I actually think it's evil that youtube has gone back to playing ads on demonetized videos.

How copyright filters lead to wage-theft

Last week, "Marina" - a piano teacher who publishes free lessons her Piano Keys Youtube channel - celebrated her fifth anniversary by announcing that she was quitting Youtube because her meager wages were being stolen by fraudsters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcyOxtkafMs

Marina posted a video with a snatch of her performance of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," published in 1801. The composition is firmly in the public domain, and the copyright in the performance is firmly Marina's, but it still triggered Youtube's automated copyright filter.

A corporate entity - identified only by an alphabet soup of initialisms and cryptic LLC names - had claimed Ole Ludwig Van's masterpiece as their own, identifying it as "Wicca Moonlight."

Content ID, the automated Youtube filter, flagged Marina's track as an unauthorized performance of this "Wicca Moonlight" track. Marina appealed the automated judgement, which triggered a message to this shadowy LLC asking if they agreed that no infringement had taken place.

But the LLC renewed its claim of infringement. Marina now faces several unpleasant choices:

She can allow the LLC to monetize her video, stealing the meager wages she receives from the ads that appear on it

She can take down her video

She can provide her full name and address to Youtube in order to escalate the claim, with the possibility that her attackers will get her contact details, and with the risk that if she loses her claim, she can lose her Youtube channel

The incident was a wake-up call for Marina, who is quitting Youtube altogether, noting that it has become a place that favors grifters over creators. She's not wrong, and it's worth looking at how that happened.

Content ID was created to mollify the entertainment industry after Google acquired Youtube. Google would spend $100m on filtering tech that would allow rightsholders to go beyond the simple "takedown" permitted by law, and instead share in revenues from creative uses.

But it's easy to see how this system could be abused. What if people falsely asserted copyright over works to which they had no claim? What if rightsholders rejected fair uses, especially criticism?

In a world where the ownership of creative works can take years to untangle in the courts and where judges' fair use rulings are impossible to predict in advance, how could Google hope to get it right, especially at the vast scale of Youtube?

The impossibility of automating copyright judgments didn't stop Google from trying to perfect its filter, adding layers of complexity until Content ID's appeal process turned into a cod-legal system whose flowchart looks like a bowl of spaghetti.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/12/fairy-use-tale/#content-id

The resulting mess firmly favors attackers (wage stealers, fraudsters, censors, bullies) over defenders (creators, critics). Attackers don't need to waste their time making art, which leaves them with the surplus capacity to master the counterintuitive "legal" framework.

You can't fix a system broke by complexity by adding more complexity to it. Attempts to do so only makes the system more exploitable by bad actors, like blackmailers who use fake copyright claims to extract ransoms from working creators.

https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-strikes-now-being-used-as-scammers-extortion-tool/

But it would be a mistake to think that filterfraud was primarily a problem of shadowy scammers. The most prolific filter scammers and wage-thieves are giant music companies, like Sony Music, who claim nearly *all* classical music:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/22/crisis-for-thee-not-me/#filternet

The Big Tech companies argue that they have an appeals process that can reverse these overclaims, but that process is a joke. Instagram takedowns take a few seconds to file, but *28 months* to appeal.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/17/cheap-truthers/#robot-sez-no

The entertainment industry are flagrant filternet abusers. Take Warner Chappell, whose subsidiary demonetizes videos that include the numbers "36" and "50":

https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/annemunition-bizarre-copyright-strike-youtube-random-numbers-1317750/

Warner Chappell are prolific copyfraudsters. For decades, they fraudulently claimed ownership over "Happy Birthday" (!):

https://consumerist.com/2016/02/09/happy-birthday-song-settlement-to-pay-out-14-million-to-people-who-paid-to-use-song/

They're still at it - In 2020 they used a fraudulent claim to nuke a music theory video, and then a human being working on behalf of the company renewed the claim *after* being informed that they were mistaken about which song was quoted in the video:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/05/warner-chappell-copyfraud/#warnerchappell

The fact that automated copyright claims can remove material from the internet leads to a lot of sheer fuckery. In 2019, anti-fascists toyed with blaring copyrighted music at far right rallies to prevent their enemies from posting them online.

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/07/23/clever-hack-that-will-end-badly-playing-copyrighted-music-during-nazis-rallies-so-they-cant-be-posted-to-youtube/

At the time, I warned that this would end badly. Just a month before, there had been a huge scandal because critics of extremist violence found that automated filters killed their videos because they featured clips of that violence:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/06/06/people-who-document-evidence-of-violent-extremism-are-being-shut-down-in-youtubes-crackdown-on-violent-extremism/

Since then, it's only gotten worse. The Chinese Communist Party uses copyfraud to remove critical videos from Youtube:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/27/literal-gunhumping/#communist-bandit

and so does the Beverley Hills Police Department:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/10/duke-sucks/#bhpd

But despite all that, the momentum is for *more* filtering, to remove far fuzzier categories of content. The EU's Terror Regulation has just gone into effect, giving platforms just *one hour* to remove "terrorist" content:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/04/eu-online-terrorism-regulation-bad-deal

The platforms have pivoted from opposing filter rules to endorsing them. Marc Zuckerberg says that he's fine with removing legal protections for online platforms unless they have hundreds of millions of dollars to install filters.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/25/facebook-has-a-facebook-problem/#played-for-zuckers

The advocates for a filternet insist that all these problems can be solved if geeks just *nerd harder* to automate good judgment, fair appeals, and accurate attributions. This is pure wishful thinking. As is so often the case in tech policy, "wanting it badly is not enough."

