It’s A War
For those who may not know about the war between content creators on YouTube and The Wall Street Journal, this is a timeline of events, where it started, and where it has gone.
January 11th, 2017-
PewDiePie, the most popular channel on YouTube, with over 50 million subscribers, uploaded a video of him on the website Fiverr, where users of the site can ask people to do whatever they want for approximately five dollars. PewDiePie’s comedic style is very bluntly sarcastic, and it can be very hard to notice that sarcasm when jokes are taken out of context, or when watching the video, it’s not assumed to be for a comedic purpose. In this video, he stumbles upon two guys that will hold up a banner with any message written on it, and will dance and laugh while holding it. Trying to make fun of the fact that they will literally write anything on that banner, PewDiePie tells them to write “Death to all Jews” on it, not actually expecting them to put such a horrendous message on a banner. After he receives the video of these two guys doing what he told them to do, he is immediately shocked, and proceeds to apologize, and explain how he never expected them to actually send that video to him.
February 11th, 2017-
The Wall Street Journal publishes an article called: “Disney Severs Ties With YouTube Star PewDiePie After Anti-Semitic Posts”. Before this article came out, the WSJ emailed Disney asking them for comment, and in response, probably just to be safe and preserve their brand from criticism by the WSJ, they severed all ties with PewDiePie. After this article came out, for most likely the same reasons, YouTube cancelled season two of PewDiePie’s YouTube Red show, Scare PewDiePie.
February 12th, 2017-
PewDiePie responds in a tumblr post (http://pewdie.tumblr.com/post/157160889655/just-to-clear-some-things-up), saying this:
It came to my attention yesterday that some have been pointing to my videos and saying that I am giving credibility to the anti-Semitic movement, and my fans are part of it as well for watching. I don’t want to cite the sources because I don’t want to give them any more attention.
This originated from a video I made a couple of weeks ago. I was trying to show how crazy the modern world is, specifically some of the services available online. I picked something that seemed absurd to me — That people on Fiverr would say anything for 5 dollars.
I think it’s important to say something and I want to make one thing clear: I am in no way supporting any kind of hateful attitudes.
I make videos for my audience. I think of the content that I create as entertainment, and not a place for any serious political commentary. I know my audience understand that and that is why they come to my channel. Though this was not my intention, I understand that these jokes were ultimately offensive.
As laughable as it is to believe that I might actually endorse these people, to anyone unsure on my standpoint regarding hate-based groups: No, I don’t support these people in any way.
Plus, it was very obvious that he did not support anti-semitism right from where he reacted to the video of the two guys in the first place. Unfortunately, this smear attack on PewDiePie would only become part one of an evolving story of the WSJ and the rest of the corporate media online trying to take down YouTube’s content creators’ credibility and viewership.
March 24th, 2017-
The WSJ titles an article: “Google’s YouTube Has Continued Showing Brands’ Ads With Racist and Other Objectionable Videos”. The WSJ claims in this article that ads from big brands are appearing on racist videos on YouTube. In response, Pepsi, Walmart, Dish, Starbucks, GM, and more have pulled all advertising from YouTube. This has resulted in a very big drop of revenue for many content creators on YouTube. This will affect smaller content creators more, since they mostly depend on their money from YouTube. If those companies don’t come back to advertise, most will have to get a second job to support themselves, or quit YouTube altogether. Jack Nicas, the author of this article, cited screenshots shown below as evidence of this happening.
*Offensive Language Warning*
So as you can see, according to these screenshots, on a racist video, ads from Coca Cola and Toyota are playing on it. However, according to H3H3 Productions, a long time content creator who has gotten in contact with the network that owns the video, it is extremely unlikely that ads from major brands would be on this video. Take a look at this screenshot of the video’s lifetime earnings and views.
Usually, if a widely watched video is monetized, it will make about a dollar per thousand views. So, if major brands were advertising on this video, you’d expect it to make somewhere around $160 at 159,726 views. However, its lifetime earnings are a measly $12.53. So it is extremely unlikely that major brands like Coca Cola and Toyota would have advertisements on this video, and therefore, it is quite possible that the screenshots made by Nicas were photoshopped. The videos made by H3H3 explaining this in more detail are below.
April 3rd, 2017-
The Wall Street Journal releases a statement.
The Wall Street Journal stands by its March 24th report that major brand advertisements were running alongside objectionable videos on YouTube. Any claim that the related screenshots or any other reporting was in any way fabricated or doctored is outrageous and false. The screenshots related to the article — which represent only some of those that were found — were captured on March 23rd and March 24th.
Claims have been made about viewer counts on the WSJ screen shots of major brand ads on objectionable YouTube material. YouTube itself says viewer counts are unreliable and variable.
Claims have also been made about the revenue statements of the YouTube account that posted videos included in those screenshots. In some cases, a particular poster doesn’t necessarily earn revenue on ads running before their videos.
The Journal is proud of its reporting and the high standards it brings to its journalism. We go to considerable lengths to ensure its accuracy and fairness, and that is why we are among the most trusted sources of news in the world.
Those last two sentences are so laughable considering that the WSJ is owned by NewsCorp, the same company that owns Fox News, a propaganda news network for the GOP. Although it is true view counts can be a little off, they could not have been so off to account for the lack of money made off of the video; the view count would’ve had to be off by more than 100,000 views, that doesn’t happen. And while it is true that in some cases the owner of the video doesn’t make money off of the ads run on their videos, this is not one of them. The network that owns the video makes the 55% of the normal split of ad revenue between the owner and YouTube itself (which takes 45%). The fact that the WSJ is still trying to stand by its prove-ably false claims shows its incredible incompetence in terms of being a credible news source.
So, whenever you hear The Wall Street Journal trying to make a case, it’s probably not true, it will most likely turn out to be just another shameful smear campaign on their next target.
