Someone making money off this is MAYBE fourth or fifth down the line of issues with the entire situation. It's a slap in the face for humanity that our focus is more about the people filming and hosting it. What a world.
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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Nothing is ever a problem until there's an accessible way to make money from it.
usually without being arrested by the police
That's the good part, though. Problematic drug use is a health problem and should be treated as such rather than a criminal and moral one.
And that's not even mentioning what often happens when cops interact with members of any marginalized group..
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Finally someone is noticing this.
I report this garbage every time it gets recommended to me on YT, which is way too often. These are real human beings going through the most difficult and humiliating experiences of their lives.
One thing that's always overlooked about homelessness is the complete, total, utter lack of any privacy whatsoever. It seems obvious when you say it out loud, but no one seems to acknowledge it. Imagine every bad day you have, you have an audience. When you wake up in the morning after a shit night of sleep, everyone gets to walk by you, judge you, and gawk at how shitty you look. I'm sure not everyone in these videos is homeless (likely fewer than people would automatically assume), but probably a significant enough number.
The fact that there is anyone out there who believes treating people like they're in a zoo and then profiting off of their suffering for "entertainment" is an actual, unfeeling psychopath.
The worst part is that there are a bunch of channels like this and even more videos. They're not limited to addiction but exploit any marginalized people they can. I blame Vice for having constant drug/addiction content with no real message besides "watch this person shoot up for some reason. No, we're not blurring their face." Wtf.
Here in Germany there is a television station that likes to produce similar trash formats. Whole seasons show people on the streets struggling with addiction and the problems of homelessness.
Even though I think it's important that we don't forget this part of society, it always had a strange aftertaste to me. What is described here sounds like the next stage in this display of human tragedy for the purpose of entertainment.
How is this YouTube's fault. The person who set up the stream is the one picking the content YouTube don't officially know anything about it.
There's many reasons to go after YouTube, but this isn't one of them, this is stupid. What idiot wrote this, and do they not understand how the internet works?
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Exposure brings attention, attention brings solution. To be ignored is to never be fixed
People don’t have a problem with the exposure, the have a problem with someone making money off it.
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Even though I agree with you that you shouldn't look away, there are two things that bother me:
If I understand correctly, this is completely unmoderated. This means it is up to the viewer how they interpret what they see.
In addition, the income should be made available to solve the problem. But it seems like someone is just putting it in their pocket.
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I am sure the problem will magically fix itself when we switch the cameras off.
Who gives a fuck about the people suffering on the street; The real travesty here is that someone is getting paid for their work in reporting it!
What an absolute stupid ass take...
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I thought its purpose was anti-usa propaganda rather than profit. Now I see it can serve both purposes.
This might be a stupid question but how can drug addicts of this sort (the ones who tumble across sidewalks semi-unconscious all day) afford to buy drugs?
They live in an open air drug market and I can't imagine any charitable middle aged lady walking past giving them money. They for sure can't work.
How do they afford drugs?
Crimes. Massive amounts of crimes. I think at this point most burglaries and muggings are due to drug addiction. Grab the stuff, sell it to a fence and buy drugs from a dealer. Often the fence and dealer is the same dude.
I think that many people in this situation may work or have things to sell. This position is sometimes like a rapid decline, not a permanent state of being. Plus drugs are cheap, $20 could get you high all day.
Correct,. hopefully, they don't die before they get help
I feel many think "these people" have zero value, but they are all redeemable, every single one of them
My brother in Christ, it's the oldest profession in the world...(a mouth is a mouth amirite LOL)
My guesses:
Panhandling (Thanks @Breezy@lemmy.world) on better streets without the associated stigma
Stealing
Recycling bottles found in the trash (at least where a deposit system exists)
Doing odd jobs for small change.
Skipping lunch for drugs.
Short answer: fentanyl is cheap. Wholesale price of fentanyl is around $50,000/kg which is about 400,000 doses, or 12.5 cents per dose. Street value is around $2/dose (~2.5mg). There are a lot of users within that distribution chain who can profit enough to sustain their own addictions.
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Maybe instead of censoring the internet more we can get the people in these situations some help?
No? We're gonna ignore it and force you to ignore it as well?
Okay then...
I can't believe people actually are in favor of censorship, it just blows my mind. I'm an addict myself and I believe in showing the world the problems with drugs and the negative effects drugs do to your neighborhood and country.
I've been clean from drugs for over a decade, and shame is a good thing IMHO
It’s good to bring exposure to these types of issues, even if the only way to do that is through a commercial platform. There’s nothing wrong with monetizing this.
There's nothing wrong with monetizing the filming of vulnerable people without their consent?
Okay
And not even giving them a cut of the profits or helping them in any tangible way? Sure, sure, nothing wrong with that. If they didn't want to be filmed, they should have stayed home...oh, right.
Sometimes I think that instead of antacid's, I'm taking crazy pills.
Is it wrong to monetize newspapers or documentaries? This is journalism too, and the people who document it deserve compensation for the work they do.
The $500 donations must be money laundering. I can't see a normal user on YouTube donating to a unmanned livestream and definitely not that amount of money.
Ever watch a vtuber stream? There's apparently people out there with cash to just burn.
Vtubers do things. They talk to the audience, play games, draw, cook and a bunch of other things. A lot of it is para-social which explains why some people donate a lot. This is a generic livestream of a street.
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I think it's just the journalist being silly, there is a tier on YouTube for a $500 donation because that's part of the YouTube system but has anyone ever used it for this stream? Incredibly doubtful.
I imagine like most webcam streams it makes very little money.
Edit - I've watched some and looked through the vods, no adverts so it's probably not monetized - likely due to showing drug use, also no one has donated in any of the sections I've looked at.
Google, destroyer of the human pysche.
I thought that was Meta.
Shit, guess it can be both.
Most modern international corps (can we just start calling them megacorps now?) would fit in there
None appear to be aware they are being filmed and exploited as a form of entertainment.
So someone is making money off of these people's darkest moments and the comments here so fsr just breeze right fucking past that.
Are they though? Presenting this as some excess of capitalism is emotive but in reality they're likely to be making almost nothing from it. Their motivations might well be to draw attention to a bad situation, they might even donate money to drug addicts for all we know or be one themselves (or possibly drug addiction charities).
Seems like lazy journalism to write a whole story based on 'i watched ten minutes of a live stream' so I'm not willing to make judgements based on it.
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That does sound like a fascinating stream
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