In 2019, the EU passed the Copyright Directive, whose Article1 7 is a "notice and staydown" rule requiring platforms to do instant takedowns on notice of infringement *and* to prevent content from being re-posted.

There's no way to do this without filters, but there's no way to make filters without violating the GDPR. The EU trying to figure out how to make it work, and the people who said this wouldn't require filters are now claiming that filters are fine.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/11/protocols-of-qanon/#no-filternet

Automating subtle judgment calls is impossible, not just because copyright's limitations - fair use and others - are grounded in subjective factors like "artistic intent," but because automating a flawed process creates flaws at scale.

Remember when Jimmy Fallon broadcasted himself playing a video game? NBC automatically claimed the whole program as its copyrighted work, and thereafter, gamers who streamed themselves playing that game got automated takedowns from NBC.

https://old.reddit.com/r/beatsaber/comments/bi9cp5/beat_saber_stream_blocked_by_jimmy_fallon_show/

The relentless expansion of proprietary rights over our virtual and physical world raises the stakes for filter errors. The new Notre Dame spire will be a copyrighted work - will filters block videos of protests in front of the cathedral?

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190425/09282042084/why-your-holiday-photos-videos-restored-notre-dame-cathedral-could-be-blocked-eus-upload-filters.shtml

And ever since the US's 1976 Copyright Act abolished a registration requirement, it's gotten harder to figure out who controls the rights to any work, so that even the "royalty free" music for Youtubers to safely use turned out to be copyrighted:

https://torrentfreak.com/royalty-free-music-supplied-by-youtube-results-in-mass-video-demonetization-191118/

We need a new deal for content removal, one that favors working creators over wage-thieves who have the time and energy to master the crufty, complex private legal systems each platform grows for itself.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/content-moderation-broken-let-us-count-ways

Back in 2019, Slate Future Tense commissioned me to write an sf story about how this stuff might work out in the coming years. The result, "Affordances," is sadly still relevant today:

https://slate.com/technology/2019/10/affordances-cory-doctorow-sf-story-algorithmic-bias-facial-recognition.html

Here's a podcast of the story as well:

https://ia803108.us.archive.org/3/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_314/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_314_-Affordances.mp3

Meanwhile, governments from Australia to the UK to Canada are adopting "Harmful Content" rules that are poised to vastly expand the filternet, insisting that it's better than the alternative.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bill-c10-user-generated-content-1.6007192

I’m sorry if this is cynical, but I’d really like your input on it (as an experience polygon vid/pat stream viewer): Do you think Pat is pushing the after hours streaming stuff because Polygon is ending? Or, at least, to try and maintain the ‘funny video/personality’ fans? I’ve noticed a lot of other polygon vid personalities are doing similar things, and main polygon video content keeps slowing down and changing, presumably in compliance w/ vox media strategy? Have you noticed too?

First of all real bold of you sending this to a Pat fanblog where all I do is make dumbass shitposts and post cat clips, as if I know a single goddamn thing about anything, but since you asked I’ll try to answer as many of your questions as possible. (I’m not mad about being asked btw I just really find it funny you’d send it here of all places lmao). Disclaimer time: I am not in any way affiliated with Polygon or Vox Media nor do I know how they operate behind the scenes.

Do I personally think Polygon is ending and that Pat streams because of that? Short answer, no. However, I believe Polygon’s necessary (yes, I said necessary) and inevitable (yes, INEVITABLE) change in content is due to a lot of deeper issues people might not know about, which I’ve gathered from research and being an idiot whomst has watched Youtube for 10+ years. Let me just say, the last year or so has pretty much been the “Everybody Knows Shits Fucked” song on repeat until we die so this is going to be a long ass post. Buckle up kiddos we’re warp speeding into this fuckfest together.

Youtube Advertiser Boycott And The Algorithms

Every social media website employs the use of algorithms to decide how content gets sorted, and Youtube isn’t any different. That’s why Youtubers constantly ask you to “like, comment and subscribe” because it helps their content get noticed through Youtube’s internal system – such as search priority, the trending section, your homepage and your recommended tab, as well as the recommended sidebar on individual videos. As for content, one of the more effective models was to find a niche and cater to it, something Polygon did by creating Monster Factory and similar humored series alongside their serious content.

And for a while, it worked. Except things change.

Before we get any further I highly suggest you read this article written by Julia Alexander about the complicated history of Youtube’s monetization system, but I’ll try to give a quick summary. Something controversial will happen on Youtube, causing brands to pull their business from the platform until they can get more security on what types of videos their ads play on, then Youtube refines the system to give brands more control. Rinse and repeat. The new system results in a massive amount of videos being demonetized, causing creators to lose revenue and viewer engagement and then request appeals to have their content reviewed by humans, which in turn improves the algorithm. Those most negatively affected by the system must diversify their payments either through Patreon, Twitch, merch, etc, or in worst case scenarios, give up on their dreams of being a Youtuber.

Youtube has a lot of incentive to keep creators updated on changes, so when users ask, “hey, can we know what’s going on with the website?” Youtube responds with an informative, “absolutely not. Die.” The userbase, as a result, is forced to run their own investigations. Nerd City published a video revealing another algorithm (one just as prone to mistakes) assigns all videos with an MPAA-style rating to make it easier for businesses to decide what sort of content they’re comfortable advertising on. This rating – hidden from both the uploader and their audience – Cannot. Be. Appealed. Good fucking system am I right!!! (Also, please watch the video if you get the chance, it brings up some points about machine learning and how the system negatively affects marginalized creators).

