15 ms·

Ask HN: Best Way to Contact YouTube

604 points by S_A_P 5y ago

I woke up this morning to an email from YouTube stating that my channel is banned for repeated violations. They didn’t specify what I violated but it could be anything from copyright to hate speech. Let me explain the content of all 5 videos on my 11 year + old channel. 1) a video of a squirrel that carried half a loaf of French bread along a fence and jumped into a tree. He dropped the bread during the jump but somehow managed to one hand/paw catch the bread and save it. 2) a friend of mine who was unable to ride a spring horse on a playground. 3)my son reacting to a scene from the movie hot rod(cool beans) this was a private video. 4) music video of my own music. No samples or other copyrighted material contained. 5) another music video also with no copyrighted material. I submitted a request to the YouTube forum but I suspect that is a black hole where support requests go to die. I’m not really all that upset and I have all the videos that are on the channel locally but the 1 strike you are banned seems awfully extreme. The fact that I wasn’t told that something was flagged or given any sort of heads up is really what bothers me. How can I get YouTubes attention?

bitwize 5y ago
Put them on blast on Twitter or HN, get upvoted/retweeted a lot. It's kinda like Linux tech support: ask "How do I do X?" and get told to RTFM. But say "Linux sucks because I can't do X" and nerds will fall all over themselves to help you.
scrumlord 5y ago
[flagged]
smsm42 5y ago
Why do you need youtube? You have the videos. You are not deriving any revenue from it being hosted on youtube or need their monetization capabilities, I presume. Just host it on an alternative platform (rumble? Odyssey? Others?) and tell your friends to do the same. Fortunately, youtube is not the only game in town, why insist on using a platform that clearly doesn't want to be used?
nocubicles 5y ago
Don't know the answer but thanks for the information. I have also user in youtube where I have uploaded some random recorded videos with my brother and other memories that I have no local copy of. Will make that ASAP!
JimWestergren 5y ago
This also happened to me in march 2021 on a channel with almost no videos and no activity at all "We have reviewed your content and found severe or repeated violations of our Community Guidelines. Because of this, we have removed your channel from YouTube.". Got another email later the same day from YouTube: "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." Must have been an error or glitch, I did not take any action. Maybe the same for you.
bastardoperator 5y ago
If you aren't flooding Google with insane amounts of cash, good luck ever talking to a real person.
pixelgeek 5y ago
Maybe the squirrel sent in a DMCA takedown?
- riffic 5y ago
  that only applies if the squirrel holds the camera and takes the shot itself.
  - eropple 5y ago
    Squirrel barratry is real and it's here.
  - imadethis 5y ago
    It's the squirrel equivalent to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...
- mdoms 5y ago
  This isn't Reddit.
DoItToMe81 5y ago
Tell us how it goes. My channel was taken down for the same reason. A private video of a friend singing was marked as hate speech and my whole channel was wiped for it. I never got it back, no matter how many emails I sent.
tmp538394722 5y ago
Malice hat: Maybe bots are trying to muddy the waters of legitimate take down requests by flooding support with fake ones. Incompetence hat: Maybe YouTube’s abuse detection is broken.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  You can wear multiple hats at the same time.
- javajosh 5y ago
  >Malice hat...Incompetence hat How can you tell them apart? ;) Jokes aside, I'd like to add another hat, which is "ambivalence hat", which says: This person's pain is not all that important. The (very mild) harm it does to YT's reputation can be safely ignored. Ambivalence hat synergizes with "ignorance hat" which is the one that says, "Gosh, I'd like to help but I just don't know what to do." (A person wearing both ambivalent AND ignorant hats is a good approximation of the population at any given time about any given topic, btw.)
- smsm42 5y ago
  Cynic hat: Youtube doesn't care about false positives, not even a little bit. If some random Joe with five videos gets run over - the cost is really zero. Not having any support ensured the random Joe won't waste anybody's time and money on something the company doesn't care about. The money comes in from million-subscriber channels carrying ads. The rest can shut up and watch the ads - or just shut up. Youtube is not for Joes with five videos - they are tolerated, but that's all, nothing is optimized for them.
logicalmonster 5y ago
I feel for you and you have my upvote for the signal, but good luck getting any action unless this goes sufficiently viral. I've had this discussion with Googlers here before and this is apparently what they actually believe. * They're content with algorithmic approaches to spam prevention and other moderation that results in numerous false positives and don't see the problem with that. * They think their support channels are more than adequate. * They think their bans result solely in bad actors being harmed and don't realize that shady businesses that actually do spam have endless fake companies at their disposal to keep on trucking.
- S_A_P 5y ago
  I’m also just realizing that all my subscriptions are inaccessible since my channel is cut off so I will have to re-create that list with a new account now. Sigh. That’s probably the worst part is finding and recreating my subscription list.
