YouTube Is Monetizing Human Suffering at an Open Air Drug Market

Technology@lemmy.world – 387 points – 1 years ago

YouTube Is Monetizing Human Suffering at an Open Air Drug Market

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.

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.

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..

I agree that the use of drugs should be decriminalized, but it should also come with other responsibilities. For example, a government organized intervention and mandatory rehabilitation. Depending on how much money the person has, they should be required to pay for it. Or they should be expected to pay it back over time.

We should have a welfare state. It should also come with responsibilities.

use of drugs should be decriminalized, but it should also come with other responsibilities

Do you want to do that with alcohol and tobacco too, or just the ones that the rich and powerful consider taboo?

For example, a government organized intervention and mandatory rehabilitation.

One size fits all mandates are a recipe for disaster. Depending on the individual case, you end up either violating the patient's right to bodily autonomy, refusing needed help because the mandate says it's not time yet or both.

Better to leave the medical decisions to medical professionals. They're much better at it than even the best politicians and/or parliamentarians.

Depending on how much money the person has, they should be required to pay for it

Absolutely not. Means testing like that breeds resentment and often leads people between a rock and a hard place where they're too wealthy to get it for free but not wealthy enough that they won't have make sacrifices they might not think to be worth it.

Rich or poor, cost should never be a determining factor in whether or not to seek needed healthcare.

We should have a welfare state. It should also come with responsibilities.

People have enough responsibilities already without the government making demands in order to give them healthcare that they need.

When someone needs help battling addiction, the caring thing isn't to check whether they've worked hard enough to be allowed to work hard.

People forfeit bodily autonomy when they prove that they can't take care of themselves. At that point they must be placed into conservatorship of someone who can make decisions for them.

No. Absolutely not.

Terminal cancer patients can't take care of themselves either, do you want to take their rights away too?

What about people with disabilities that require constant care, should they become "wards of the state" with fewer rights than children again like in the bad old days?

Even if someone is a ward of the state, they still have rights and must be treated humanely.

Not according to the regressive dogma YOU'RE spewing 🤦

You can't be treated humanely without rights.

Progressives who don't believe in God support murdering disabled people through programs like MAID, which is just rehash of Action T4.

Disabled people with families who take care of them don't need government assistance. Unfortunately there are some people who need the government to take care of them.

I should also point out that if someone relies on their family for care, they only have the rights that their family allows them.

Progressives

Yeah, those of us who want humanity to progress rather than stagnate or even regress. So awful of us 🙄

who don't believe in God

Leave your imaginary sky daddy out of it.

support murdering disabled people

Nah, that kind of thing is done by regressive monsters who are religious, superstitious or both. Like the nazis you're referring to. They were religious, superstitious and not the least bit progressive. They were fascists.

Disabled people with families who take care of them don't need government assistance

What fucking century do you live in where you think amateurs are better at dealing with disabilities than medical professionals??

Unfortunately there are some people who need the government to take care of them.

Yeah, literally everyone, in matters great and small. That's what government is there for. To help and support all of the people who need it.

I should also point out that if someone relies on their family for care, they only have the rights that their family allows them

Ah, the century would be the 1700s if not earlier. That's not how the law works, fundie.

Fuck off with your libel.

How is MAID any different from Action T4?

Who cares? MAID is irrelevant. You can care for disabled people without denying them the free exercise of their rights. You have to to care for them properly.

You said I support murdering people. Fuck you.

"Prove" according to who? You? What if I think you've forfeited the right to bodily autonomy?

Means testing doesn't work.

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.

This is part of a larger political astroturfing campaign. There was a very comprehensive post on reddit about it when this garbage starting flooding into small subreddits. I'll see if I can find it.

