Social media: YouTube and the unintended consequences of algorithms

Since its creation in 2005, YouTube has transformed itself from a website showcasing amateurs promoting their interests a wider to audience to one dominated by professionals who make careers out of posting carefully-crafted videos.

But at what cost?

To ‘win’ at YouTube these days, you need to produce what the site algorithm demands. Unsurprisingly, it prioritises quantity over quality, with ‘watch time’  being the key metric; i.e. keeping the viewer watching longer and longer in order to view more adverts.

A brief history of YouTube

• Feb-2005: Created by three PayPal employees in California
• Apr-2006: First video uploaded by one of the co-founders
• Oct-2007: Purchased by Google for $1.65bn
• 2007: It is estimated that YouTube consumed as much bandwidth in 2007 as the entire Internet in 2000
• 2012: Major algorithm change replaced the view-based system for a ‘watch time’-based system (note: this was credited for causing a huge surge in the popularity of gaming channels at the time)
• 2018: YouTube is now the 3rd most visited website (after Google and Facebook) with over 2bn views per day.

How does the YouTube financial model work?

• You agree to Google’s advertising terms and create an AdSense account.
• There is a 45/55 split for content creators; i.e. Google retains 45%, you earn 55%.
• You receive credit for each video’s monthly revenue from Google, and are paid once you have accumulated over $100 in earnings.

What has changed?

As anybody who has used Google regularly in a professional context will know, its algorithms are constantly changing. And YouTube follows exactly the same pattern.

For example, in Feb-18 YouTube introduced (without any forewarning) a rule that a creator must have at least 1,000 creators and have been watched for at least 4,000 hours in the past 12 months to earn income from adverts.

Whilst this might not appear ground-breaking in itself, for those professionals who have built a career on YouTube earnings, such algorithm shifts can have far-reaching consequences. In this particular instance, it provoked a 39-year-old YouTuber (Nasim Aghdam) to storm the YouTube campus in San Bruno, California, armed with a gun, injuring three people before shooting herself.

Conclusion

YouTube’s motto used to be “Broadcast yourself”, but that was removed in 2012 when the site began to broadcast US presidential debates.

On her channel, prior to her rampage, Aghdam claimed that YouTube “filtered” and “regulated” her users so her videos were less likely to be watched…hence she was unable to broadcast herself.

Such are the unintended consequences of algorithm changes.