📝 Daily Update (Facebook posts)

Wow, we just exceeded 15k members!
I contacted a gentleman from my network who recently retired from a position in one of the big, established trade unions in the US. I asked him to take a look and tell me what he thinks. He said (excerpt):

"I am not familiar with the law around the world, but USA law would definitely classify you as independent contractors with no legal right to form an official union. That doesn't stop you from forming a user group with the word "union" in it's name which is basically what you have done. If you could get all those willing to join and participate to stay unified you could have the same type of potential negotiating power as an official union, but unfortunately once you get above two people it starts to be like trying to herd cats to keep them all going and all going in the same direction."

I totally agree with him on all counts. It is very important for the success of this that we STAND UNITED. I do realize we have a good amount of members who feel this union needs to act differently. Some want us to become the YouTube Quitters Union, others want different measures and so on. But at this point I am asking you to go along with the current plan. If we can establish ourselves with YouTube and in general, then we can still change our policies if the majority of our members feel that way.

My friend ended his letter of analysis and advice with these words:

"Worse, your "employer" is a bit of a monopoly so you can't even really play off one "power" over another. On the other hand, that other guy with the sling shot did pretty good for himself against the giant... LOL"

Remember, my dear friends. On May 7, we will kick into action. Not long now.

United we stand.

The first strike - Questions and Answers

Why will it start on May 7?
Because we have to give YouTube time to react BEFORE we start. Not going to happen, but we play this by the book.

Why do creators only need to upload ONE video somewhere else?
Because many creators still need every penny they make from YouTube, especially now that income is so much down for most. Of course one is the minimum, no upper limit.

Why does it last two weeks then?
Because I want to give creators that aren't members yet a chance to join us while the strike lasts.

Why isn't there a poll and we decide on ONE platform?
Because there isn't ONE platform that is suitable for everybody. News guys won't use pornhub, gun guys won't use Facebook, guys with long videos can't use DailyMotion or Vimeo ($$$). If we would decide on one platform, many of us would simply NOT participate. We need to stand united. All of us.

Why don't we talk to the alternative platforms?
Because this is NOT the YouTube Quitters Union. Our goal is to make YouTube a better place, not to herd people over to another platform. Of course it may come to that at some point. But that will be a sad day as it means we have lost, given up, and are in full retreat, tails between our legs.

What happens after the two weeks?
We will give YouTube time to react. If they stonewall us some more, we will escalate to the next level.

We are still small. Our power is limited. Why do we go on strike as long as we aren't much bigger?
Because we won't grow at the required rate if this is a blah-blah only union. Only if we DO SOMETHING people will notice us. The press will follow this closely and hopefully report. Also, the effect of this first strike can be measured statistically and we will be able to scale it up once we have more members.

How do we get the big dogs (PewDiePie and so on) to participate?
We do have some larger creators among us, but often these guys like to stay anonymous. The real big guys are a different case. Often they don't want to mingle as they see themselves as superstars and also they are still doing really well financially. Of course everyone is welcome here. Conventional trade unions are open for the top managers as well, but those rarely join. This doesn't mean a union can't be very powerful even if all the members are small guys. UNITED we are strong.

Why aren't we hiring lawyers and simply sue YouTube?
Actually, our friends (and fellow unionists) at Zombie Go Boom have tried that and failed. The way YouTube's $$$$$ lawyers wrote the terms of service seems to be bullet proof. Also we don't have any money. Our power is our reach, not our lawyers. Plus, I personally hate law suits. Expensive, time consuming, unpredictable and all in all nothing but pure frustration.

What are we actually demanding?
We have a list of demands over at www.youtubersunion.org, and of course we still have my original video. These are still our demands, and we fight for every one of them. But for this first strike, the demand is very simple: We want YouTube to officially acknowledge us and pick up serious negotiations.

Will there be a video piece we can glue into our "strike" videos?
Yes, I will prepare such a video. But many creators probably may want to approach their audience directly.

All right friends, I hope this clarifies things a bit!

United we stand.

