YouTube creators have renewed calls to unionize on the platform after the company instituted new terms of service policies that will go into effect on December 10 and give the service an incredibly large – and vague – amount of power over the videos that will be allowed on the site. YouTube creators struggling with YouTube’s ever-shifting policies isn’t anything new in content creation, as it has been an on-going battle for years, often involving unannounced changes to the algorithm YouTube uses to promote videos or how the company defines videos that will eventually be flagged for demonetization.
For those unfamiliar, demonetization means exactly what it sounds like – YouTube can flag a video from a creator and it will no longer generate revenue for them, regardless of how big it is. The company very rarely offers nuanced explanation for why it demonetizes videos, too, leaving content creators to try and parse through the instances happening to bigger stars on the platform to help determine what the content has in common. Late last week, YouTube made the details of that December 10th policy change public, leading to outrage from YouTubers who felt that the new revised terms of service could give YouTube – and Google, which owns it – the ability to pull videos down from the platform with little to no explanation required.
That has since been clarified by YouTube via The Verge, which stated that there wouldn’t be any changes to the way products work or how data is collected or processed. Instead, the biggest change comes to how YouTube can terminate access to the platform, which used to require the company to “reasonably believe” it had cause to do so but now has “sole disrection,” which will essentially bring that policy in line with the rest of the platform, which remains largely inscrutable for content creators trying to make a living on it. The end result has been YouTube content creators renewing calls for a YouTuber union, including some major players in the content creation game:
The renewed discussion also has consumers re-examining their own relationship with the platform and their stance on whether it has too much control over the people producing content for it. The fact of the matter is, YouTube isn’t even making drastic changes to the way it treats the people who use the platform. It has held an incredible amount of power in determining whether or not creators can make a profit while using it, all while YouTubers remain legally not employed by YouTube. It’s an obscene amount of control for any company to have over its contractors, especially when it’s often exercised in an obscure manner, making it difficult for content creators to fall in line with expectations even if they wanted to.
With so much of content creation beginning to be understood as a burgeoning profession and a valuable asset to the companies that play host to it, it only makes sense that YouTube will want to retain its biggest stars. With so many of them feeling mistreated – and policies that are pushing them towards unionizing and attempting to establish some semblance of transparency – it seems like the best move forward for YouTube would be to circumvent any controversy and seriously change how it treats the many professionals that are making it money with their hard work.
