Thee Pluto Denounces YouTube’s Bias Against African Creators

Popular Kenyan content creator Robert Ndegwa, better known as Thee Pluto, has called out YouTube for its discriminatory practices against African creators. He highlighted the stark difference in earnings between African and Western creators, lamenting the meager income earned by Kenyan YouTubers despite their high-quality content.

Pluto specifically criticized the platform’s “RPM (Revenue Per Mille)” issue, which determines how much a creator earns per 1,000 video views. He revealed that Kenyan creators receive significantly less than their Western counterparts, despite producing equally engaging content.

“Here is a quick one… An average amount YouTube pays you for 1 M views in Kenya is 100k and an average amount a USA YouTube content creator gets paid for 1 M views is 1.2M shillings (7825 dollars),” Pluto wrote on his Instagram story, emphasizing the vast disparity.

In March 2023, Pluto sparked controversy by sharing a screenshot of his YouTube earnings dashboard, revealing that he had earned over Sh9 million on the platform. However, his recent post suggests that even despite his significant success, he still feels the sting of YouTube’s biased compensation system.

Pluto’s criticism adds to the growing chorus of complaints from African creators who feel undervalued and exploited by YouTube. This issue highlights the need for greater transparency and fairness in the platform’s monetization process, ensuring that creators from all regions are compensated fairly for their contributions.

Google finally explains why the cancelled Kibe off YouTube

Google’s head of communications and public affairs for Africa, Dorothy Ooko, has commented on the YouTube channels of controversial blogger Andrew Kibe being deleted.

Kibe had more than 400,000 subscribers to his YouTube account.

Ooko clarified that Kibe’s channels were terminated as a result of transgressions of the platform’s rules in her response to a question posed by a user going by the name of Mariam on September 18.

“Cancel culture can not be allowed to take root in content creation. @kibeandy termination of YouTube accounts is NOT about his message but a direct attack on the creative. Restore his accounts. Say NO to CANCEL CULTURE.” 

Dorothy explained that the author had been forbidden from posting films at first. He made an effort to post information on a different channel in order to get around Google’s limitations on his main channel.

In a response, Andrew Kibe expressed his skepticism about the given justification.

He claimed that he had not received official notice of the closure of his channels, and he asked for clarification on the precise rules that he was said to have broken.

“Sounds so pedestrian. Can you show me the emails of the violations? That is the procedure, right?

I mean, there is no way YouTube permanently blocks any channel with over 3,000 videos with no paper trail. Be serious with your job.”

Kibe has received conflicting reactions from both supporters and detractors, propelling him to the top of Twitter trends in response to the deletion of his well-known YouTube account.

On social media, the content producer received a lot of support from his ardent followers who pledged to subscribe to his new channel.