Wow, so many pics! Well over a hundred... so much anger. This is fun!
Here is a first small GIF I made... needs more drama and audio, but I still like it!

I decided to skip those with weapons in them as that would bring us into trouble. Also some people obviously uploaded pics that weren't their own. I tried to google every pic and skipped those that were found elsewhere too.
Also, some people stored their pic somewhere strange so I did not get the permission to download them. Those pics I skipped. If you feel YOUR pic is missing, check on that and reupload please.

United we stand!

And so it begins! The warning strike starts tomorrow and will last two weeks. Here is my little announcement piece that you can use in part or complete, whatever you want. It is in public domain.

Here is the link to the full 1080p60-file: drive.google.com/file/d/1rnKYc1UgO5qAQqzM2O9om20oLf5SwAet/view

Here is the transcript:
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Hello, my name is Jörg and I started the YouTubers Union. We are fighting for a fair and uncensored YouTube! The video you are watching is part of our first warning strike and I invite you to participate, too.
The warning strike starts on May 7 and ends on May 21, 2018.
If you are a creator – please upload at least one video to any other platform and put a teaser onto YouTube, with the link to the full clip elsewhere. Please tell your audience why you are doing that.
If you are a user – please like this video and then watch the full version using the link provided in the text description! Then inform the other channels you are subscribed to and ask them to participate.
If you are YouTube – we don’t have to play it this way! Let us talk about the situation in order to make YouTube a great place for everyone again. But if you keep stonewalling, be prepared for stormy weather. This first strike is just a warning shot.
In any case, if you want to know more about the YouTubers Union, check out our website, the forum and/or the Facebook group page. Membership is free, everyone can join and there are zero obligations.
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Please join the strike - and spread the word! My "Slingshot Channel" strike video will come out next Sunday (my regular upload day).

United we stand!

Remember people, every participating creator only has to upload ONE video elsewhere during the strike, as originally stated and further explained in the Q+A. This is just a warning strike and we need room for escalation.

Of course you aren't limited to one. You can do as many as you like. I, for one, will upload all of my non sponsored videos elsewhere, but not the sponsored ones as I have binding contracts in place.

How did my two strike videos do on "other platforms"?

Time to find out.

The first video got 86k views as a teaser on YouTube, and 52k views on Facebook. So I was able to convince 60% of my audience to click on the link.

The second video had 42k views as a teaser and 22k views on Facebook plus another 19 k views on Vimeo. The 19k Vimeo clicks all came from other websites like Gizmodo, Technabob and so on where it was featured. I uploaded it to Vimeo so these guys could embed the video, but I never published the link on YouTube. So the true conversion rate was just 45%. I would expect that this conversion rate would go down further.

86 and 42k is also very poor for my channel in general. I think that YouTube filtered the videos out to the max. Non monetized, an external link in the text AND weapon related.

If I would migrate to another platform, what would happen is that I would lose a huge amount of reach and my channel would be dead in the water quickly.

So for me, leaving YouTube can't be anything but maybe a very last resort even if there WOULD be serious competition. Which isn't the case.

OK, the first warning strike is over. Thanks for everyone for the participation!
Here is a list of the videos: youtubersunion.freeforums.net/…/…/first-strike-videos - thanks to fellow Union member crul, who kindly curated the list.
We managed to win many new members because of the increased coverage. Also many of us experienced the pros and cons of alternative platforms. I, for one, was really impressed that I got more than 33k views on a Vimeo video I did not even link to in the teaser. For a Vimeo video, that isn't bad. Viral success IS possible outside of YouTube, but of course at a much lower level.
As expected no word from YouTube. They are trying to sit this out as per protocol. I have a feeling that if we now relent, they will move to apply even more censorship and filtering. This comes in waves, making things worse and worse.
I think it is time to approach YouTube more directly. I would love to have everyone write a letter, on paper, but then again there is the issue of wasting valuable resources. YouTube will of course throw away all those letters. Is it worth damaging the environment for a symbolic measure? I am not sure. But just writing emails is not the same, they will simply send them straight to the spam folder.
What do you guys think?

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