they spread "misinformation."

The company sent a statement to the National Review saying the Acceptable Use Policy had been sent out mistakenly,

“An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy," the firm said in the statement.

"Our teams are working to correct our policy pages. We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused,” it added.

The policy lit up social media over the weekend, drawing widespread rebuke even from the company's former CEO.

Until the reversal, PayPal was set to impose the new terms, which laid out a list of policy violations which "may subject [users] to damages, including liquidated damages of $2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation, which may be debited directly from [their] PayPal account."

Among those violations is any activity that "promotes misinformation," though the company did not clarify what it means by that term.

Another very popular YouTuber, Romanian Tvee, commented on the policy, making the point that no serious business can rely on PayPal if it announces that it can debit your account for $2500 per infraction for arbitrary reasons. He makes the very valid observation that naive tech users treat PayPal as a bank and leave balances in their accounts that are simply vulnerable to this type of action, whether PayPal rescinds a particular policy or not. His advice is to use PayPal exclusively as a payment channel that deducts payments from your separate bank or card account, and likewise to withdraw all balances from payments on a daily basis. He wonders how it could happen that

the mom and pop website PayPal, this little upstart company, did not have a team of lawyers to look at their statement, they did not have any fact checkers, they did not have any editors, this little tiny website on the corner of the intenet, and they just happened to goof! Yes, everyone makes mistakes, yes!

Glitches! No such thing. Major corporations are in fact letting Karens run amok. The lizard people need to get a grip.