i just had this show up on a video i made theorizing that the russians may be behind the attacks in paris. this is certainly incredibly controversial, and i can completely understand why they're putting a pause on it. for me, it doesn't matter - because i'm making vlogs as a way to document my recording career, and act as a sort of public interest gateway, rather than for the cash itself. i want people to buy my records at bandcamp, not generate ad revenue over youtube. i mean, i'll take it, sure. but, it's not the intent.

but i think my example makes it clear what's happening. from your standpoint, as a user of the system, you're thinking you want to slap ads on a video and get a cut out of it. but, remember: you're not the customer from google's standpoint. you're the product. google's customers are businesses that want to advertise their products on youtube. ad space on your videos is what google sells it's customer. that ad space consequently needs to have value. i think my theory of russian involvement in the attacks has merit, but i can completely understand why a company may want to distance themselves from the content in the video.

the metric in understanding why you might get flagged consequently shouldn't be understood via a kind of first amendment type thing. it should be interpreted via the question of whether you think advertisers would want to be associated with the content. a perfectly clean and legal post may very well get flagged just because it's controversial in some other sense that advertisers want to distance themselves from. my example is just much more clear due to how extreme it is.