Section:GDN 12 PaGe:5 Edition Date:190815 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 14/8/2019 17:38 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
- The Guardian
Thursday 15 August 2019 5
the YouTube algorithm – purpose-
built software that YouTube relies on
to recommend, censor and place
advertising on videos – discriminates
against LGBT YouTubers purely
because they produce LGBT content.
Algorithms use automated
reasoning to cut through swathes
of data – data sets too large for any
human to analyse – to make
decisions. They are everywhere:
recommending content on Spotify;
mak ing suggestions for future
purchases from Amazon; telling
Netfl ix what kind of original content
to commission ; and used by banks
to decide if you should have a
mortgage. They are not only
ubiquitous and unseen but also very
powerful. And in an age in which
increasingly mighty tech giants
leave it to algorithms to decide who
gets access to audiences, the LGBT
class action against YouTube is
signifi cant for all of us, regardless
of our sexuality. If software that is
supposed to be neutral is already
discriminating against entire
communities, who will be next?
In the complaint fi led against
YouTube and Google yesterday ,
YouTube is said to have become
“ a chaotic cesspool where popular,
compliant, top-quality and protected
LGBTQ+ content is restricted,
stigmati sed and demoneti sed as
‘shocking ’, ‘inappropriate ’, ‘off ensive ’
and ‘sexually explicit ’, while
homophobic and racist hatemongers
run wild and are free to post vile
and obscene content on the pages
and channels of LGBTQ+ plaintiff s
and other LGBTQ+ content creators
or audiences ”.
YouTube’s CEO, Susan Wojcicki,
gave a video interview to the
British YouTuber Alfi e Deyes this
month in which she responded to
claims that LGBT content was
being demonetised. “We do not
automatically demoneti se LGBTQ
content,” Wojcicki said. “We work
incredibly hard to make sure our
systems are fair. We have an ML
fairness initiative – ML stands for
Machine Learning – to make sure
our algorithms, and the way that
our machines work, are fair. We
have a committee and a whole
process to make sure that we are
managing fairness of how our
algorithms work.”
This is not Kam and Chambers’
fi rst campaign. They made legal
history last year when Chambers
won unprecedented damages
against a British man who uploaded
“revenge porn” videos of her online.
It was the fi rst civil case of its kind in
England and Wales. Now they are
taking on one of the world’s mostpowerful corporations in another
landmark lawsuit.
The pair fi rst suspected something
was wrong in 2013. “YouTube said:
‘We’re going to be doing this big
LGBT campaign, so we want you to
make a video called #ProudtoLove ,
and just talk about what it’s like to be
in a relationship with your partner,’”
Kam explains. “We jumped on it.”
The video initially did well, but a
couple of years later they discovered
it had been demoneti sed. “We are
absolutely confused by how they
could have asked us to create
content that they were then going to
punish us for.” Kam used YouTube’s
automated system to appeal, but got
a notifi cation saying that their appeal
was ineligible. After they
complained on Twitter , a YouTube
staff er responded and promised to
fi x the problem. “Within seconds it
was monetised again,” Kam says.
Their videos might sometimes
be cheeky, but Kam and Chambers
make them with teenagers in mind,
and their content is always intended
to be gentle. Yet when Kam holds up
her iPhone to show me their channel’s
user page, only three out of seven
videos are monetised. (Four days
later, Kam emails to say the Ten Ways
to Know You Are in Love video hasPHOTOGRAPHS: DAN TUFFS/THE GUARDIAN
been remonetised: “I’m assuming
a human went back and approved
it,” she writes.)
Some of the most inoff ensive
videos the duo have made have
been immediately age-restricted
by YouTube (including a music
video that involves nothing more
controversial than Chambers walking
around, fully clothed, in the desert),
which denies them key viewers. “Age
restriction means we can’t reach the
young women who look up to us, who
need us as a sense of community
and support,” says Chambers. “We’re
not able to be there and give that to
them.” Interaction with their fans in
the comments section, over private
messaging and even live over Skype
is a core part of their work, they
say . F or young people questioning
their sexuality, videos created by
LGBT YouTubers can demonstrate
that a visible, vibrant LGBT
community exists. The pair have
lost count of the messages they
have had from suicidal young
people who have found comfort in
their channel. “When I think about
YouTube shutting down our content,
it gets me all fi red up because they
are literally having an impact on
someone living another day,”
Chambers says.