One more thing, do you remember what I said earlier about how a video gets popular on Youtube’s internal system? Well, creators have reason to believe a higher rating attributes to view suppression – meaning their videos might end up exempt from the things I listed. This makes it so much harder for a channel to grow their userbase outside of an already established audience. If you’re following along you might be able to tell where I’m going with this, but if not…

What Does This Have To Do With Video Games Polygon?

Once again, I do not know any of the behind the scenes Polygon lore and a lot of this is guesswork on my part. I’d imagine as a branch of Vox Media, Polygon would have a higher priority getting any potentially demonetized videos appealed than smaller, independent channels do. However, when your own website is reporting the system responsible for sorting and rating videos goes deeper than just demonetization, with a full MPAA-style ranking that’s been shown to suppress the growth of certain content not deemed advertiser friendly, such as excessive profanity and sexually suggestive content, which turns out is a subset of the niche your channel has developed – that’s a problem.

This isn’t me being critical of their content or saying what they make is bad (considering I’m a fan of it as well), this is an objective look at the reality of a rapidly changing platform. Unfortunately, the biggest flags in my head for Polygon happen to be the Jackbox series and… Monster Factory. There’s absolutely no way some of those videos are getting a kid-friendly rating, and it’s possible the bot is slapping some of them with a mature rating – the worst one where enough of those could potentially affect the rating of the entire channel. Griffin, in one of the Spore MF videos, emphatically yells, “come fuck this” to the heavens; lo and behold, a few years later Youtube finally does.

Of course, this is just one of a few different problems Polygon is facing. The Mcelroys left to focus on their own businesses, taking some of their fans with them. Other fans who mainly want the video game news might end up unsubscribing if too many videos irrelevant to their interests are posted. Some series, while perfectly funny in their own right, have trouble breaking out and appealing to a wider audience.

Polygone But Not Forgotten?

I’ll try to put it as softly as I can: almost all creators on Youtube have to reevaluate the content they put out and how it fits into Youtube’s ad-friendly guidelines if they want to continue receiving ad revenue and viewer engagement from the site. This is not just a Polygon specific problem, and as a news channel they benefit a lot more by working within the new parameters. Polygon’s primary priority should be their video game website, where I go to read all the articles that aren’t about video games, as ad revenue is probably more stable and allows them more room for sillier content. As for their channel, the “horny niche” appeal doesn’t have as much of a place anymore. Well, on Youtube at least.

Twitch, however, seems like a better home for Polygon’s familiar borderline type of humor. On a stream Pat said, as the live video producer, he’s responsible for getting their channel partnered which will come with some very important benefits, such as the ability to subscribe. I’d assume creating content for Youtube takes priority over this, and there’s also the fact that Pat is just one person and needs to balance this with other things like “having a life” and “eating??? Perhaps???” (maybe even A Vegetable). By the way, to answer one of your other questions, it’s normal for creators to have projects outside of their work and build their own personal brand, like Pat’s Twitch channel, Brian’s Youtube channel, Simone’s author account and everyone’s countless podcasts. It’s not recommended to rely solely on Youtube for your income, even before the ad boycotts, so if you can diversify your content then do so.

Listen, I know this is disappointing and I know it’s not the answer people want. Youtube’s new system isn’t going away and the video team needs to accommodate for these changes or otherwise Perish. I believe in Polygon’s ability to deliver informative, humorous and accessible content, they just need the time to do it. As an audience, a way to offer support during this difficult time is to just be as understanding and patient as possible, and give the content they put out a chance if you can.

Now I am not an expert on any of this, but if you have any questions or comments you can send them to my main @malarcana and I’ll try to answer them. Thanks for reading!

Week 10 - November 14

This week’s theme was Online, Interactive Audiences in a Digital Media World. The main question that we were looking to answer is who has the power in today’s interactive media world? Do the audiences hold the power due to the increase in user-generated content, audience fragmentation, and audience autonomy, or is the power in the hands of the businesses and corporations, as usual?

Since the Industrial Revolution, producer and consumer have been separate. But with new media technologies, the two positions have merged. This is due to factors such as audience fragmentation, audience autonomy, and user-generated content (Sullivan, 2016, p. 217). Audience fragmentation occurs when audiences are placed into smaller, more niche groups, by the expansion of multiple, transportable media platforms (such as the iPhone) (Sullivan, 2016, p. 217). Fragmentation threatens the typical producer and consumer separation of traditional media technology because audiences are not just in one place anymore; they are spread through many different technologies and platforms. Audience autonomy refers to the extent that audiences have power over the content they consume (Sullivan, 2016, p. 217), which includes aspects such as streaming sites and user-generated content. User-generated content is crucial to whether or not audiences hold the power.

User-generated content is what gives audiences the ability to produce and consume content at the same time. There are thousands of examples of sites that base everything off of content created by the users. Soundcloud relies on the addition of content by its users – without any content, there would be no website. YouTube is another example of a website that relies on its users to create revenue and stay successful. Even a website like Wikipedia relies on its users to continue posting content. In all of these examples, the site creators lay the foundation for its users, but the main element is up to the users (Sullivan, 2016, p. 217).

From this explanation, it could be assumed that audiences are the ones who hold the power. Audiences have more control over what, when, and where they watch than ever before. They have the ability to create their own content and be paid for it. Organizations rely on the content they create to be successful. Why wouldn’t they be the ones who hold the power?

