YouTube are up to something again, not just this as Lotus Eaters are cleaner than Trump (since he's on investigation 40 by now and still no conviction), all their 'controversial' content is on a seperate website and they were apparently praised for following guidelines. They were demonetised for 'associations'
So they pulled a Crowder where they couldn't get them for any rules so changed the rules to hurt them because 'wrong opinions'
A bit of a tangent, but I've also noticed a few clipping channels and the like getting hit even though they have permissions from the original creators, so hard to know if this is just a targeting of traditional/conservative value channels or YouTube are up to some fuckery and they are just keeping their 'precious virtue signals' out of harms way as everyone else is hit.
YT is on a major censorship binge right now because a bunch of state and federal lawmakers (both parties) started making noises about censoring discussion about the SVB collapse and related issues on social media, ostensibly in order to prevent a run on the banks. If it's being said in public, you can be sure some three-letter agencies reached out to YT and other tech companies in private and told them to put the boot down.
That wouldn't surprise me, they were already terrified of talk in right wing circles of instead of physical protesting, just withdrawing your money in protest as if all MAGA guys did that it'd probably be enough to collapse a few banks right now.
It would, but I think it's really just an excuse for more censorship. Lotus Eaters did air a few segments on the bank collapses, but other creators I watch, including a lot of pop culture guys whose content has nothing to do with that, have all said that their engagement and subscriber growth has suddenly stalled to almost nothing after a decent period of growth.
Amazed they lasted this long, honestly. Following the rules of a platform never protects you if the lefty owners don't like your politics - they either keep inventing new rules, or they just pull some total bullshit out of their asses that magically only applies to you and then stonewall you.
Patreon did it to him years ago over him telling the alt-right that they were 'acting like niggers' in a youtube stream. They did it to Lauren Southern over her presence on a boat attempting to document and obstruct migrant crossings of the Mediterranean. Reddit does it to all of us.
You can't live on a leftist platform any more.
It won't be too long before you can't live in a leftist country.
Oddly, delivering common sense ("men are not women") and milquetoast-tier conservative thought while constantly bending the knee to the Terms of Service still wasn't enough to keep the gods of YouTube at bay.
I'm guessing it's temporary (probably based on mass flagging by trannies) and will eventually be called a mistake. Another isolated mistake that only affects right-wing content.
It was alright back in 2016 when there were really no alternatives available among other things but now alt-tech has come along they aren't needed anymore frankly so I completely get it.
You still need a presence within the walled garden if you want to talk to normies. Retreating from the public square entirely just leaves the freaks uncontested.
It's getting close to the silly season (elections) so I'm guessing this is just the beginning. Anything that isn't rabidly "progressive" is doomed to be demonetized and shadow-banned.
I'd be kind of suspicious of any conservative channel or person that isn't to be honest.
Edit: The whining "but I've been a good boy, Daddy" milquetoast groveling tone is kind of sickening and disappointing. Jesus, Carl. You used to be cool.
Yeah, I get that it's supposed to be a show of good faith, but when are we just going to say, flat out, the progressives don't operate in good faith and we're cucks for playing fairly with them?
So here's something fucked up from a lawsuit someone else filed when their videos were demonetized (there are a lot of these lawsuits):
“Plaintiff charges Defendants with wrongfully demonetizing, censoring, restricting and removing his videos. The Ninth Circuit has made clear that removing or restricting postings falls within a publisher’s traditional functions.” Cites to Barnes v. Yahoo; Ebeid v. Facebook; Roommates.com. The court adds that demonetization decisions are analogous to removal decisions, so they too qualify as editorial decisions (“Both fall under the rubric of publishing activities”).
I think it's bullshit to say demonetization is the same as an editorial decision. An editorial decision is about whether to include or exclude content on a site. A demonetization decision leaves the content intact but simply deprives you the financial gain from it. YouTube still gets the traffic and ad revenue even though you don't see a penny.
This is all part of the "websites are publishers when it benefits them, and not when it can be held against them" Section 230 law.
Yep, why in the world does youtube get to make "editorial" decisions at all when they're explicitely not a publisher.
Section 230 is broken as fuck and, frustratingly, the fix is really simple:
If you're a platform, you can't be sued or charged with any content on your site so long as you remove anything illegal (ie a warrant is issued) in a reasonable amount of time. You can't censor, modify, hide, or otherwise discriminate negatively against any content (I'd be find with certain content being "boosted" or "featured"). Further, you are legally liable for your terms of service and can be sued if you either don't apply them fairly or do not adequately explain them or their application (in this case, not providing a specific infringement).
If you're a publisher, you can do whatever the hell you want on your site, but you are legally liable for everything on it.
