Originally posted by @Shiloh Lundahl:
A lot of people have asked why or how Clayton is still putting content out while he is in the middle of all of this legal stuff. I wonder if it isn’t because he needs the money from his YouTube sponsors to survive right now because of his overhead and all the legal fees he is incurring so he is just trying to ride that wave as long as possible.
I wonder if YouTube has any liability keeping his videos published on their site while he is being investigated for fraud and other things? Doesn’t YouTube have standards against publishing or promoting fraudulent behaviors? I know YouTube has taken down certain videos before for having harmful content. How can we get YouTube to shut down their channel? Also, someone came up with the idea of taking up all of their online appointment times. That’s an interesting idea. If you want to stop an organization, you just cut off their funding source. And like a car without gas, the organization usually slows to a stop eventually.
As a YouTube creator myself, I have dug in pretty deep into understanding what YouTube is and isn't liable for.
Essentially it boils down to this:
When a platform takes editorial control of the content that is displayed on their site, then they are liable for what is published because they are editing/curating/controlling the content.
Since YouTube is a free platform for anyone to post anything (as long as it falls under the community guidelines) YouTube is not liable for what their creators post.
There are definitely some gray areas in what YouTube deems appropriate, and they have definitely dipped their toe in the editorial aspect that I mentioned earlier.
At the end of the day YouTube wants as many eyeballs on their platform as possible, because their revenue comes from advertisers and advertising dollars.
This is why they are hyper sensitive to content that is appropriate for as many people as possible.
