YouTube suspends Russell Brand from making money off his channel — The suspension comes following the publication of rape and sexual assault allegations against the British star::YouTube has blocked Russell Brand from making money off its platform and the BBC pulled some of his shows from its online streaming service in the wake of rape and sexual assault allegations against the comedian-turned-influencer.
But why can’t those advertisers just block him as an individual?
We are now in a world where accusations now result in a de facto guilty verdict. We already saw this with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.
No need for YouTube to blanketly make the decisions for all advertisers
This is how advertising works. Advertisers do not want to be responsible for vetting every placement, part of what the publisher is being paid for in “run-of-site” / “run-of-network” advertising is curation of ad-adjacent content.
There’s a difference between accusations and a four year media investigation. Especially UK media that has to adhere to pretty strict libel laws. They’ve had to make sure they have the receipts and proof for the papers legal team to sign off on the story. This isn’t like Zoe Quinn chucking out some accusations on Twitter and ending up with a bloke topping himself. Also if you remember, Depp lost his lible case in the UK.
There’s nothing stopping him getting his own advertising on his channel, he hasn’t been banned from YouTube.
Why does Google have to restrict which form of advertising he needs to use?
By confining him to certain types of advertising, it makes him less appealing to advertisers.
What if these accusations end up being false? I’m not losing sleep over Russell Brand losing money but if we hold the same logic it could damage smaller entities that can’t afford it.
We see this with channels like the Armchair historian. Google demonitized that channel just because they had Nazi flags in a historical context when talking about WWII.
Another case could be made for anyone who wants to defame another individual. If someone doesn’t like management for a local restaurant that advertises on YouTube, someone can just say “I heard from several people you had rats in your restaurant” or “I heard you had racist employees in your restaurant”. We now live in a world where just the allegation is enough to damage an entity, regardless of if it is based in fact.
In this instance it isn’t just an allegation though - one of the women has evidence she went to a rape crisis centre on the same day, which Channel 4 was able to confirm with the centre, and text messages from Brand on the same day where he apologised for his rape.
Why would Google continue to profit from his actions? That would be mental.
We only saw this with Amber Heard. Speaking of simping, Depp had an army of incels and “men’s rights” douchers behind him from the get go. Anyone who had any objective comments about that whole case would get chewed out and brigaded by a bunch of insecure woman beaters standing up for poor little Johnny Depp. The worst was how everyone acted like they knew both of their lives inside and out, and they really believed that they were experts on their situation because they watched livestreamed court proceedings. It is a great example, just in the opposite direction.
Just watched a documentary about it which made Depp look pretty bad. I still believe he was more of a victim than her.
Why in the fuck do you people think you can ignore the recording of her taunting him about how no one would believe him and then what a FUCKING PUSSY she kept calling him? The evidence she’s a huge piece of shit is there. Him too to a degree, but she’s at another level. He lost part of his finger. Can’t fake that shit.