Director Alex Winter on his documentary, The YouTube Effect

It's an "All Things YouTube and the Creator Economy" episode! We
welcome returning guest, director Alex Winter whose latest
documentary is The YouTube Effect. You may know Alex Winter for his
role as Bill in the Bill & Ted movies, but these days he's an
accomplished documentary filmmaker. Many of Alex's films explore
the role of technology in our society, such as Downloaded, about
the rise and fall of Napster, to Deep Web, about the online black
market Silk Road. The YouTube Effect explores the origins of the
website, which began in 2005, and its rapid growth into one of the
most powerful media platforms today. Interviews with early YouTube
creators such as Anthony Padilla of the channel Smosh, YouTube
co-founder Steve Chen, and former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki are
featured in the movie. The documentary also dives into the many
layers of controversy around YouTube, both good and evil. As a
free, easy to use public platform with little to no regulation,
YouTube is a forum open to all, inspiring the Arab Spring protests
and Black Lives Matter movement. But as we've seen in recent years,
YouTube also spreads propaganda and can radicalize vulnerable
people to dangerous causes. Coming from the world of film, director
Alex Winter sees both similarities and differences between the
creator economy of YouTube vs. the traditional media economy. He
thinks that the entertainment industry has made a mistake in trying
to monetize in similar ways to YouTube. The shift into streaming by
media companies hasn't monetized well for anyone, nor is it
sustainable- hence the current WGA and SAG strike. Both industries
currently find themselves at a crossroads: they need to balance
valuing money over the well-being of the workers/creators, and for
YouTube's part, to allow regulation in order to stop actual harm to
our society. YouTube is a public forum owned and controlled by one
of the biggest corporations in the world- Google- with 4.6 billion
views a day. People can watch all of their news, all their
entertainment, all their TV, even all of our recorded human history
there. It's both a search engine and the largest media conglomerate
on earth. And the creator economy continues to thrive. As The
YouTube Effect points out, by allowing people to simply add their
own content, there's no barrier to entry to get started on YouTube.
Ad dollars are attached to how many views the content receives. The
downside is that YouTube creators feel the grind to constantly make
content, because they'll get replaced instantly by someone else.
We're in a new phase of YouTube's power, Alex notes, which includes
monetizing disinformation and propaganda. YouTube provides no
guardrails and no standards and practices for what is posted on the
site, and very little on the site is monitored or taken down. As a
monopoly, the company has no competition and very little incentive
to delete content. As he explores in The YouTube Effect, channels
such as Prager University- a right-wing non-accredited online
“school”- is heavily funded by dark money, promoting conservative
agendas. This disinformation will spread quickly- the Florida Board
of Education has just approved PragerU Kids videos to be shown in
K-12 schools. Alex believes that YouTube needs regulation to
prevent the spread of dangerous propaganda that's funded by
ideological interests with deep pockets. Education in media
literacy and lessons in how to recognize disinformation for both
adults and kids will also be key to creating safer content on the
platform. YouTube won't go away and it will evolve- people have
created robust communities on the platform, and it is part of our
society. You can watch The YouTube Effect streaming on Kanopy, and
on VOD: iTunes, Prime Video, VUDU and other platforms. Find Alex
Winter: https://alexwinter.com/ Instagram: @alxwinter Hear our
previous interview with Alex, discussing his documentary Showbiz
Kids. https://www.camnoir.com/ep84/