What can go wrong?
YouTube is a facet of Alphabet that the company can never get right. The largest and most popular video service in the world is always on its toes, trying to appease both its content creators and its main source of revenue: advertisers. However, a little-known fact is that YouTube has never been profitable to its parent company Alphabet. While we hear stories of its content creators driving around in Lamborghinis, YouTube still struggles. Part of that is due to the fact that it is incredibly hard to monetize the platform in the age where ad-blocking is so prevalent.
But YouTube has also drawn controversy over a number of policies. The most recent contentious issue being a change an algorithm that instantly demonetised videos it deemed too unscrupulous, cutting off revenue to its content creators without prior warning. But a new feature they revealed yesterday takes the cake. The platform will now let anyone become a volunteer moderator, so long as they complete a few steps such as flagging what they deem to be an inappropriate video, adding captions and subtitles to videos, and helping other users on the forums.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh_1966vaIA
It’s a great cause, one anyone who uses YouTube will understand the need for; just look at the toxic comments on some videos. However, by opening it up to anyone (all you need is a YouTube account), it paves the way for potential trolls and mass brigading of videos. While the captions and subtitles listing was a great idea, incentives in exchange for reporting people is not.
The program itself is structured in tiers, with level 1 Heroes (yes that’s volunteer moderators are called that) getting access to the Heroes dashboard. Level 2 Heroes getting access to the Hangouts group and the ability to participate in workshops. Level 3 is where the program instantly becomes toxic: you gain the ability to mass flag videos while moderating content in the Heroes community. Level 4 lets you get in touch with YouTube staff directly, something content creators have found to be incredibly difficult, and see sneak peaks of products before their reveal. Meanwhile, Level 5 Heroes, (picture Saitama) can test out products before release and they get the ability to apply for the “Heroes Summit”.
Handing power to the masses, what can go wrong?