Zero sympathy, I'm somebody who followed Sargon since the GamerGate days and I've seen how often they cucked themselves to youtube policy for the sake of monetisation which also included blocking important shit they're talking about and largely ignoring their alt-tech channels. Yes they've technically uploaded alt-tech exclusives but only to Rumble.
On Odysee they did the old mirror option and never bothered uploading any uncensored videos up there so you'd go to Odysee and realise they're just endlessly bitching about youtube content policy. Next they're going to do what every big tech social media addicts do, they're going to beg their way back onto the platform by riling up their audience.
I actually have nothing against them as people generally, I've gone to a few of Sargon's live shows before along with Count Dankula's to support them. This behaviour of theirs as well as others has always been a piss take and I can't be bothered with their channel anymore as a result.
Just a bit of background for people wanting to understand what's going on. There are quite a number of content creators out there who just blatantly ignore their alt-tech audience and mirror content with barely any interaction. Styxenhammer is one of the few out there who genuinely seems to give a fuck about growing his presence on alt-tech, many of them use it as their backup channels rather than anything serious.
By the way, saw this kind of annoying behaviour when Elon Musk took over twitter. When a bunch of banned people were re-instated the first fucking thing these people did was ditch their alt-tech accounts and only used them for advertising their twitter accounts. I immediately got rid of them from my timeline over shit like that and it pissed me off. People like that are part of the problem because they're like addicts and the people at youtube know this as well so they take full advantage of them. I lose a lot of respect for anyone that starts begging on these platforms after they've been beaten with the demonetisation and ban stick.
It's much easier for individual creators like Styx or Nick Rekieta to move their primary presence to alt tech and still maintain a decent income from it. Organizations like Lotus Eaters need a gross profit margin above a certain percentage in order to sustain themselves, because Sargon is paying at least a dozen employees. Monetization on platforms like Rumble just doesn't facilitate that kind of thing: not because the audience is smaller, but because they are not yet technologically on par with YouTube.
There are ways around it, like what Crowder has done with Mug Club, and I don't know how many subscribers the Lotus Eaters website has, but it's probably not enough to keep the lights on and pay everybody's salary without YT income. Rumble is probably the most business-savvy alternative in terms of profitability, although I still prefer Odysee's UI, but both of them are still much less accessible to casual viewers than YouTube is.
From a business perspective you make a fair point, but at the same time, it shows they are being full of shit. I think the real problem with regards to growing an audience is the political commentary sphere has become saturated as fuck. As the saying goes any Tom, Dick and Harry can have an alt-tech account now away from youtube and do pretty well for themselves.
Why would I watch any of that content especially when I know they don't really give a fuck about sticking it to big tech? It's also just not a very realistic idea as they've proven to have a meaningful political commentary channel on big tech because you simply can't talk about certain stuff online anymore.
Count Dankula by comparison has done very well for himself because he dug out of that niche rabbithole he established with his mad lad series and has some real content for people to watch. Then he treats his political commentary and comments on a different channel as a side thing which is fair enough.
Yeah I do somewhat agree, and I certainly think Lotus Eaters especially could do more to boost their alt tech presence. I don't think it would cost too much to, for example, just let the guys swear, air the uncensored videos on Odysee or Rumble and censor them for YouTube.
To be fair, Lotus Eaters appears to mostly use Youtube as a pseudo advertising platform for their own site, and they do appear to have taken steps to make sure they have alternate revenue sources.
They also do upload their stuff on other sites, such as Odyssey and Rumble.
Last I checked they also shoutout alt tech sites at the end of every episode, in addition to their own website.
When they 'upload' stuff I should point out, at least on Odysee they mirror it direct from youtube, they don't give us the uncensored versions unless they changed it recently.
It would be helpful if they labelled their videos properly. I'd personally start labelling my content censored or not if I were them so people knew which versions were youtube compliant or not. Do it in the video to get around any algorithm nonsense with the titles like when news channels mark if they're live or not.
That would be at least acceptable, Odysee is my personal haunt, don't trust Rumble really but at least Rumble provides a bit of a gateway for normies to be red pilled on certain things.
Sorry for the late reply, but I think the reason they do it the way they do is to cut down on editing time. But I do agree with you, it would be nice to have fully uncensored versions available on alternative media.
YouTube are up to something again, not just this as Lotus Eaters are cleaner than Trump (since he's on investigation 40 by now and still no conviction), all their 'controversial' content is on a seperate website and they were apparently praised for following guidelines. They were demonetised for 'associations'
So they pulled a Crowder where they couldn't get them for any rules so changed the rules to hurt them because 'wrong opinions'
A bit of a tangent, but I've also noticed a few clipping channels and the like getting hit even though they have permissions from the original creators, so hard to know if this is just a targeting of traditional/conservative value channels or YouTube are up to some fuckery and they are just keeping their 'precious virtue signals' out of harms way as everyone else is hit.