Found:

https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/qdf9bp/comment/hhp5s4u/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/pj395z/whats_up_with_the_influx_of_videos_about_heavily/

Original credit to /u/hoyarugby on reddit

For people who are actually interested in how this developed rather than flogging a particular political horse

Kensington is a neighborhood in North Philadelphia. It's located not too far from the major highway I-95, and is also well-served by public transit via the Market-Frankford Line (commonly called the El, the elevated train above this street)

It was originally a neighborhood inhabited by Eastern European immigrants, who worked in garment factories, making things like stockings and hats - the textile industry was a key part of Philadelphia's industrial economy

The textile industry was one of the earliest hit with deindustrialization - factories moved to the cheaper and non-unionized American South, and then overseas, and Kensington was hit very hard by this de-industrialization. White Flight wasn't as bad here as in many other cities - Port Richmond, a neighborhood right next to this, is still largely white working class - but much of the white population fled and were replaced by Black migrants from the Jim Crow south, as well as hispanic immigrants

By the 60s the area had a large number of abandoned buildings, and the drug problem began then. First heroin in the 60s, then meth in the 70s, then crack and cocaine in the 80s and 90s. The neighborhood became a bit of a drug "emporium" because of its location - it's right near major highways and train routes, so it was a common place for people from outside of Philadelphia itself to go buy drugs. And all of the abandoned buildings created ideal places for people to squat in and do drugs

But though the area was awash in drugs and drug addicts, the abandoned buildings paradoxically helped keep the problems less visible. Large drug/homeless camps were established in abandoned lots and other marginal space - drug addicts and the homeless congregated there

The current situation in Kensington is caused by two things - fentanyl and cleanup efforts

I probably don't need to elaborate too much here, but the opioid epidemic and the influx of cheap fentanyl from China has turned the existing drug issue into an epidemic. Kensington is the place where you can get the most potent heroin on the east coast, for the cheapest price. It's a place that draws in drug addicts, keeps them ensnared, and kills them via overdoses. And it's the most potent of its kind in the country

Paradoxically, cleanup efforts pushed the problem from being somewhat invisible to being out in the open. In general, both the City of Philadelphia, and real estate money, have made an effort to buy up and restore/rebuild many buildings in the area. Kensington has excellent transit access to Center City, and is very close to the hottest real estate market in the city, the neighborhoods of Fishtown and Northern Liberties. Many of the buildings and abandoned lots that served as drug squats and homeless camps were bought up and torn down or restored, with the hopes that in a few years, Kensington will be the next hot real estate market in the city

The proximate problem that led to the current crisis was the clearing of a number of homeless camps, particularly the biggest one in the city, El Campamento which was established in the CSX railroad cut to the West of Kensington. After mounting complaints from neighbors and community leaders, CSX and the city finally cleared out the homeless camp. They were able to get some people housed and/or in treatment, but many addicts refused treatment/housing, and the drug problem will always create more homeless addicts. But now these homeless addicts didn't have an established camp to go to, so instead they just started living close to the drugs - right under the El on Kensington Ave, which is what you're seeing in this video. Basically, cleanup efforts pushed the homeless addicts out of camps where they were mostly out of sight, and into streets where they were very visible

The problem is really bad, as you can see, but there's no obvious thing for the city to do. A charity tried to set up a safe injection site nearby, but both the Trump administration and locals blocked it from being established. The city's homeless infrastructure isn't really equipped to handle the numbers of people here - and even if it had the money, most of the homeless are addicts and will refuse to live in homeless housing that requires sobriety. Kensington is going to remain a convenient place to buy drugs no matter what thanks to its great transit links. And the opioid epidemic will continue to produce new addicts that will be ensnared by places like Kensington

Some articles:

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/kensington-opioid-crisis-history-philly-heroin-20180123.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/magazine/kensington-heroin-opioid-philadelphia.html

https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/citizen-of-the-week-charito-morales/

No where in either of those links you posted exposes it as an "astroturfing campaign". While I'm sure some people are posting these videos with political motives in mind, does it occur to you that maybe locals are fed up with it? People are watching their cities turn to shit with open air drug markets that many thought were a thing of the past. Just because some retard on twitter with an agenda reposts the video doesn't mean that it's an "Astroturfing campaign" lol.

I live in the area, Philly suburbs. We're very aware of Kensington. We're also very aware of public heath problems that are causing the problems that Kensington has. There's been a very public fight over a supervised injection site that would save lives and provide resources for people to get help. Democrats want it. Republicans don't.

You can be as opinionated as you want about it, but it's something that affects me, and from your comment, my opinion is that you have a limited understand of the actual problem Kensington faces.

supervised injection sites are very controversial and do not solve the problem of addicts moping around shitting up public areas. Some argue they will attract them even more. Stop pretending like it will somehow solve all the issues, when we both know that is not anywhere close to the case.