This question raises the issue of intellectual property (Sullivan, 2016, p. 230). When a user posts a video on YouTube, who owns that video? YouTube and other user-generated content sites hold the right to remove content that they believe violates rules or copyright laws (Sullivan, 2016, p. 230). Users can appeal these removals, but ultimately it is up to the organization to decide which content actually gets seen. These organizations are also a central part in deciding which users are able to make money from their content, and they take a portion for themselves.

This was an issue earlier this year when users started noticing that YouTube was removing videos with a strong LGBT+ message. YouTube has an algorithm in place that automatically demonetizes any video deemed “un-advertiser-friendly” (Romano, 2019). The users found that the algorithm was programmed to flag videos with LGBT-related terms in the title of videos (Romano, 2019). Users creating LGBT content and posting it to YouTube, adding to the success of the organization, were not getting the promised benefits back. YouTube essentially took away their power as content creators to make money off of their content. YouTube’s ability to undermine its content creators leans towards corporations having the power in today’s society.

The Athique article also touches on the power corporations have over their users through the sale of data. As more users use a site, the commercial value of it goes up (Athique, 2016, p. 60). From this commercialization, companies can collect the data of its users and sell it to advertisers (Athique, 2016, p. 61). This is necessary due to advertisers losing the traditional way to reach consumers after audience fragmentation and autonomy. Athique states the data companies sell to advertisers are like gifts that help them “optimize the present and predict the future” (Athique, 2016, p. 66). The data that companies collect on their users can be seen through the advertisements we see on our social media timelines.

For example, after visiting the Sephora website on my laptop, most of the advertisements I see on Facebook or Twitter have something to do with beauty, whether it's from competing brands such as Milk or hair products. This is because Google collected my data when I interacted with its site by searching for Sephora, and that data was sent to advertising companies who targeted me with beauty products.

From this evidence, I believe that the power still lies with the corporations. They use their audience for free labour, hold control over the user-generated content, and collect the data of users to sell to advertisers. However, audiences have more power than they have ever had before. With factors like audience fragmentation and audience autonomy, audiences have the agency to choose which sites they use and when. In this way, they have control over which sites they give their power to, and which companies they give access to their data.

Sources

Athique, A. (2018). The dynamics and potentials of big data for audience research. Media, Culture and Society, 40(1), 59-74. 

Romano, A. (2019, October 10). A group of YouTubers is claiming the site systematically demonetizes queer content. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/10/10/20893258/youtube-lgbtq-censorship-demonetization-nerd-city-algorithm-report.

Sullivan, John L. Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power. SAGE Publications Inc., 2013.

YouTube is taking away more than a checkmark

YouTube is taking away more than a checkmark

 Less than two hours after this story was published, YouTube almost entirely backtracked on its planned changes to verification in response to criticisms from creators. This story details those criticisms and speaks to why YouTube reversed course. The original story continues below. Verification badges on YouTube are more than just a checkmark to creators. Those tiny marks are a sign that after years of building a channel, they’re seen as a valuable member of the community. That’s why when YouTube suddenly sent out a flood of emails to creators who have picked up verification badges over the years, alerting them that they were due to have their badge revoked as part of an overhaul to the verification system next month, it hurt. Numerous creators with verified checkmarks spoke to The Verge about feeling demoralized after receiving the email. Many creators also said this was just another example of YouTube seemingly turning its back on endemic creators who helped build the site into what it is today. Having a verification badge isn’t just a cosmetic advantage for creators. There are some practical advantages, too, including search benefits and being able to leave a comment as a verified creator. “I want to like this website and the people that are running it, but they just keep putting their time and attention on these things that are the opposite of what everybody wants,” Een, of popular YouTube channel Nerd City, who received an email about losing verification, told The Verge. “We don’t want YouTube picking the winners and losers because they fucking suck at it. And this is what they’re doing.” “THEY JUST KEEP PUTTING THEIR TIME AND ATTENTION ON THESE THINGS THAT ARE THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT EVERYBODY WANTS.” YouTube’s new verification policy is more in line with how companies like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter approach handing out a checkmark. The company wants to ensure that if people are looking for a specific account, like cooking magazine Bon Appétit’s popular YouTube channel, it pops up. The result will be that big celebrities, brands, and the 1 percent of YouTubers who have to worry about impersonation will be verified, but a large sect of other creators won’t. This is meant so that if someone searches for Bon Appétit, they’ll come across the magazine first. But it now means that YouTubers who are no longer notable enough to earn a badge may be less likely to appear right away in search results if they produce videos on similar topics. The company knew that removing verification statuses would upset creators, but YouTube felt it was a necessary step to battle impersonations of top accounts. That’s why certain steps are being taken to help creators who were told they’re losing verified statuses but want to contest it. YouTube is going to try to manually review every single appeal that comes from creators before the verification policies change in late October, according to the company. Creators ranging from beauty guru James Charles to top gaming creator Sean “Jacksepticeye” McLoughlin condemned YouTube’s decision. Comedian Gus Johnson called the move unnecessary and baffling. Charles called it pointless. McLoughlin called it a slap in the face. “For some people is entirely cosmetic, but for a lot of people I think it definitely plays into feeling like you’ve become a great established person on the website making content,” says James, who goes by his first name and operates The Right Opinion, a popular YouTube commentary channel. The policy change received so much pushback from creators, that just one day after it was announced, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki issued an apology and said that adjustments would be made. “As I write this, we’re working to address your concerns & we’ll have more updates soon,” she said. The last couple of years have seen YouTubers contending with a number of issues — most notably, demonetization problems, which limited their ability to run ads and make money. There have also been rising concerns about YouTube’s commitment to content made by amateur creators as more and more polished productions like late night TV clips are featured on the site. YouTubers now regularly say that the platform no longer feels like a democratic space where the best content wins; it now feels more like one where YouTube tips the scales in favor of what works best for advertisers. Justin Whang, who has more than 435,000 subscribers on his channel where he dives into strange stories from the internet, says the change to verification is a further step in that direction. “I think this is just another move towards them wanting to make YouTube more like TV,” Whang said. “So it’ll be the Jimmy Kimmels and Ellens who are verified, these TV people that you should be watching on YouTube, according to YouTube.” “VERIFIED BADGES HELP PEOPLE IN THIS COMMUNITY KNOW WHO’S COMMENTING ON VIDEOS.” The loss of verification also brings with it a communication problem for creators. Popular YouTubers will often find people impersonating them in the comment sections of others’ videos. The verification badge has allowed them to control what is considered a “real” message from a specific creator. With people losing those badges, it gives bad actors a chance to harm creators’ reputations. “Verified badges help people in this community know who’s commenting on videos,” Whang said. “It helps keep that line of communication open. That’s a very practical thing that comes with verification and is key to the YouTube experience. Especially when it comes to networking with other creators, know who’s listening and who’s watching your shit — and even people that you could potentially collaborate with in the future. Now those messages will get lost.” Everything about the announcement read as nothing short of a disaster to the YouTube community. While the company understands that creators are upset, it’s hoping people give it the next month to sort everything out before policies shift. The true test is whether creators have any more patience for a company they continue to see as turning on them. “We don’t want your curated decisions, and choosing who YouTube is for,” Een said. “We just want this thing to function as a level playing field where anyone can succeed based off of the democracy of the internet. That’s how it used to be, but it hasn’t been that for some time.” Read the full article