YT is on a major censorship binge right now because a bunch of state and federal lawmakers (both parties) started making noises about censoring discussion about the SVB collapse and related issues on social media, ostensibly in order to prevent a run on the banks. If it's being said in public, you can be sure some three-letter agencies reached out to YT and other tech companies in private and told them to put the boot down.
That wouldn't surprise me, they were already terrified of talk in right wing circles of instead of physical protesting, just withdrawing your money in protest as if all MAGA guys did that it'd probably be enough to collapse a few banks right now.
It would, but I think it's really just an excuse for more censorship. Lotus Eaters did air a few segments on the bank collapses, but other creators I watch, including a lot of pop culture guys whose content has nothing to do with that, have all said that their engagement and subscriber growth has suddenly stalled to almost nothing after a decent period of growth.
Something that might be linked to that is YouTube's push for content creators to make 'shorts' to rival TikTok
I've heard a lot of creators talk about how YouTube are pushing them to make them and how it gets them more views and subscribers doing so.
Though shorts seem to be having the opposite effect than Tiktok, instead of becoming a left wing nut job, this short made me more right wing!
What? Did someone say bank?
I'd better run out this afternoon and pull my life savings...
Probably also spinning up the censorship machine for the coming campaign season.
Amazed they lasted this long, honestly. Following the rules of a platform never protects you if the lefty owners don't like your politics - they either keep inventing new rules, or they just pull some total bullshit out of their asses that magically only applies to you and then stonewall you.
Patreon did it to him years ago over him telling the alt-right that they were 'acting like niggers' in a youtube stream. They did it to Lauren Southern over her presence on a boat attempting to document and obstruct migrant crossings of the Mediterranean. Reddit does it to all of us.
You can't live on a leftist platform any more.
It won't be too long before you can't live in a leftist country.
You have it wrong. It won't be too long before the gay commies won't be allowed to live in OUR country.
I mean it might be better for everyone if we drop the last three words from our response to them
He sued and won against Patreon, IIRC.
Hopefully we'll see another suit here.
I don't know of any Patreon lawsuit. Akila Hughes sued him for copyright infringement and got rekt, which funded the beginning of Lotus Eaters.
Oddly, delivering common sense ("men are not women") and milquetoast-tier conservative thought while constantly bending the knee to the Terms of Service still wasn't enough to keep the gods of YouTube at bay.
I'm guessing it's temporary (probably based on mass flagging by trannies) and will eventually be called a mistake. Another isolated mistake that only affects right-wing content.
Yeah, it's pretty pathetic how they keep bending the knee as if that would spare them.
At this point anyone who insists on YouTube is only doing it because they're addicted to internet money and fame.
They'll keep adjusting their content to please YouTube because they're scared shitless of waking up early and commuting to a 9 to 5.
Fuck these YouTubers. And fuck the "political content" consoomers that feed them clicks.
It was alright back in 2016 when there were really no alternatives available among other things but now alt-tech has come along they aren't needed anymore frankly so I completely get it.
You still need a presence within the walled garden if you want to talk to normies. Retreating from the public square entirely just leaves the freaks uncontested.
I disagree, use the normies as human shields and establish a power base.
It's getting close to the silly season (elections) so I'm guessing this is just the beginning. Anything that isn't rabidly "progressive" is doomed to be demonetized and shadow-banned.
I'd be kind of suspicious of any conservative channel or person that isn't to be honest.
Edit: The whining "but I've been a good boy, Daddy" milquetoast groveling tone is kind of sickening and disappointing. Jesus, Carl. You used to be cool.
Yeah, I get that it's supposed to be a show of good faith, but when are we just going to say, flat out, the progressives don't operate in good faith and we're cucks for playing fairly with them?
So here's something fucked up from a lawsuit someone else filed when their videos were demonetized (there are a lot of these lawsuits):
I think it's bullshit to say demonetization is the same as an editorial decision. An editorial decision is about whether to include or exclude content on a site. A demonetization decision leaves the content intact but simply deprives you the financial gain from it. YouTube still gets the traffic and ad revenue even though you don't see a penny.
This is all part of the "websites are publishers when it benefits them, and not when it can be held against them" Section 230 law.
Yep, why in the world does youtube get to make "editorial" decisions at all when they're explicitely not a publisher.
Section 230 is broken as fuck and, frustratingly, the fix is really simple:
If you're a platform, you can't be sued or charged with any content on your site so long as you remove anything illegal (ie a warrant is issued) in a reasonable amount of time. You can't censor, modify, hide, or otherwise discriminate negatively against any content (I'd be find with certain content being "boosted" or "featured"). Further, you are legally liable for your terms of service and can be sued if you either don't apply them fairly or do not adequately explain them or their application (in this case, not providing a specific infringement).
