Germany's powerful IG Metall trade union is organizing Youtubers to force Google to play fair

As Google has enacted a series of high-handed, opaque changes to how Youtube monetizes, upranks and censors videos, Youtubers have found themselves battered by the changes: they built Youtube into a global multi-billion-dollar success story, but they don't get a say in how it's managed. Now, a group of Youtubers have teamed up with Germany's powerful IG Metall trade union to fight back, using Europe's broad privacy laws and Germany's broad labor laws to force the company to come to the negotiating table and give them a say in how the service is run. You can read more about it on the Fairtube campaign site.

Our proposals:

* Publish all categories and decision criteria that affect monetization and views of videos

* Give clear explanations for individual decisions - for example, if a video is demonetized, which parts of the video violated which criteria in the Advertiser-Friendly Content Guidelines?

* Give YouTubers a human contact person who is qualified and authorized to explain decisions that have negative consequences for YouTubers (and fix them if they are mistaken)

* Let YouTubers contest decisions that have negative consequences

* Create an independent mediation board for resolving disputes (here the Ombuds Office of the Crowdsourcing Code of Conduct can offer relevant lessons)

* Formal participation of YouTubers in important decisions, for example through a YouTuber Advisory Board

(Thanks, Urs!)