All hail one of Disney’s only “nice” forgotten queens...Kida of Atlantis! For real, she’s one of the only Disney princesses who becomes a queen eventually and retains her goodness and breaks that trope of “evil queens/stepmoms” that’s become so infamous...so you know.. suitable on the Atlanteans for embodying love! I mean, hey, even Elsa kind of went into her shadow self for a bit there…. Anyways, Atlantis is not your typical Disney movie...There’s no musicals or happy-go-lucky princesses who get helped by forest animals or swoon at princes… Instead, we get an hour and a half of a nerd exploring ancient temples, translating dusty books, and a badass warrior princess fighting for her people. And of course… It's freakin Atlantis, so obviously, we’re going to talk about it! What’s more, under the surface, especially in the design elements, there’s a massive wealth of ancient spirituality that taught an entire generation of kids about lost cities and consciousness for the first time…

So, spoiler alert… Atlantis is about a young researcher named Milo who, through the funding of an old family friend - who’s pretty into Yoga, can gather a crew to search for the lost civilization and its mysterious power source. They discover that not only does Atlantis really exist, but that it’s still inhabited by people hundreds or thousands of years old who have super-advanced technology and wisdom but have forgotten how to use it since the Cataclysm. But by far, one of the most immediate things that stick with you after watching, though, is that animation and art style… along with the design of Atlantis itself… It is entirely on par with Plato!

In this movie, the crew finds a civilization bathed in New Age imagery, colors, and idealism, reminiscent of Madame Blavatsky’s depictions of the ancient empire. Ancient symbols, especially the ever-present spiral and triangle, are carved into ceremonial stones and painted on masks that resemble the ritual attire of Native Americans -something that Sweet notices early on. And nor was this an accident, for when researching and designing Atlantis, the creators went through every kind of theory imaginable and eventually found the work and readings of Edgar Cayce, the Sleeping Prophet.

According to Cayce, Atlantis was a highly advanced civilization in touch with the higher aspects of themselves and reality and had found a way to integrate consciousness with technology and powered their machines through crystals. To Cayce, Atlantis was a living, breathing spiritual force that existed. Supposedly, they could focus their mental energy on crystals to produce usable energy, which could, in some cases, be used as a weapon. Naturally, when Disney was coming up with concept art, they thought the same thing as all of us…..” well, that’ll look awesome!” and they made it! The giant floaty consciousness crystal was born, and Atlantis was designed around it.

In the movie, Atlantis is presented as the archetypal Mother Civilisation, from which all modern cultures ultimately came. As a result, all of their temples and buildings reflect common styles from everywhere you’ve come to expect in the modern world… Even their language is based on Proto Indo European, with a dash of Sumerian grammar thrown in! The point is, the creators took the Occult idea of Atlantis and ran with it… Even the journey there goes through a kind of Hollow Earth - whoopsie, maybe we can’t say that without getting demonetized… But anyway, all the while being guided by a sacred journal that is pretty reminiscent of Lovecraft’s Necronomicon.

The Great Crystal itself holds a massive amount of spiritual wisdom too. It’s a life-giving power-source that energizes all life, lights, and flying vehicles in Atlantis. Each person is connected to this force through a personal crystal amulet worn as a pendant… which has been ripped off so many times… But as the king explains, though, the crystal is way more than just a power source or mechanistic machine… It’s created by and takes fuel from its people's consciousness and collective emotions, connecting them in one big, living, breathing “heart.”

