YouTube's Problems

YouTube's System is Broken

Youtube has removed a major feature of it’s website and something that helped content creators with what they put out for others to watch: the dislike counter, a tool viewers used so that content creators would know how many people don’t like their videos. The site kept up the like button, but without the dislikes on display, it makes the purpose of the other pointless. Creators and audiences now have to rely on comments that people leave so that they know who doesn’t like the video they made and what they should do. However, the info gathered isn’t always reliable.

The impact of the dislike button could be seen when the first Sonic movie trailer came out. As soon as people saw Sonic’s character design (before the reworked one came out), most of them disliked the video and wrote in the comments about how he needed a serious rework. Paramount (the studio who made the movie), used this advice and the amount of dislikes to determine that they needed to change the design. They did, and people were happy.

The dislike button also affected “Youtube rewind, 2019.” Youtube puts out a rewind video of the current year sometimes, however, 2019’s was by far the most hated one. It’s one of Youtube's most disliked self promoted videos on their platform. However, that is no longer the case because the dislike counter has been removed, only leaving the likes on the video, making it look like it has good reviews.

Another problem creators are facing on Youtube is that Youtube will demonetize creators' videos for simply having a few swears in the video, or if the video contains “inappropriate content.” Demonetization is when someone who once earned money based on what they do no longer earns said money based on a decision made by the higher ups. Most of the time, the content isn’t even inappropriate. For example, user Telepurte, an animator that animates some of his characters in some slightly suggestive situations, had content removed by Youtube. However, the work is never anything graphic and all the animations are just made for fun, or to poke fun at some tropes and stereotypes that people might throw onto some animators/artists.

Sometimes, however, creators do go a bit over the line, but that’s why another feature on Youtube exists. That feature is called age restriction. When activated on a video, it prevents children from viewing any inappropriate or vulgar content.

Despite all these features existing to regulate content, creators still run into problems on the site. One of the problems is that people lie about their age on the site so that they can view videos that were once age restricted for them. Another problem is that Youtube admins and big companies will wrongfully copyright claim videos for having certain music in them, even though the music is allowed to be used creatively.

Nintendo is notorious for filing copyright claims against videos, even though the video that they had copyrighted was a simple gameplay video. A personal example of mine is when I tried to upload my playthrough of “Super Mario Galaxy,” a game for the Nintendo Wii. Youtube removed the copyright claim on my video because “Nintendo has claimed this video because the audio used here is owned by this company, and that the user of this channel has claimed to own this music.” But the thing is, I never claimed to own the music. I even wrote in my description that all the music in the game, and the game itself, was made by Nintendo. Even so, this is a common issue that needs to be fixed.

Sometimes, more prominent content creators even get away with things that small creators can’t. For example, big channels (usually with 5k or with millions of subscribers) get away with using certain media and such because they are popular and well known. Youtube channels such as Mr.Beast or Nintendo have gotten away with clickbaiting viewers. “Clickbaiting'' is when a creator posts content, whose main purpose is to attract attention and encourage visitors to click on a link to a particular web page. Big channels use this a lot to rake in/steal views away from other channels so that they can make more revenue from the views they get. Kids’ videos seem to fall under this category a lot. They put flashy titles or cool sounding words in the thumbnail to make anyone who sees it want to watch the video.

The final issue with Youtube is the more child friendly version of the site, Youtube Kids. That version of the site says it’s for children's content only, however, people uploading videos there have found a way to work around that. They’ll put up ads that have characters from games, shows, or movies, knowing that children will be familiar with them. However, the characters will be in certain situations that are not appropriate for children, and children, not knowing any better, will click on the ads and get surprised (and traumatized!) by what they see.

A video that follows this example perfectly is an 18+ video of a video game character. It was originally on a site called Newgrounds, which was fine because stuff like that is widely accepted on the site (that, and no one cares what’s put up there, it has a maturity filter to make sure that children can’t access it.) The video somehow got on Youtube Kids, but luckily it was cropped. Still, most children saw it and didn’t really know what was going on in the video. Some showed their parents, giving them a clear idea of what was really happening in the video. In its current state, Youtube has a lot of issues that really need to be fixed. If they are not fixed, things will continue to get worse for the people trying to make a living off the content they make on the site. There are solutions, but Youtube would have to add the dislike button back, along with changing the way they approach certain videos and topics.