Ex-stream action: YouTube slays Zombie horde in AdSense battle

Google has had a class-action lawsuit in the US over last year's changes to its AdSense advertising system thrown out of court. Judge Edward Chen of the California Northern District Court dismissed (PDF) with prejudice (meaning the case may not be re-filed) the complaint brought by Zombie Go Boom, a YouTube broadcaster that …

[ratfox]

Looks like there's an opportunity for alternate video hosting websites, by just being a bit more permissive than YouTube...

Though... Everybody who can stay on YouTube will remain on YouTube, because that's where most users are... So you'll end up with all the "edgy" stuff. Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the Adsense changes were driven by advertisers who didn't want to be associated with (what they considered) objectionable content, so if another platform sprang up to fill the void it would presumably also end up failing to monetise your "edgy" videos.

[Killfalcon]

The Adpocalypse problem wasn't so much that YouTube stopped funding 'edgy' videos, it's that they attempted to stop funding terrorists in a cack-handed fashion that pretty much maximised the impact on YouTube's content creators, edgy or otherwise.

The system flagged a lot of videos incorrectly (based on how frequently they'd be re-monetised on appeal), but the system did not compensate for the incorrect flagging - the revenue lost in the few days the appeal took represented most of the traffic videos get. They system never provided any feedback on why videos were being demonetised - not at point-of-demonitisation, and not in the appeal process.

The current system still incorrectly flags a lot of content, but they've set it up so you can upload your video ahead of publishing it, so you can appeal any rating before the video goes live, so before those critical few days when your video is new and (potentially) #trending. That's a good start, but their algorithms are clearly not working terribly well, and remain utterly opaque to the creators.

[mark l 2]

There are already some other platforms which aren't as restrictive as Youtube (Such as Dailymotion) but unfortunately the number of people viewing videos on those alternative site it miniscule compared to the millions of YT viewers.

[Gene Cash]

I've seen more and more people move to Vimeo and the like.

[Jeffrey Nonken]

... Why am I hit with a sudden urge to listen to some Queen?