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Update: 3 hours after posting and being on the hacker news front page: Automated email out of the blue: "We’re pleased to let you know that we’ve recently revi

Update: 3 hours after posting and being on the hacker news front page: Automated email out of the blue: "We’re pleased to let you know that we’ve recently reviewed your YouTube account, and after taking another look, we can confirm that it is not in violation of our Terms of Service. We have lifted the suspension of your account, and it is once again active and operational." Thanks hacker news for voting this up and clearly triggering something within the GooglePlex. Still a big -1 for Google/YouTube that their normal processes are completely broken.

badkitty99 5y ago
Viral social network justice
Farow 5y ago
Ah, the classic. In order for your issue to be resolved you have to make the news. Really sad how this applies to many/most online services.
- rubatuga 5y ago
  I guess Kafka forgot to acknowledge the power of complaining on Hacker News.
  - throwaway82931 5y ago
    Google is Kafka at scale. All of the other characters in The Trial besides Josef K have been optimized away and replaced with silicon. The key insight that made it possible? That responding to front-paged Hacker News complaints doesn't have to scale. This allows them to shaft users in the vast majority of cases which never become high profile.
mcast 5y ago
It’s funny how Google’s automated system will flag a small video like yours but I see tons of crypto scams on SpaceX imposter live feeds with thousands of viewers
- Iolaum 5y ago
  Indeed. And what's worse they all appear to have the Space X channel name. They look legit the first time you see them unless you treat youtube the same way you do when reading an email, ie looking for phish. And what's worse is that those channels are recommended by the youtube algorithm!!!
  - parasense 5y ago
    Actually, what happens is a channel you were subscribed to, or one which you have consumed enough content from to influence the YT algorithm.... has been compromised, taken over, the password was discovered by crypto miners. They take over the channel, change a bunch of settings, etc... then start spewing out the usual Space-X live stream crypto-mining pyramid-scam. Sometimes if you look at the channel hosting the live-stream, you can sometimes still see clues to the old channel you were subscribed. You have to audit through the videos and playlists, old comments, etc...
    - Iolaum 5y ago
      In the two cases I noticed when I investigated the channel looked like it had no uploads other than what I was watching. And there was no visible subscriber count, which I interpreted as likely almost no subscriber. I think YT algorithm tends to push live streamed content. If I see it again I 'll check if the channel has been hijacked or anything else I can find. I 'd rather not see it again though :p
- thiht 5y ago
  On the last Apple Keynote I wanted to watch the live on YouTube so I looked for it on YouTube directly and the only results I got were older Apple events and crypto scam lives (on channels named stuff like « AppleEvent », stuff like that). I just couldn’t find the real live, but these fake lives had tens of thousands of viewers. YouTube sucks.
- rafale 5y ago
  If u buy ads from them, you are a honorable and valuable customer, regardless if your ad say "send X btc to this address and we will send you back 2X".
albatross13 5y ago
Time to migrate your life off of youtube now, friend. Don't let them fool you twice
Hard_Space 5y ago
I would only add that the same thing happened to me for entirely mysterious reasons, earlier this year, and my YouTube account was restored by the 'usual channels' [0] within about 3-4 hours, without the need for publicity. [0] https://support.google.com/accounts/contact/suspended?p=youtube&visit_id=637744028008188719-2596566682&rd=1 https://support.google.com/accounts/contact/suspended?p=yout...
- thijser 5y ago
  Great that the process also sometimes works. I also tried that form before posting here and it just lead to an email notifying me of the rejection of my appeal within 10 minutes.
pwned1 5y ago
You're lucky you got some attention. I had google kill my adsense account, which I've had for 10 years+, because I logged in to another google business account of mine with the same phone number I used on my adsense account. They declared that I tried to create duplicate accounts. Account killed. Appeal? Yeah right, that was denied too. No possibility of talking to a human being to explain the simplicity of the issue. A major source of income dead because of an algorithm. If there are any googlers on here who could grant a little mercy and guide me on how to try and talk to someone to resolve this, I'd be eternally grateful.
- rvnx 5y ago
  Oh, it's my life with Amazon. My Amazon Affiliate account got suspended for "impersonating a popular Android application", turns out I'm the developer and publisher of this application. Now all my applications are now automatically suspended of the Amazon program. Nice!
  - malfist 5y ago
    So you're telling us you have a bad case of....imposter syndrome?
    - rvnx 5y ago
      My time spent on Among Us is finally going to pay out!
- derekpankaew 5y ago
  I had a similar experience with AdWords. Then they randomly re-activated me about 5 years later.
ComodoHacker 5y ago
I'm thinking of chances they've managed to make the process fully automatic. Including all communication, news/social networks analysis and weighing reputation hit if the case go unresolved. Have human factor completely ruled out from the process of ruling on people's lives and careers. Would make it even more disgusting.
reginold 5y ago
Would be great if you edited to update your post about what changes your making to your usage of google services because of this.
nabakin 5y ago
I guess HN is the new YouTube customer service department
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  New? It never stopped
mbostleman 5y ago
Good outcome, but having to be on the front page of HN doesn't scale.
SilasX 5y ago
Really? How long was it between first complaint and resolution, and how does that compare to cases where the victim didn't get social media outrage on their site? (Honest question, I know this sucks and don't want to trivialize it, just not sure if this is proof of needing to appeal to social media.)
Arcuru 5y ago
To be fair, it's also early Monday morning, when you were suspended over the weekend. Lifting the suspension could just as easily have happened because they now have enough people to actually do a human review.
wesleywt 5y ago
Somebody is browsing hacker news at work.