It’s even said that the crystal - and by extent, all the smaller crystals, have a consciousness of their own, making it kind of like a deity. Weirdly though, near the beginning, when Kida speaks to Milo, she refers to “the gods wiping out Atlantis,” indicating some polytheistic belief system. While this could be a throw-away line, there’s a sense that the Atlantean world view encompassed multiple gods, as well as this understanding of a universal consciousness that connects and guides all people and things.. seemingly blending ancient polytheism with Americanized Buddhism and New Age concepts like the Akashic Records, which contains all of humanity's past collective knowledge. While we have this polytheistic belief system, it is still unified in their source-consciousness-crystal-ma jigger, so it’s kind of like a mix or polytheistic-monotheism.

Interestingly, according to background fandom sites, in the lore around 100,000 BC, a giant comet passed over the Earth, and a large fragment broke off and landed in the kingdom. Upon examination, the Atlanteans found that it contained a massive crystal and uncovered the excellent properties it possessed. In time, they built their entire culture, civilization, and empire upon it, connecting with it until it became the Heart Crystal that we see in the movie. There’s even a theory that it came from the Mystic Isles, which is like another dimension in the Disney Verse where crazy powerful entities live and are the source of all magic, but that’s another video on its own!

One of the more underlying messages of this movie is its commentary on how nature needs to be protected and not put to waste. In the film, the Flood events were caused by the hubris of the king. In his arrogance, he wanted to use the crystal and consciousness as a weapon...which caused significant instability and that big flash we see at the beginning that eventually caused the fall. The manipulation of consciousness into a firearm is pretty similar to Atlantis's story that we’ve explored in both the Human History Movie and The Anunnaki Movie…

The King pushed aside the need for the crystal as a life force and used it for a selfish purpose, which only led to ruin. After the flood happened, the King hid the crystal under Atlantis since he didn’t want anyone to try and use its power for destructive purposes, and he feared that what happened to his wife would happen to his daughter. By hiding the crystal from sight, the King ignored the past, which ironically….is what the crystal thrives on.

Perhaps there is a message here about the misuse of our consciousness for egotistical gain. In our current, disharmonious state, many of us may act like the King and seek to use our gifts to expand our kingdom rather than genuinely connecting with our hearts and living in balance… If the events of the movie are anything to go by, this can only go one way. The crystal, then, can be seen as both a natural source of energy and something sacred. As long as the people respect it, the crystal protects them, gives them power, and provides them with a long life….but as soon as they are disconnected from consciousness, they begin to die. Ahh, I get it! The crystals a metaphor for nature… or our souls! Or God… Or all 3!

Beautifully though, when the king finally faced his shadow, Kida restored the crystal to its proper place in the community, and Atlantis began to thrive again. The message here is pretty clear….the crystal is the collective consciousness and heart of the Atlantians and reflects our consciousness too. We should use this power within us with respect and not use it to harm others. In this way, we can thrive as a species, but if we hide our spirit under the surface and ignore it, or even worse… Try to mechanize it in our arrogance, and it could lead to our ruin.  

This dual nature is shown pretty well at the beginning and end, coming full circle. When Milo first meets Kida, he has a cut on his chest that she heals by touching him with her crystal, ultimately coming from a place of love...but at the end, when Milo is fighting Rourke, he cuts him with a piece of the main crystal and turns him into Crystal-stein...maybe the crystal was tapping into the intention behind its users?

In the work of the Theosophist Alice Bailey, who the team also drew on for inspiration for the artwork, she tells us that “during the time of Atlantis there was a tremendous battle on the astral between the Forces of Light, who wanted to lift human evolution out of materialism and separateness, and the involuntary Forces of Darkness, who wanted to enslave human will and more deeply immerse humanity in the matter,” which is what she argued was the cause of the fall. It’s quite keen than that Milo's final battle is against the heartless materialism of two bad teammates who had stolen the Crystal to sell on the black market..it’s an excellent little work that the team did...not only are some egotistical humans trying to lock the crystal-force away and sell it..but they’re ultimately defeated, only to have the crystal soar into the sky and be free in all its glory.

Now, of course...we can’t do a video on Atlantis without mentioning Kida.. you know, one of the best Disney princess ever who has been criminally underrated. By the end, she becomes a semi-ascended master, bonding her consciousness to the crystal and going all glowy and holy and becoming a being of pure energy. In a time of great need, the crystal can choose a host to channel its power and protect the kingdom, which sounds an awful lot like Thoth’s ship underneath the Sphinx, but hey, I digress.

Kida embodies the divine feminine in her romantic nature, going to her father to broach new ideas about how to save their culture and has a perfect balance of the sacred masculine and isn't afraid to put her thoughts into action. With Milo, she forms a pretty good creator team that brings consciousness back to the people… In the end, the glowing, energy princess floats down from the skies in a beam of light and melts into Milo's arms where she regains consciousness and her human form… just in time to see a civilization reborn and thriving again… the result of honoring our divine selves.

Isn’t it funny how, after all of it, Kida gives away that whole mountain of treasure to Milo’s crew and helps them back to the surface… not like the Atlantean economy would need any gold, right?... But, interestingly, the real treasure Kida and Milo value is knowledge, so much so that Milo even stays behind to help the Atlanteans re-learn their culture… which is fantastic cause one of the opening scenes of Atlantis II - not as good btw, but still fun... shows a school teaching the language..so we know he succeeds. Most of the temples seem to be a blend of East Asian and Mayan architecture too, which not only links the story to the Maya themselves, the supposed Atlantean priesthood but also helps get that picture of Greek columns and temples out of your head, which was one of the original intentions behind the design.

