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YouTube Is Monetizing Human Suffering at an Open Air Drug Market (www.404media.co)

submitted 1 year ago by tree@lemmy.zip to c/technology@lemmy.world

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The Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia is one of the most brutally obvious signs of America’s public health crisis. The so-called “open air drug market” in the middle of the country’s sixth most populous city is where hundreds of people use drugs, some of whom are unhoused, usually without being arrested by the police. It is a failure of our health care system, our cities, and our drug enforcement policies on public display.

For some, it’s also a content farm, where they turn other people’s misery into engagement and profit.

As I am writing this, 675 people are watching a YouTube livestream from a channel called USALIVESTREAM of a camera that is panning back and forth over the corner of Kensington Avenue and East Allegheny, where there’s a SEPTA train station that people congregate around. As is normal on YouTube, to the right of the video is a chat where viewers can talk to each other, and pay to post stickers and “super chats,” highlighted messages that cost as much as $500. The revenue generated from this chat is split between YouTube and the YouTube channel owner. YouTube and the channel owner also make money via pre-roll ads viewers have to watch before the video starts. It is a live version of a growing trend, mostly on YouTube and TikTok, where people make videos of people in distress, specifically in Kensington.

The dire situation at Kensington is such that the live feed is always capturing multiple people who are clearly in distress, slumped over while they’re standing, asleep in camping chairs, or using drugs. None appear to be aware they are being filmed and exploited as a form of entertainment.

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[–] Meowoem@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

I know what you mean but I don't think so, I'm genuinely fascinated by the thinking behind the original comment.

I watched some of the recorded live streams and the people in chat are generally being respectful, some idiots of course but less than I've seen on volcano streams and NASA launches tbh. It really seems unlikely that there's a shared audience with this and snuff movies.

Assuming, against all evidence, that they even exist. RedRoom was very clearly a LARP and while there have been many terrible things exposed as yet there has never been real evidence of anything resembling a murder for entertainment industry anywhere on the darkweb.

It's an easy rumour to propagate because by it's nature the expectation of proof is low, the classic 'no for real my buddy saw it' or 'i can't show you what I've seen, you don't want to see it anyway...' is all we can expect - it's something salacious and scary, forbidden knowledge... The ultimate ghost story.

Except of course we should expect more evidence of it if it existed, police and news reports for example. The commonly used in media 'my informant that looked at this thing that's illegal said...' when what they mean is 'i looked but I don't want to get arrested' - where are the documentaries with blurred footage of laptop screens? Where are the police reports saying 'we need a whole load of money to investigate this genuine problem?

There's no end of videos of people dying or being murdered online, but no evidence of any communities creating videos of murder for money. If that community does exist somewhere then it's certainly not the same people running it as are restreaming livecams of a Philadelphia street corner.