Adpocalypse and YouTube Demonetisation

Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably will have heard about a number of high profile YouTubers who have had their channels demonetised or deranked as a result of what is being called the Adpocalypse.

This past week, following some very public whining by certain voices, YouTube has taken away the ability for even more channels to earn money through advertising revenue on their platform.

The alternative media seems to have been hit rather hard recently too, notably with Dan Dicks losing all monetisation from his channel Press for Truth this week. 

It's interesting to note however that this also seemed to coincide with Dan confronting Eric Schmidt, former Chairman of Google & former Executive Chairman Alphabet, the parent company of YouTube, a few days prior while covering the Bilderberg conference in Switzerland.

Many people are up in arms about these decisions, and about what seems to be quite a heavy handed approach Youtube is taking with certain creators, whose content may be seen by some people as "offensive."  

Now I'm not going to dwell on morality or the free press here, because that's a whole other conversation. What I want to focus upon right now is one simple fact that many people seem to forget when this happens.

And that is - YouTube is not a democracy. It's a business. A company. 

Which means, that they get to make their own rules, and they are under no obligation to allow free speech for all if they don't want to.

Although most of YouTube is free to use, and is inarguably the world's biggest and most popular video sharing platform, it is not owned by us, the people, nor is it run for our benefit.

Much as we may decry their policies and actions that we deem to be lacking in morals or fairness, they are not under any obligation to be "fair" because they make the rules on their platform.

I also noticed YouTube's community guidelines state at the bottom of the page that:

"If a YouTube creator's on- and/or off-platform behaviour harms our users, community, employees or ecosystem, we may respond based on a number of factors including, but not limited to, the egregiousness of their actions and whether a pattern of harmful behaviour exists. 
Our response will range from suspending a creator's privileges to account termination."
So unfortunately we should not be surprised when Press For Truth is essentially punished for annoying a former executive chairman of their parent company, who may still be linked to them or on their payroll. 

This wording is also vague enough to mean whatever they want it to mean on any particular day, giving them free reign to delete and demonetise as they see fit.

The sad fact that most people miss, is that when you use YouTube's platform, you have to play by their rules, however unfair they may appear to be. If they are not breaking any laws, then there's not a whole lot you can do about it, so we shouldn't be shocked when it happens.

The people at YouTube have their own agenda, and they will act in whatever they deem to be their company's best interests. They do not consider that they have any particular obligation to you, and heck, you're not even paying to use their service!

Don't be fooled by companies pretending to be your friend, or to care about people, communities or the common good, because that's not why they exist.

Companies are set up to make money. Period. 

I might also suggest that some companies also exist to serve a political or idealogical agenda, and even if that isn't the case, many display certain biases.

But they do not, and never have been in the business of "helping" people at large or making the world a better place, so we should not be shocked or surprised when they prove this to us.

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Now I want to be very clear that I am not in any way defending the actions of YouTube in the recent debacle, and I appreciate all the hard work Dan puts into his channel. In fact, I sent him a donation as soon as I heard about the demonetisation of Press for Truth, and how that was going to severely impact him. 

And guess what - I've been demonetised too!

I monetised my channel back in early 2017, but YouTube changed their monetisation rules and I was demonetised last year because I didn't have the new minimum requirement of 1000 subscribers. Not only that, my earnings that had not yet been paid out have also disappeared.

I thought it was a pretty sh*tty move to make, but unfortunately they make their own rules so there wasn't anything I could do about it. Thankfully for me it was not an income I relied upon.

In the same vein, back in 2014 I was topping up my monthly earnings by selling psychic readings & distance healing sessions on eBay. The listings were deleted and I was told not to attempt to list them again. The reason being that eBay had decided they were no longer in line with their community guidelines, although I had an impeccable record and many happy customers.

Again, much as it was unfair and affected my income, there was nothing I could do about that.

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What I want to draw everyone's attention to, is that when you are using somebody else's platform, especially for free, be it YouTube, Twitter, Facebook or any other, you are not in control.

There is always a risk that your content could be demonetised, de-ranked or deleted entirely. It is crucial for independent creators to plan for this eventuality either by using other video sharing sites, backing everything up onto your own website or archive, and/or setting up multiple streams of income so your position in not as financially precarious.

We live in a world where the big social media sites and platforms like YouTube are gradually being censored, dumbed down and 'sanitised.' 

It's clear to me that this is not being done in our best interests, and I believe we would be foolish to think otherwise.

Just one last note, from a holistic point of view, I think we should look carefully at the word 'demonetise' and what that really means. 

Many words have an occult meaning as well as what we consider the standard or dictionary definition to be.

Demonetise can also be read as demon-etise which seems to suggest making somebody out to be a demon or evil. On a deeper, energetic level, there may also be more to demonetisation than meets the eye.

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If you would like to donate to Dan to help keep Press For Truth running, you can find out how to do that here: https://pressfortruth.ca/donate

To find out more about my psychic readings and distance healing sessions, pop on over to my website www.angelwingsholistics.com