Bringing this to a close, if you ever wanted to see a faithful reproduction of the New Age idea of Atlantis, then this is like the perfect movie to go and watch...and while it didn’t do great at the box office, it has kind of become a cult classic…. and Tom Holland might star as Milo in a live-action remake. He’s also playing Nathan Drake in the Uncharted movie. What?! This story's message of exploration, adventure, inclusion, and the importance of living in harmony with our consciousness are all lessons that kids learned early on by watching this, and that you can too. While some Bible moms have tried to point out hidden Illuminati or Freemason symbols in it, like the All-Seeing Eye and Quartered Circle, the ultimate lessons of this movie are ones of love, compassion, and caution of hubris and putting our ego above a community.

The whole nature of this movie is even funnier when you read Norma Milanovich and Shirley McCune’s works that argued that Walt Disney himself was a newly Ascended Master whose mission on Earth was to create an awareness of the elementals, the animals, and to integrate the existence of such kingdoms into human consciousness… While we don’t know about that..it’s pretty fun to think about. Maybe Disney’s Atlantis was more in line with Walt’s vision than everyone realized! So until next time, Pah geh sheh nelekh, Gah Moak!

Andy Warski and J.F Gariépy Smeared by Leftist Media Attack Dogs

We say it quite a lot around here- if you are taking flak, you are right over the target. Next on the hit list for some very powerful people are two YouTubers in Canada, who have gotten a little too much attention for their debate shows. There are ideas that cannot be allowed to be spoken. To prevent these ideas being heard, the speakers them must be destroyed as publicly as possible- a story as old as Christianity itself.

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Andy Warski is not Jesus Christ. I have come to accept this now. While he is not the son of God, he did strike upon a golden idea. Like most ideas, it happened to him rather than being a moment of divine inspiration, but credit where it is due; he capitalized. Internet Bloodsports is Jerry Springer for a generation that has more interest in discovering identity than discovering the identity of trailer trash baby-daddies. Internet Bloodsports is a no-holds-barred live debate slugfest with few rules, no topic off marked as off limits and no mercy.  Monetizing the YouTube live streams with super chat donations has garnered Warski and his co-host J.F Gariépy with a windfall of cash that the platform had sought to deny conservative content creators; demonetizing videos has been used as an ideological weapon to clean up YouTube.

When the audience can give money to the channel host in real-time and ask questions that go out on-air, we see a synergy between creator and consumer that most media empires can only dream of. It is a system that works, and the people love it. Classical liberals have debated race realists- and lost. A Jewish lawyer exposed ingroup preferences within Judaism in a three-way tussle with two other Jewish guests. Vegans, libertarians, Black identitarians- you name it, Warski and Gariépy have hosted engaging discussions on it that often descend into all-out screamers.

The fans love it.

Personally, I love it, too. Of course, this means that progressives are frothing at the gills, trying to steer people away from high-quality TV that makes you engage your brain. If you like this sort of content, not only are you a Nazi, you pretty much endorse raping the mentally infirm.

The People for the American Way funded Right Wing Watch is a hard-left partisan group that is pro-immigration, pro-Democrat, anti-Trump, anti-gun and generally anti-White. It will shock no-one to read that George Soros funds TPAW heavily. It should be no surprise at all then, that rather than engage with the issues brought up on Warski Live, Jared Holt goes straight to personal attacks.

Note: whenever you see 'Alt-Right' on Right Wing Watch, feel free to substitute 'this person is not a literal communist' in your mind. You will learn nothing else about the person being smeared. According to this site, liberal YouTuber Carl 'Sargon' Benjamin is also a White nationalist.

As you see, misrepresenting reality is Holt's stock in trade. How then, did Andy Warski become a sex criminal with no judge or jury? On another channel's Bloodsport show, Warski regaled a story online of removing a poorly-fitting condom while having sex with his then-girlfriend, while both were drunk. His girlfriend had no problem with this and stayed in a relationship with him for months afterward. Naturally, a reasonable person can only conclude that this is sexual assault and Warski must be jailed- though no crime was reported. Can it be permitted that Holt can make such fraudulent accusations of serious crimes scot free? It is ridiculous to make such a misrepresentation of reality, moreso that what Holt does in effect is to muddy the waters of what sexual assault is as a crime.

This double standard is that which allows soy-imbued sub-par intellectuals to claim that Sweden is not experiencing disproportionate levels of rape because rape is not reported in the same manner as in other countries. Despite this being true, it does not debunk reality- that the rape crisis in Sweden is very real, and is not being exacerbated by ethnic Swedes.

The definition of rape in Sweden is now much broader, covering what would constitute sexual assault in other countries.

— Mike Stuchbery 💀🍷 (@MikeStuchbery_) September 14, 2017

Blurring the lines of what sexual assault means is incredibly dangerous. If we consider a drunk 20-year-old couple fumbling their way through sex as sexual assault, then we devalue sex crimes in our culture and make prosecutions all the more difficult for our legal system. It is irresponsible of Holt to do so, not to mention incredibly callous towards genuine victims of sexual assault and rape.

Compared to his co-host, Warski can consider he got off lightly. In a three thousand word hit piece, Kelly Weill of the Daily Beast has gone so far beyond the pale of what reasonable critique looks like that I am more impressed than disappointed.

Wow, what a fiend this man must be. What a ne’er-do-well. Alt-Right. YouTuber. Spencer. Autism. A Plot! A White nationalist! Literally Hitler!

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I would love to hear the definition of Alt-Right from the mouths of Holt and Weill, to see what they think this terrifying Nazi monolith looks like. If Warski is popular with the Alt-Right, and Gariépy is the Alt-Right, do they just mean "White nationalist"? I am genuinely curious as that would be an incredibly incorrect assumption. More to the point, the utter lack of consideration from these alleged investigative journalists that perhaps there are some ideas held by the "Alt-Right" that are not only valid and worthy of discussion but may even be true, is nothing short of intellectual bigotry of the worst kind.

