How a Blanket Decision by YouTube has Impacted the Good Works of One Couple

by Nomad

Chris and Alyssa

Back in October, Nomadic Politics featured a post about a special couple, Chris Ulmer and his fiance, Alyssa Porter.

To refresh your memories, Ulmer and Porter are the brains
behind the 501(c)3 organization called Special Books by Special Kids (SBSK).

They have for several years now, through their YouTube channel been working to give a voice to other unique people born with afflictions and disabilities. Their videos challenge our perceptions and provide them with the respect we all deserve.
If you didn't catch the post, it is well worth your time. As a follow-up to that article, I wanted to let you know the recent developments with SBSK. The news isn't good.

Because of new policies by YouTube, the comment section of the SBSK channel has been closed on every video. From what I saw, the comments were all extremely supportive of the couple's efforts. More importantly, there was an outpouring of encouragement for those who were profiled.
Distressingly, all that has disappeared.

I will allow the clearly-outraged Chris and Alyssa to explain:
  

"Discriminatory" is not a word they use lightly.

They have chosen channels at random and disabled all of their comments without any sort of transparency or real communication with creators. Their actions were not all encompassing, rather many channels (especially those tied to large corporations and advertisers) have been left unaffected.

Grim Reason for Policy Change

The policy change has certainly been controversial. It came about as a result of criticism over the alarming number of predatory comments and videos targeting young children. One of the chief critics was  Matt Watson, a former YouTube creator, who claimed that Youtube had become a platform for what amounted to "a soft-core pedophilia ring."

The problem isn't so much the videos which aren't pornographic. It's the character of the remarks in the comment sections of particular videos which Watson alleges, are full of people time- stamping specific scenes that sexualize the child or children in the video."

One key point is that uploaders of videos are not responsible for the comments and not required by YouTube to moderate visitor comments. Once the video has been published online, as far as the creator of the content is concerned, that's the end of the story. Let the adulation (and revenue) begin.

The result, writes Watson, is a breeding ground for child molesters.  

“Youtube’s recommended algorithm is facilitating pedophiles’ ability to connect with each-other, trade contact info, and link to actual child pornography in the comments. I can consistently get access to it from vanilla, never-before-used YouTube accounts via innocuous videos in less than ten minutes, in sometimes less than five clicks.”

Youtube's response was to disable comments on almost all videos that feature minors, including channels like SBSK. To make matters worse, the right to appeal these decisions is virtually non-existent.

Baby and Bathwater

Of course, vulgarity in the comments of YouTube material is hardly news. It's been going on unabated for years without executives at the video platform doing a thing. 

Child predatory behavior online is only one facet of this problem. For example, YouTube has ignored the potential for political manipulation from trolls which has plagued Twitter and Facebook.

The question is whether changes to any hands-free algorithm can actually resolve the problem. 

Chris writes:

We've dedicated our whole lives to giving people a platform. We feel like it was all robbed from us. ...

SBSK started while I was a teacher to children with mild to moderate disabilities. In my 3rd year in the classroom, the vlog started with the collaboration of my students, their parents and our school. The idea was to allow our students to advocate within our community. It was a major success. Well....until now. Thanks, YouTube!

In response, SBSK has created an online petition which calls the policy changes "an over-reaching effort to combat child predation on their platform."

Our impact as a channel and a nonprofit is greatly limited without our comment section. We are heartbroken and angry for all that we have lost due to YouTube's actions....

We are asking you, our community across the globe, to rally around us and to fight this discrimination.

As Chris points out, the YouTube decision fails to take in to account individual efforts by channel owners to police themselves.

We have one of those most positive comment sections on the internet; one that is monitored by us and policed by our community who will accept nothing less than respect in those forums.

Sweeping and arbitrary decisions by online platforms happen fairly regularly. In the process, communities can vanish overnight. In this case, the results for one pair attempting to do good have been extremely disheartening.

Will the petition do any good? It's hard to say. Historically, video platforms have paid little attention to complaints about their policy changes. The general attitude is: if you don't like it, go and find another site to upload videos.

Nevertheless, as of a Friday morning, with a goal of 200,000, over 165,500 have signed the petition with no sign of slowing down.  

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