No!

No!

Don’t let YouTube shut us down!!!!

Whew!

Hi, welcome to China Uncensored.

I’m your host Chris Chappell.

At least for now.

Because the way things are going...

Let’s just say YouTube isn’t making it easy for us.

As if dealing the Chinese Communist Party wasn’t enough!

I told you a few months ago that YouTube has been

demonetizing some of my videos because they contain “controversial content.”

In other words, they stop rolling those ads at the beginning.

And that ad revenue is a big part of how we fund our China Uncensored team.

It’s crucial to keep the show going,

so we can continue to bring you great content.

Like, when I flew to the Philippines,

hired a fishing boat,

spent 57 hours on the open ocean,

enduring 18-foot tall waves to get to the Scarborough Shoal,

a flashpoint of what some thought

could be a war between China and the Philippines.

And plant your favorite flag on it.

Guess which video YouTube decided to demonetize?

They didn’t even notify us.

Eventually my producer discovered it and appealed.

A week later—

after we’d already lost most of the ad revenue we’ll ever make from it—

YouTube finally assigned a human to review our appeal

and was like, oh, yeah,

that shouldn’t have been automatically demonetized.

Oops.

Yeah.

And that wasn’t the first time.

When it came out at the end of August

that YouTube was demonetizing people’s videos, YouTube was all like,

“We haven’t changed our policy,

we’ve just started notifying you when we’ve done it.”

To which most people were like,

you’ve been demonizing our videos without telling us?

Well, guess what?

YouTube was lying about the notification thing.

Because for the Scarborough Shoal episode,

as well as many others, we received zero notification.

We only happened to stumble on the fact that

several of our videos were demonetized.

Now YouTube would tell you that this isn’t censorship,

they’re just making sure advertisers don’t get stuck

with content they wouldn’t want to be associated with.

Well, first of all—this is a type of censorship.

If a show like China Uncensored doesn’t make money,

it has to lay off its staff and shut down.

So YouTube is effectively incentivizing people

to only cover only non-controversial subjects,

and avoid topics that, you know, might be considered ACTUAL NEWS,

like war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies.

For example, the news channel I share this studio with, NTDTV,

told me they’ve had more than a hundred of their videos demonetized.

In other words, YouTube is incentivizing everyone to self-censor.

Which is eerily similar to what the Chinese regime does,

though YouTube is doing it for different reasons.

And second of all,

advertisers already are able to choose what kind of videos

and search words their ads get paired with,

as well as choose keywords they don’t want to be associated with,

like war, political conflict, etc.

So YouTube’s argument for blanket demonetization is pretty thin.

But it gets worse.

Shortly after the censorship controversy in August,

YouTube rolled out a new program—YouTube Heroes.

That resulted in another censorship controversy.

Because it encourages people to mass flag videos they feel are inappropriate.

And guess which country is already paying people to do just that sort of thing?

So that’s a bit scary for China Uncensored, too.

And even if the heroes/trolls don’t come after us,

there’s another problem with YouTube.

A lot of users are reporting that YouTube

is automatically unsubscribing them from their favorite channels.

Some of you have already told me you’ve experienced this problem.

Maybe, check to make sure you’re still subscribed.

Fortunately, there is a way

you can help China Uncensored break through the interference—

so we can continue to cover the most controversial topics as we see fit:

Support us directly on Patreon.

Patreon is a website that lets you directly contribute

by pledging a certain amount per episode we publish.

We started our Patreon campaign in 2015.

So far, the extra income has allowed us to do things like:

Hire two new people;

hold fan events around the world,

and, most recently, travel to disputed Chinese territories

like the Scarborough Shoal

and Taiwan.

And if we can raise more money,

we’re going to start working towards additional distribution channels,

like building our own website,

and developing apps on streaming devices like Amazon Fire TV.

We’ll still be on YouTube, but we won’t be beholden to it.

That’s why your Patreon support is more crucial than ever.

If you’re already one of our Patreon supporters, thank you!

You’ve made so many things possible, and I hope you’ll continue.

And if you can afford it,

please consider expanding your monthly limit, even by a dollar or two—

because monthly limits are why contributions plummet by the end of each month.

And if you aren’t a Patreon supporter yet,

please become a supporter now.

Sign-up is super easy.

Click on the link below to visit our page,

then click the orange button to become a patron.

Choose which reward level works best for you,

or enter your own amount manually, and Continue.

Then you can sign up through Facebook or create your own user account.

Once you do that, you’ll have the option of setting a monthly limit.

Keep in mind we usually publish 12 to 14 episodes a month.

Then “Confirm and Pledge,” enter your payment details, and ta-da!

You’re an official member of my China Uncensored 50-Cent Army—

the team that helps us combat the Communist Party’s 50-Cent Army—

the people they pay to post propaganda and negative comments online.

Everyone who supports us will get rewards, too,

including China Uncensored digital wallpaper,

the original music from the show, and,

depending on your support level,

monthly live Google Hangouts with me.

And most importantly,

your support will help keep China Uncensored uncensored.

So please, share this video.

Get the word out that YouTube is censoring creators

by not placing ads on controversial videos.

And possibly unsubscribing people.

And again, please support this show on Patreon.

The link is below.

Once again I’m Chris Chappell.

Thanks for watching China Uncensored.