Depending on the extent to which you engage yourself in online media, you may or may not have been made aware of the controversies looming over the heads of the top dogs at YouTube. For the past couple of years, Youtube has gone back and forth on demonetizing and monetizing its media. When a video is monetized, it allows the presence of advertisement, which then results in the potential to earn monetary reward for one's uploads based on the number of views.

The issues really ensued when inappropriate and degrading content that had been uploaded with advertisements attached to them gained quick popularity in 2016. Enraged, advertisers began to remove their commercials from YouTube, causing Youtube's revenue to plunge. Since, Youtube has gone back and forth on monetizing its content. The main reason for demonetizing media was that not every video uploaded daily could be reviewed for inappropriate language or behavior. The issue with demonetizing all content was that not every video is in fact inappropriate for advertisers.

The solution has become that YouTubers could submit their videos for monetization by editing which advertising formats they would like attached to that uploaded video. There was some mild negativity regarding this solution. YouTubers complained that by the time videos were reviewed, the prime time for gaining views had been lost.

Joseph Garcia, a rising YouTube content creator, whose channel is titled FPS Diesel, answered some questions on the matter.

I asked, "So it seems that YouTube has gone back and forth in attempts to monetize and demonetize content, but as a result it has negatively affected YouTubers whose content is not necessarily inappropriate. New algorithms have been configured to compute whether a video is worthy of monetization. Do you have any opinions on this?"
"The system is bad, don't get me wrong. It's broken, but some YouTubers over-inflate the issue, especially political channels. If you know the system, you can get around it. The system has been getting better every day. It's there for a reason, it's not perfect, but it's getting better and at least we know when videos don't make money now. It's creators like Logan [Paul] who make it so difficult," Garcia iterated.

Logan Paul, a popular YouTuber whose main audience encapsulates preteens to young adults, recently received a lot of backlash on an uploaded video that exploited the Suicide Forest in Japan and a dead body he and his team had found within the forest. Many people argued that Logan Paul did so in order to obtain views and thus, make more money on his video. The issue many YouTubers had was that he was able to gain quick access to monetization because of the popularity of his page, despite the content being highly inappropriate, while other pages have some difficulty gaining the rights to monetization quickly. We asked Garcia on his opinions regarding this incident, as well.

"Do you foresee any consequences for Logan Paul from YouTube? It seemed as if YouTube didn't take much action in removing his video to begin with."
Garcia's response was, "They didn't take any action, in fact someone approved the video to stay up - no restrictions. There should be consequences, most people feel there should [be consequences], but there won't. He [Logan Paul] might just choose to step down or act better from here on out. I have a feeling it will all just blow over eventually. That is usually what happens with this stuff unfortunately. It's just a sign of the times."

Garcia had uploaded a video in response to the Logan Paul incident on his page, and the link can be found at the end of the article.

Regardless of recent controversies, however, YouTube has always been and will always be a marvelous source of fun entertainment, riveting information, cute and obsess-worthy vlogs, and unlimited music. Like Garcia, many have hope that all of these controversies will soon blow over. There is hope for the future, and with that, I am signing off.

God bless!

The link to Joseph Garcia's response video on Logan Paul is here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2017/09/18/a...

Bibliography

Kain, Erik. “YouTube Wants Content Creators To Appeal Demonetization, But It's Not Always That Easy.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 19 Sept. 2017,
www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2017/09/18/adpocalypse-2017-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-youtubes-demonetization-troubles/#47acddff6c26.