  - logicalmonster 5y ago
    I'm not sure what other browsers its available for, but there's a Safari extension PocketTube that can save and categorize your YouTube subscription list apart from your actual account. So if you get banned, resubscribing is possible.
    - ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
      It's crazy their is a big enough need for that, that someone made that a product.
      - alpaca128 5y ago
        There's also the application called FreeTube which stores subscriptions offline as well. And comes with complete adblocking including the ad placements within videos.
  - stefandesu 5y ago
ganeshkrishnan 5y ago
Most likely some spambots hit the "report" button on your channel. sometimes its people with very similar video as yours and want their content to be viral. youtube "Hero" is a dumpster fire. Someone mass banned my google dev account for one app that I had for around 8 years as "impersonating or trying to impersonate" whatever that means. I applied for review and got an automated review that even all related accounts will be banned and they went ahead and banned a related play dev account. Weird thing is that I have a google cloud account with $120k yearly spend and my startup on it. Time to hedge my bets and move off google cloud.
- spaniard89277 5y ago
  > Weird thing is that I have a google cloud account with $120k yearly spend and my startup on it. Time to hedge my bets and move off google cloud. Aren't you afraid to get your startup down by some automated BS hell?
  - ganeshkrishnan 5y ago
    I am too ingrained into google cloud. I can migrate only at the cost of very annoyed customers and employees. besides as a solo boostrapped company, I hardly have any time for tech work.
- sabellito 5y ago
  Reminds me of the Terraria dev saying that doing business with google is a liability. https://www.byteside.com/2021/02/terraria-dev-to-google-doing-business-with-you-is-a-liability-cancels-stadia-port/ https://www.byteside.com/2021/02/terraria-dev-to-google-doin...
- xtracto 5y ago
  > Weird thing is that I have a google cloud account with $120k yearly spend and my startup on it. Time to hedge my bets and move off google cloud. I wouldn't trust Google with anything valuable... their customer support is non existent and the company seems to be "full of themselves" in dealing with their errors and things that are their fault. For all shit that Amazon gets, my experience with AWS has been generally positive: Their technical support is really good (you get a HUMAN who guides you through screen share to achieve what you want) and it has been quite dependable in the more 10+ years that I have used them commercially. Today's Google feels like Microsoft in the 90s or early 2000: "You don't like us, tough luck, fuck you and you still have to use us".
comeonseriously 5y ago
I think the only real way to get their attention is to convince someone sufficiently tech famous to tweet that you're getting a shit deal from YouTube. Only then will a real person step in.
ratww 5y ago
I'm suspicious of video #4 being the reason. There is a wave of people copying other people's music, claiming as their own and then sending claims to the original video. Maybe since your channel is small, Youtube decided to just ban. I've seen it happened with people who tried to pirate music more than once. I don't post any music at all on Youtube. It all goes trough a third-party service that posts on my behalf and on streaming services.
- S_A_P 5y ago
  I suppose that is possible but don’t they give you a strike for that instead of an outright ban for strike 1?
  - ratww 5y ago
    That's correct, but I've seen this rule being broken often on channels that had pirate music.
    - S_A_P 5y ago
      The music has been there for 8 years for one and 2 years for the second one. I’m wondering If my channel name is the reason “stupid American pig” is my band name. But it’s been that name since 2008
      - ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
        Holy Shit! That's a fantastic name. Are you punk rock? But I agree that is a very dangerous name in the time of algorithm controlled moderation.
        S_A_P 5y ago
        I’m a fan of punk rock but I wouldn’t call my music that. Mostly lofi type stuff.
      - ratww 5y ago
prettyStandard 5y ago
Just removed all my videos from YouTube, I can't be bothered with nonsense like this. Sorry friends.
- ratww 5y ago
  Yep. I just use social network or disposable/temporary video hosts for anything now.
  - shmatt 5y ago
    Any example for said video hosts? Vimeo isn't much better these days
    - ratww 5y ago
      Streamable and Ufile are the ones I used last, if you don't want anything too permanent. Imgur has videos too I think.
- Johnyma22 5y ago
  I began this painful process just recently deleting the vast majority of my old videos. :(
- winternett 5y ago
  Why do that? Just leave them there and don't check on them. There is no benefit to dropping out of a game that you don't really need to do anything to play. You don't have to follow the stupid and time-wasting script they promote for being a creator.... It's a phony script. There are several other ways to skin the cat of promotion in getting people to listen.
  - et-al 5y ago
    Ideally, it's a way to get Google to actually address these complaints. However, until professional YouTubers start leaving and cause Google's ad revenue to dip by 2-3%, we won't see any action. Most of us with a handful of random videos deleting our content from YouTube won't change anything. And even if the top 50 YouTubers quit en masse, there's still the queue of bright hopefuls more than willing to fill those spots.