Kam and Chambers also have
questions about how much the
YouTube algorithm thinks they are
worth. The rate a YouTuber is paid
per thousand views varies according
to the age, location and gender of
their audience, and the type of
content that audience normally
watches. It is a mysterious and
constantly changing formula
known as the “cost per mille” (CPM):
the amount advertisers pay per
thousand views. PewDiePie, the
gaming video-maker who is one of
YouTube’s biggest stars, for instance,
makes more than $20m (£16.5m)
a year from the platform.
“We have some of the lowest
CPMs ever seen,” says Kam. “I think
it’s because we are lesbians and our
demographic is poor lesbians. If
we made make up videos or gaming
videos, we could be millionaires bynow. We’re getting 4-5 m views a
month and we’re getting $4-500
[£250-330] a month.”
A few years ago they could earn a
living just from the revenue they got
from YouTube ads; changes to the
CPM and algorithm now mean they
rely on sponsorship, live streaming
on other platforms where they
interact with viewers in real time
and Patreon, where fans pay them
a monthly donation in exchange for
regular postcards, Skype chats or
personalised videos.
Yet while their videos are often
demonetised, some groups can pay
to have homophobic advertising
placed on LGBT content. Like several
other plaintiff s in the class action
case, Chambers and Kam have
found anti-gay marriage ads put at
the start of their videos. “That’s not
a coincidence,” Kam says. And while
the algorithm will censor their
videos the moment they are
uploaded, it won’t remove off ensive
comments users post underneath
them. It is commonplace for their
comments section to be inundated
with homophobic abuse – which
they have to police themselves.Kam and
Chambers are not sure why all this
is happening. “I think YouTube are
scared that advertisers will leave
and, because they think LGBT is
controversial, they are trying to nip
it in the bud ,” Kam says. Chambers
feels YouTube is trying to push
independent LGBT contributors off
the platform. “They want viewers
to watch the gay content they create
through their studios, not the gay
content that individual gay creators
create. They are becoming more and
more controlling.”
After seven years of trying to
speak to a real person at YouTube,Kam and Chambers fi nally talked
to a YouTube partner development
manager this year. “It was all
excuses, corporate jargon. Nothing
changed,” says Chambers.
Yet the idea that YouTube might
be discriminating against LGBT
content creators is not new. In March
2017, #YouTubePartyIsOver was
trending on Twitter after several
prominent YouTubers complained
that videos of same-sex couples
exchanging vows and make up
tutorials for trans women were being
age-restricted. In September 2017,
the bisexual author and comedian
Gabby Dunn tweeted that all the
LGBTQAI content on her channel
had been demonetised while the
heterosexual content had not.
YouTube admitted at the time
that its system “sometimes makes
mistakes” and that restricted mode
“ isn’t working the way it should. We’re
sorry and we’re going to fi x it.” It
blamed an engineering problem ,
saying the algorithm “ should not
fi lter out content belonging to
individuals or groups based on
certain attributes like gender, gender
identity, political viewpoints, race,
religion or sexual orientation”. But
it seems problems remain.
In the Deyes interview, Wojcicki
insisted the company is supportive
of LGBTQ creators. “The community
has been an incredibly important
part of YouTube,” she said. “We
have so many creators who have
come from that community, and we
are really proud that we have been
able to assist so many youth who
otherwise might have felt more
isolated to be able to have a better
understanding and connection to
the LGBTQ community.”
It is only a year after Chambers
won her victory in her revenge porn
case, a four-year legal battle that left
both her and Kam emotionally
exhausted. Why go back to court
now, to take on an even bigger
Goliath? “I’ve always wanted to be
someone who stood up to the bully,”
Chambers says. “We are not going to
let a corporate predator silence our
ability to make a diff erence to the
people who gave us this platform
in the fi rst place. We’ll never stop
making content, whether we’re
making money or not.
“When I die, I want to be able
to say: ‘I might not have made a
ton of money, but at least I have
made a diff erence. ’”YouTube is a
chaotic cesspool
where LGBTQ+
content is
stigmatised and
demonitised
Bria Kam
and Chrissy
Chambers reach
millions of
viewers on their
two channelsWe’re not going
to let a corporate
predator silence
our ability
to make a
diff erence
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