YSK that YouTube shadow bans people (for a time) + implications to creators

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨ruk_n_rul@monyet.cc⁩ to ⁨youshouldknow@lemmy.world⁩

I’m having my comments I made the past few days receive zero engagements. It’s not just me losing the early bird lottery too; my replies to a highly engaged comment has zero likes, while several comments immediately after me has double digits. It’s nothing incendiary at all, just normal people’s comments. But something just tripped the enigmatic AI and thenceforth I’m shadow banned.

Why you should know this?

Because YouTube is being a thought police between creators and their communities. It feels to me like 99.999% of creators on YouTube have no idea that this is happening, that honest to goodness people’s engagements are never going to reach them on the platform; they’re being silently silenced, by an AI that is figuratively a black box.

Look at this screenshot. If that’s not damning evidence you tell me what is.

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The comment is straight up gone when viewing with a logged out tab. I’m definitely 100% shadow banned right now.

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Comments

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Pratai@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
TIL people take commenting on YouTube seriously.

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- ruk_n_rul@monyet.cc ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I take supporting creators with engagements seriously.
  
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  - echo64@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    youtube doesn’t actually care if you comment, “engagement” is through sharing, and watching. that’s all youtube cares about for engagement. how many watch hours, how many adverts, how many click throughs on those adverts.
    
    also literally every large social network has shadow bans, it’s the only successful way to deal with unwanted elements. if you tell the unwanted element that they are banned, then they just go make a new account.
    
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  - SaakoPaahtaa@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Probably shouldnt. Youtube comments are rightful Serbian soil and should be treated as such
    
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  - Pratai@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Commenting isn’t support. Not sure if you know that. see, I’m commenting on your post- this is not support.
    
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  - BilboBargains@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I like adverts and hammering nails into my head.
    
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  - Carighan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Then you would not comment on their videos, and the whole thought of “supporting” them via watching their videos is questionable but at least there’s some direct, material, merit to that.
    
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- IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Yeah I’ve blocked the comments section with uBlock. Most of the time it’s just garbage in there.
  
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- phillaholic@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  He says in a comment on another social network.
  
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  - Pratai@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    You realize that commenting on lemmy isn’t the same the as commenting on YouTube, right?
    
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- unreachable@lemmy.my.id ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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kep@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
This was a hard post to read.

You’re not shadowbanned from YouTube. The creator you’re commenting on has simply “hid” you from their channel. Which ironically is a shadowban, just on a creator level.

The level of panic and outrage you’ve displayed here despite not having a clue as to how the mechanic you’re discussing works is remarkable.

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- BrikoX@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  That’s incorrect. Here is a decent video explaining it yewtu.be/watch?v=48ObNiT_hpM
  
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  - kep@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    [deleted]
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- orcrist@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  How can we tell if the creator shadowbanned or if YT did it? Sometimes my comments are hidden within seconds, and it’s possible the creator is that fast, but I also suspect key word based filtering.
  
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whatuptrey@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It’s probably the owner of the channel that shadow banned you. As a creator, I have an option to “Hide User From Channel” any user I want, which is effectively shadow banning them.

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- Shialac@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Might also be a blacklisted word or something, there is sometimes really weird stuff on these
  
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Hyperreality@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
More generally, it's an important reminder for content creators that their entire youtube career is built on quick sand.

You can be earning a decent living one day, the next day youtube can block your account or remove monetisation for no valid reason, and you're shit out of luck.

I mean, if you're making a lot of money on youtube, power to you. But you should be saving as much as possible for that day and have a back-up plan. It may never come, it may come tomorrow.

I cringed when one creator mentioned giving up on her degree to focus on youtube. I mean, sure she's making bank right now. But who knows how long that'll last.

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- BrerChicken@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  I cringed when one creator mentioned giving up on her degree to focus on youtube. I mean, sure she’s making bank right now. But who knows how long that’ll last.
  
  Unlike their YT career, that degree course will probably be there in five years. It’ll be more expensive, but it’s not gone forever or anything like that. For some opportunities you really have to strike while the iron is hot. For the record, I’m a HS teacher and I’ve had the “so you want to be a YouTuber for a living” conversation with countless students over the years, including with my own child. But for someone who’s starting to get some traction, and wants to take time off of school to see where it leads them, I think it’s an understandable move.
  
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- DrQuint@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You don’t have to finish a degree before you’re 25 to make use of it. Hell, plenty of people have two or even three degrees.
  
  She does YouTube now, and she’ll have huge financial security to finish the degree later. Hell, she’ll have a degree that’s probably up-to-date with her field at the time she’ll actually use it, as opposed to getting one now and having to explain that her lack of work experience after getting it was due to “youtube”.
  
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TheDubz87@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I don’t doubt this given YouTube record with the creators themselves. YouTube is a slimy company.

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donut4ever@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’ve noticed this for a long time, but never really cared. Also, on some accounts, it just removes my comment completely until I manipulate it to not piss off the gods

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ruk_n_rul@monyet.cc ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
This is coming out of my orifice but I think this also affects creators in that once people like myself know we’re shadow banned we will not be posting comments because, you know, what’s the point? And that is a deduction in engagement, and reductions in engagement affects the creators in visibility in equally vague ways (because opaque black box ML-AIs are driving both of these actions).

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TimeMuncher@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Happening to one of my accounts from years. I don’t know which YT mod has a beef with me, but all the comments i make using that account get deleted in a minute on any channel. So i stopped using YT and use newpipe only. I don’t even have the YT app on my phone.

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sagrotan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
IMO at least the educational content of YouTube shouldn’t be in private have entirely, too important today.

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