PRESS RELEASE FairTube: Meeting Canceled

The meeting between YouTube/Google and FairTube—the partnership between IG Metall and YouTubers Union—scheduled for October 22 in Berlin will not take place. IG Metall canceled its participation on October 18, 2019, because YouTube/Google categorically refused to allow Jörg Sprave, the founder of YouTubers Union, to attend.

Even during the preparations for the meeting, YouTube/Google unexpectedly announced that Jörg Sprave was not welcome at the meeting. Several attempts by IG Metall to allow him to participate after all were rejected by YouTube/Google. In a poll conducted at short notice on the YouTubers Union’s Facebook group, its members clearly voted against holding the meeting under these circumstances. Within a few hours, approximately 2,400 members of the YouTubers Union participated in the poll.

Christiane Benner, Second Chair of IG Metall, expressed her disappointment: “Without the YouTubers Union, this meeting is pointless. This vote on the meeting clearly shows that we would have had no legitimacy to enter into discussions without the YouTubers Union. IG Metall has already had its demands to Google/YouTube democratically voted on within the group, thereby legitimizing them. I’m surprised that Google isn’t genuinely interested in hearing the YouTubers’ perspective. Google claims to improve people’s lives by making the world’s information universally accessible. But that obviously doesn’t apply to the creators, who are, after all, the foundation of its success. Instead of involving them on an equal footing in the platform’s development, they’re slamming the door in their faces. Google is a digital dinosaur.”

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