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?

These arguments that always try to absolve giant corporations of any responsibility are so tired, and so nonsensical. They decided to start a company that hosts random people's content, then they and the content creators can take responsibility for it and face the consequences of allowing for, and profiting off of, the exploitation of vulnerable people, bigotry, violence, hate speech, etc etc. There has to be a line drawn somewhere or else you end up with "free speech absolutists" who only allow alt right content on their platform. Gee, where have we seen that one before.

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.

Although if I’m being honest, I’m a bit jealous that this even works. Just a bit. This does parallel snuff films though which absolutely disgusting. For all we know its directly connected to people who provide that dark web content.

Are you joking right now or is that really how you think the world works?

I guess you don’t know

I know that you've been led into a weird way of thinking, likely by people who benefit by you being misled.

You’re wasting your time and you all already know that.

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.

It’s a fucking YouTube stream who cares lol

If you don’t want to be shown as a crackhead on the internet don’t be a crackhead in public

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.

I don't think the income from this would make the slightest dent...

Also, moderation? I haven't seen the stream but I imagine people stumbling, or performing sexual acts in exchange for drugs and such. There aren't many ways to 'interpret' it imo, at least not worse than it is

And if it were just a few dollars that were made available to the social workers there... That would be something, right?

And by moderation I mean that someone should explain what you see and thus point out dangers. Over and over again. They should try to rule out that anyone has fun watching these sad fates.

I totally agree, a charity trying to raise awareness and help the problem should be running it.

I'm watching now and from what I can tell it doesn't appear to be a monetized account as no adverts have shown, there's not been a single donation either only a lot of comments about how awfull the situation is. there are moderators in the chat though it's impossible to tell on a recorded stream how many comments they're removing.

Really it's just a street cam, you can see loads of them in all sorts of areas - it's different because there are lots of people buying drugs and hanging around but they're doing it on a public street so why should this one be any different to the popular time square or rue de mars streams?

Overall my take-home is that after watching fifteen minutes of it I'm somewhat less likely to do heroin today, and that's probably a good thing. These people's lives haven't changed because I've seen them buy and consume drugs, when you're smoking crack on a cold street it's not like every one in you life can't tell. It's sad but it's a reality hiding from won't help either.

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...

while I wouldn't do it, I don't think it justifies calling for censorship.

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 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.

The word you're looking for is panhandling.

Don't forget selling dubiously acquired metal for scrap

Not something I witnessed around my parts in Germany. May be a big city thing

My brother in Christ, it's the oldest profession in the world...(a mouth is a mouth amirite LOL)

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.

lol the addicts do anything for money, stealing, robbing, begging, prostituting, you name it, they do it. some even work

Crimes

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.

Okay, maybe there are thousands of people out there who just like watching Vtube streams, with cash to burn, in this day and age. Or, maybe someone's using livestream donations to launder money.

Does either one make more sense? I think both are true, and the latter is far more probable.

Was in a WoW guild with a dude obsessed with a vtuber.

Nerdy professions make lots of money for dudes who don't get out a lot.

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.

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.

These streams are popular so rural people can shit on urban people. That's really the entire point.

These rurals also have similar drug abuse in their communities, but it's hidden from them, and this let's them pretend cities are hellscape.

Most conflict in America exists because rurals are poor and ignorant but don't like being perceived that way.

Or maybe rurals just like living in cleaner quieter more natural places.

Some do, yeah. See when you're painting with a broad brush and describing people as a bloc, you by your very nature are conceding nuances exist. This is why "Not all men" is so dumb.

This fact does not change a single word of what I said above.

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

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.

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

That does sound like a fascinating stream

If profiting from raising awareness is morally wrong then don't donate to any charities either.

Is it raising awareness tho? Seems like a copout for someone who just pockets the money after they exploited people's lower than lowest points.

someone who just pockets the money after they exploited people's lower than lowest points.

You just described most non-profits.

It's literally and demonstrably raising awareness. So the fuck what if it's exlploitative, tons of much more important stuff is.

The reason this is even in the newsfeed is intersectionality, not substance.

Charities are generally non-profit entities. Not the same thing as YouTube at all.

so called open air drug market lol