badkitty99 5y ago

Viral social network justice

Farow 5y ago

Ah, the classic. In order for your issue to be resolved you have to make the news. Really sad how this applies to many/most online services.

rubatuga 5y ago
I guess Kafka forgot to acknowledge the power of complaining on Hacker News.
- throwaway82931 5y ago
  Google is Kafka at scale. All of the other characters in The Trial besides Josef K have been optimized away and replaced with silicon. The key insight that made it possible? That responding to front-paged Hacker News complaints doesn't have to scale. This allows them to shaft users in the vast majority of cases which never become high profile.

mcast 5y ago

It’s funny how Google’s automated system will flag a small video like yours but I see tons of crypto scams on SpaceX imposter live feeds with thousands of viewers

Iolaum 5y ago
Indeed. And what's worse they all appear to have the Space X channel name. They look legit the first time you see them unless you treat youtube the same way you do when reading an email, ie looking for phish. And what's worse is that those channels are recommended by the youtube algorithm!!!
- parasense 5y ago
  Actually, what happens is a channel you were subscribed to, or one which you have consumed enough content from to influence the YT algorithm.... has been compromised, taken over, the password was discovered by crypto miners. They take over the channel, change a bunch of settings, etc... then start spewing out the usual Space-X live stream crypto-mining pyramid-scam. Sometimes if you look at the channel hosting the live-stream, you can sometimes still see clues to the old channel you were subscribed. You have to audit through the videos and playlists, old comments, etc...
  - Iolaum 5y ago
    In the two cases I noticed when I investigated the channel looked like it had no uploads other than what I was watching. And there was no visible subscriber count, which I interpreted as likely almost no subscriber. I think YT algorithm tends to push live streamed content. If I see it again I 'll check if the channel has been hijacked or anything else I can find. I 'd rather not see it again though :p
thiht 5y ago
On the last Apple Keynote I wanted to watch the live on YouTube so I looked for it on YouTube directly and the only results I got were older Apple events and crypto scam lives (on channels named stuff like « AppleEvent », stuff like that). I just couldn’t find the real live, but these fake lives had tens of thousands of viewers. YouTube sucks.
rafale 5y ago
If u buy ads from them, you are a honorable and valuable customer, regardless if your ad say "send X btc to this address and we will send you back 2X".

albatross13 5y ago

Time to migrate your life off of youtube now, friend. Don't let them fool you twice

Hard_Space 5y ago

I would only add that the same thing happened to me for entirely mysterious reasons, earlier this year, and my YouTube account was restored by the 'usual channels' [0] within about 3-4 hours, without the need for publicity. [0] https://support.google.com/accounts/contact/suspended?p=youtube&visit_id=637744028008188719-2596566682&rd=1 https://support.google.com/accounts/contact/suspended?p=yout...

thijser 5y ago
Great that the process also sometimes works. I also tried that form before posting here and it just lead to an email notifying me of the rejection of my appeal within 10 minutes.

pwned1 5y ago

You're lucky you got some attention. I had google kill my adsense account, which I've had for 10 years+, because I logged in to another google business account of mine with the same phone number I used on my adsense account. They declared that I tried to create duplicate accounts. Account killed. Appeal? Yeah right, that was denied too. No possibility of talking to a human being to explain the simplicity of the issue. A major source of income dead because of an algorithm. If there are any googlers on here who could grant a little mercy and guide me on how to try and talk to someone to resolve this, I'd be eternally grateful.

rvnx 5y ago
Oh, it's my life with Amazon. My Amazon Affiliate account got suspended for "impersonating a popular Android application", turns out I'm the developer and publisher of this application. Now all my applications are now automatically suspended of the Amazon program. Nice!
- malfist 5y ago
  So you're telling us you have a bad case of....imposter syndrome?
  - rvnx 5y ago
    My time spent on Among Us is finally going to pay out!
derekpankaew 5y ago
I had a similar experience with AdWords. Then they randomly re-activated me about 5 years later.

ComodoHacker 5y ago

I'm thinking of chances they've managed to make the process fully automatic. Including all communication, news/social networks analysis and weighing reputation hit if the case go unresolved. Have human factor completely ruled out from the process of ruling on people's lives and careers. Would make it even more disgusting.

reginold 5y ago

Would be great if you edited to update your post about what changes your making to your usage of google services because of this.

nabakin 5y ago

I guess HN is the new YouTube customer service department

whimsicalism 5y ago
New? It never stopped

mbostleman 5y ago

Good outcome, but having to be on the front page of HN doesn't scale.

SilasX 5y ago

Really? How long was it between first complaint and resolution, and how does that compare to cases where the victim didn't get social media outrage on their site? (Honest question, I know this sucks and don't want to trivialize it, just not sure if this is proof of needing to appeal to social media.)

Arcuru 5y ago

To be fair, it's also early Monday morning, when you were suspended over the weekend. Lifting the suspension could just as easily have happened because they now have enough people to actually do a human review.

wesleywt 5y ago

Somebody is browsing hacker news at work.