5 August 2019

The FairTube campaign has been covered in media all over the world. It’s so much that we can only report a few highlights here.

The Observer — the oldest British Sunday magazine, first published in 1791 — ran an article with the headline “YouTube faces backlash from ‘YouTubers Union.’”

The US website Vox wrote: “Can YouTubers really unionize?” Their answer: “Yes, and no. They at least have the support of a really big one.”

New York Magazine, in their (hilarious) article, quoted a June 5 tweet from Guardian writer Julia Carrie Wong, in which she wrote: “We tend to group YouTube in with Facebook and Twitter when discussing problems with its platform, but I think it might be more useful to think of it as Uber, but for broadcasting[.] YouTube is basically the employer of its star creators, from Crowder to Logan Paul to Jordan Peterson to your favorite makeup vlogger. It pays them money in exchange for work but it also sets up very loose rules that maintain the legal fiction of a non-employment relationship.”

Mm-hmm.

Chinese media has also covered FairTube. Sina reports:

If our translation program is working, this means: the YouTubers Union and IG Metall “have started an initiative called FairTube, whose goal is to have YouTube explain its rules on how to monetize and de-monetize video and treat all content creators fairly.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

On the topic of others doing it better: the YouTube channel Representative Press made a remake of our (English-language) video: it’s shorter and has current photos and press reports — and a great thumnail. It’s fantastic. Thank you!

Other Youtubers have added Spanish and Portuguese subtitles to the original video. Thank you!

So: lots of press, lots of support. There’s only one response we’re still waiting for: a response from YouTube.