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Comment by Pet_Ant | Hacker News Reader

It's not a matter of guilt, it's a matter of profitability. If there were advertisers beating down their doors now to get their products placed alongside Russel Brand's face they'd leave him monetised. YouTube is truly neutral here, they are just revenue maximizing, don't mistake this for a moral position. If they make a statement later, it'll be for ROI as well.

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But that doesn't quite line up with what is going on. They did not remove his videos, they demonetized them. Youtube is still running ads on Brand's videos, so the content is still being paid for by advertisers. If advertisers were beating down their doors then there would be no advertising on those videos.

Can't advertisers just explicitly ask not to have their ads run on RB's contents? Why would YT have to take this decision for them?

Well it's an aggregate. Advertisers don't want to spend money on a platform that allowed Russel Brand to make money. The problem with advertiser's and the public is that platforms are seen as whole. Advertising on the platform is seen as a vague approval of the platform as a whole.

There are plenty of rappers monetizing their videos. King Von was never demonetized despite being known to have killed at least 7 people. That is much worse than what Brand is alleged to have done. So this isn't a moral judgement, this is a business decision.

But isn't the profitability issue linked to his already being "found" to be guilty?

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