If you're a publisher, you can do whatever the hell you want on your site, but you are legally liable for everything on it.
Done, elect me to congress for more helpful tips.
Wow. These guys are far from flamethrowers. I like them though
That still frame is hilarious.
To listen to some 20 somethings read out tweets and wikipedia articles? Nah
No
They refuse to name the jew, so no.
Zero sympathy, I'm somebody who followed Sargon since the GamerGate days and I've seen how often they cucked themselves to youtube policy for the sake of monetisation which also included blocking important shit they're talking about and largely ignoring their alt-tech channels. Yes they've technically uploaded alt-tech exclusives but only to Rumble.
On Odysee they did the old mirror option and never bothered uploading any uncensored videos up there so you'd go to Odysee and realise they're just endlessly bitching about youtube content policy. Next they're going to do what every big tech social media addicts do, they're going to beg their way back onto the platform by riling up their audience.
I actually have nothing against them as people generally, I've gone to a few of Sargon's live shows before along with Count Dankula's to support them. This behaviour of theirs as well as others has always been a piss take and I can't be bothered with their channel anymore as a result.
Just a bit of background for people wanting to understand what's going on. There are quite a number of content creators out there who just blatantly ignore their alt-tech audience and mirror content with barely any interaction. Styxenhammer is one of the few out there who genuinely seems to give a fuck about growing his presence on alt-tech, many of them use it as their backup channels rather than anything serious.
By the way, saw this kind of annoying behaviour when Elon Musk took over twitter. When a bunch of banned people were re-instated the first fucking thing these people did was ditch their alt-tech accounts and only used them for advertising their twitter accounts. I immediately got rid of them from my timeline over shit like that and it pissed me off. People like that are part of the problem because they're like addicts and the people at youtube know this as well so they take full advantage of them. I lose a lot of respect for anyone that starts begging on these platforms after they've been beaten with the demonetisation and ban stick.
It's much easier for individual creators like Styx or Nick Rekieta to move their primary presence to alt tech and still maintain a decent income from it. Organizations like Lotus Eaters need a gross profit margin above a certain percentage in order to sustain themselves, because Sargon is paying at least a dozen employees. Monetization on platforms like Rumble just doesn't facilitate that kind of thing: not because the audience is smaller, but because they are not yet technologically on par with YouTube.
There are ways around it, like what Crowder has done with Mug Club, and I don't know how many subscribers the Lotus Eaters website has, but it's probably not enough to keep the lights on and pay everybody's salary without YT income. Rumble is probably the most business-savvy alternative in terms of profitability, although I still prefer Odysee's UI, but both of them are still much less accessible to casual viewers than YouTube is.
From a business perspective you make a fair point, but at the same time, it shows they are being full of shit. I think the real problem with regards to growing an audience is the political commentary sphere has become saturated as fuck. As the saying goes any Tom, Dick and Harry can have an alt-tech account now away from youtube and do pretty well for themselves.
Why would I watch any of that content especially when I know they don't really give a fuck about sticking it to big tech? It's also just not a very realistic idea as they've proven to have a meaningful political commentary channel on big tech because you simply can't talk about certain stuff online anymore.
Count Dankula by comparison has done very well for himself because he dug out of that niche rabbithole he established with his mad lad series and has some real content for people to watch. Then he treats his political commentary and comments on a different channel as a side thing which is fair enough.
Yeah I do somewhat agree, and I certainly think Lotus Eaters especially could do more to boost their alt tech presence. I don't think it would cost too much to, for example, just let the guys swear, air the uncensored videos on Odysee or Rumble and censor them for YouTube.
To be fair, Lotus Eaters appears to mostly use Youtube as a pseudo advertising platform for their own site, and they do appear to have taken steps to make sure they have alternate revenue sources.
They also do upload their stuff on other sites, such as Odyssey and Rumble.
Last I checked they also shoutout alt tech sites at the end of every episode, in addition to their own website.
When they 'upload' stuff I should point out, at least on Odysee they mirror it direct from youtube, they don't give us the uncensored versions unless they changed it recently.
It would be helpful if they labelled their videos properly. I'd personally start labelling my content censored or not if I were them so people knew which versions were youtube compliant or not. Do it in the video to get around any algorithm nonsense with the titles like when news channels mark if they're live or not.
That would be at least acceptable, Odysee is my personal haunt, don't trust Rumble really but at least Rumble provides a bit of a gateway for normies to be red pilled on certain things.
Sorry for the late reply, but I think the reason they do it the way they do is to cut down on editing time. But I do agree with you, it would be nice to have fully uncensored versions available on alternative media.