If you can dismiss Gariépy -who appears to be an unusual character possessed of phenomenal intellect- as a racist and abuser of autistic children, then you may be able dismiss his arguments at the same time. The fact that there is no evidence of his racism or that his alleged victim was in college at the time of their relationship is clearly neither here nor there. Most curious to me is that at a time when the left is attempting to out-woke itself by justifying sex with children, the consensual sex-lives of consenting adults is attacked in order to hand-wave away the arguments they make. A six-year-old can consent, but a college student cannot? That makes no sense to me.

My official statement in response to the Daily Beast article about me. pic.twitter.com/Po7CFyUFcc

— J.-François 🐭 Gariépy (@JFGariepy) March 15, 2018

Did the Daily Beast ever criticize Hillary Clinton for defending a rapist? Not to my knowledge. Can we discount Hillary's entire career by making the allegation? No, we could not. Despite anti-GamerGate journalists going to jail for sex crimes on what feels like a weekly basis, has the Daily Beast ever used this fact to debunk their positions or even admit fault? No, because the Daily Beast has never commented on these criminals and continues to promote Brianna Wu and other "victims" of GamerGate as important voices.

Whether you agree with how Warski and Gariépy live their lives is irrelevant. No crime has been committed by either in their pursuit of happiness, so it really is none of our business. What is important is that these two e-celebrities are posing such a threat to the narrative of what we consider the regressive-left hegemony. This is why the chum has been tossed into the water, in the hope that bigger sharks -such as YouTube's SPLC Trusted Flagger operatives- will come sniffing around these deviants who dare To Say What Must Not Be Said.

Indeed it would be a fascinating event if Kelly Weill and Jared Holt were to take part in a live discussion of their allegations and criticisms on Warski's show. Instead of muck-raking and quote-mining like yellow-press shills, why not put your money where your mouth is? I have no doubt that Warski and Gariépy would be only too happy to find an impartial moderator and donate proceeds to a mutually agreed charity.

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This debate will never happen. Weill and Holt are intellectually bereft cowards who serve agenda, and not the truth.

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Bitcoin Hits new High

Bitcoin rose to an astronomic high of $963.97 each on December 28, 2016, CoinDesk revealed. That implies the aggregate estimation of the 16.07 million bitcoin available for use was $15.491 billion.

This implies bitcoin has dramatically increased in an incentive since December 26, 2016. In those days one was exchanging at $417.22 each making for an expansion of $546.75.

In the event that bitcoin's esteem continues developing there is an undeniable plausibility that it may be worth more than $1,000 USD by New Year's Day, potentially by December 29. At that value a bitcoin will have included $582.79 in incentive since December 26, 2016; when the cryptocurrency was worth $417.22 each.

Modi's Demonetization is useful at Bitcoin Costs

The explanation behind the hop in esteem can be summed up in single word: India. Back on November 8, Prime Minister Naranda Modi reported his demonetization approach which made the country's two biggest banknotes; the 500 and 1,000 rupee bills, and 86% of the trade out the nation useless.

From that point forward taught Indians have been racing to receive or possibly examine bitcoin. Sandeep Goenka the fellow benefactor of Zebpay, a bitcoin trade application in India, said his administration included 50,000 clients in December, CoinTelegraph announced. There's heaps of space for development on the subcontinent Zebpay just prepared $15 million bitcoins in December.

More development may be in progress since a few specialists are foreseeing Modi to dispatch another round of demonetization in first quarter 2017. Curiously enough Bitcoin's esteem as of now hit $1,000 in India not long ago demonstrating that request is solid.

Bitcoin costs are higher in India in light of the fact that there's a genuine lack of the cryptocurrency in the country, Mohit Kalra of the bitcoin exchanging stage Coinsecure told CoinTelegrpah. That implies costs there might fall as the supply increments. A bitcoin was worth 63,400 rupees ($932.56) on December 27, 2016, Coinsecure announced.

Nor is recently India, riots emitted in Venezuela on December 17, after President Maduro announced the 100 bolivar note and 76% of the money in the city useless. To make an already difficult situation even worse, Maduro fail to check if substitution money was accessible it clearly was most certainly not. Perhaps in light of the fact that Venezuela's national bank has not paid the banknote printers.

Maduro in the long run called it quits and permitted the 100 bolivar to course until January 2, however there is presently naturally bunches of enthusiasm for bitcoin in his nation. One purpose behind the intrigue is the way that a bitcoin was worth 7,888.74 bolivars on December 18, 2016.

Another is that bitcoin can be utilized to buy Amazon and other blessing cards that can be utilized to purchase sustenance, drug and different items on the web, The Guardian announced. This helps Venezuelans get around Maduro's draconian cash controls, shut fringes and mystery police hooligans.

Bitcoin may hit $2,000 by 2018

It looks as though what's to come is brilliant and 2017 may get to be year of bitcoin. That implies expectations that bitcoin may achieve costs of $2,000 or higher by 2018 may work out as expected. One of those making such forecasts is Kahira, another is Steen Jakobsen of Denmark's Saxo Bank. Jakobsen anticipated that bitcoin costs may increment by 165% due to expansion in his Outrageous Predictions bulletin.

Were those estimates to work out the world will be loaded with bitcoin tycoons and conceivably extremely rich people. At the point when that happens cryptocurrency nerds will be viewed as monetary masters as opposed to geeks.