Ansil849 5y ago
> 3)my son reacting to a scene from the movie hot rod(cool beans) this was a private video. This would seemingly be the most straightforward reason. The system flagged a copyright film clip. Though this doesn't explain why you didn't get a notice about just that video. But honestly, why spend time worrying about this? It sounds like you barely used your account, so just get a new one.
- S_A_P 5y ago
  I get that sentiment but I think it’s the fact that I have to start over and make a new channel. Lost all my subscriptions that I watch. The fact that 1 strike and you’re out is a thing. The private video did not show the movie and showed my son getting excited and trying to imitate the cool beans bit. It was barely audible in a few seconds of the 20 second video and my son was talking over it so I doubt automated solution would likely not fingerprint it. It’s also about 10 years old and has always been private.
  - Ansil849 5y ago
    The fact that it's private is irrelevant. The fact that it's been up for 10 years may also be irrelevant if this property was just added to the scanner's library. Honestly, you're wasting way too much mental energy on this. Youtube is a blackbox. Effectively, it bans and otherwise penalizes accounts arbitrarily with absolutely no recourse. You either use their services understanding this, or don't. It's pretty straightforward.
- avian 5y ago
  > Though this doesn't explain why you didn't get a notice about just that video. I don't know if that's a thing with YouTube and private videos, but when I got a copyright strike on my YouTube account because of a private video I never got explicitly notified about it. I just have random stuff on my channel, similar to what OP describes and largely use YouTube for watching content. The video in question was a private video of me doing a quick demo of some project where a radio was faintly playing in the background (I didn't even notice that at first - only after finding the original video file and cranking up the volume did I realize that the mic picked up some recognizable music in the background). I would have never noticed that I had a copyright strike if I wasn't bored and randomly clicking through the YouTube UI one day.
rootsudo 5y ago
Through legal channels, but you agreed to Terms of Service. They may redirect your request to someone that could help, or a further black hole. Email: legal@support.youtube.com Fax: +1 650 872 8513 Address: Legal Support YouTube (Google LLC) 901 Cherry Ave. San Bruno, CA 94066 USA
hagbard_c 5y ago
Just put your videos on PeerTube, Odysee, Rumble or any of the other video platforms out there. If you have a server of your own you could host a PeerTube instance and put them there. Ditch YouTube.
paulpauper 5y ago
almost impossible to reach a human unless you know someone who works there, or unless you get the media's attention, or are a huge brand, or spend a lot of money on ads, sorry
numpad0 5y ago
Don’t worry, “repeated violations” means their backend workers flagged your content or processed reports on your content multiple times. Not a fault on your side. Could be 1.5s of silence in your video repeatedly flagged automatically and cleared manually, or had been script reported by 65535-node botnet that claims to be real individual non-group of people in a remote Eastern Europe village. Every major social networks has this class of problems, worsening each minute as time goes on, and while your online fame can be exploited to exempt yourself from it, it will probably need a legislative action to control.
mcherm 5y ago
It is obvious to everyone involved (except, apparently, employees of Alphabet) that YouTube's system for reporting violations and adjudicating them is broken. I would happily move to using a competitor instead except that between the price point (free or better) and the mass audience, there are no effective competitors. What can we do about this?
ju-st 5y ago
Did you post any comments on other videos while being logged in that channel?
- S_A_P 5y ago
  Never anything other that “this is great content” type content. I purposely do not comment on videos I don’t like or post negative or argumentative comments. I’ve a few YouTuber friends and we chat on their channels now and then. Again much like here on HN I do make an effort to keep most comments friendly and positive.
winternett 5y ago
If you think that's bad, imagine a whole year of missing the entire "good" music promotion wave on TikTok because they were automatically muting every video I posted of my own music (without any explanation or POC) due to applying vague copyright rules against me... Now TikTok is flooded and promo capability is very weak. I decided to just develop my own site further though, and it's automatically targeted to people who like my music without me having to figure out which hashtags are trending every day at least... The best way I've found to spur YouTube into action though is to @ their account on Twitter... It works for now.
dredmorbius 5y ago
There's the approach of showing up in person to voice displeasure. Even if it's not an avenue you plan on taking, it's sufficiently viable that Alphabet / Google / YouTube should include it in their threat model. I'd strongly recommend taking steps to remove yourself from the platform, voting with your feet. You're cetainly not strongly wedded, as major YouTube creators are, many of whom have been taking steps to establish themselves more independently of that one platform and its advertising revenue, through direct donations (generally through Patreon, which I'd put fair money on one of the monopolists buying out at some point, possibly to shut down). What I'd strongly suggest is trialing peer-to-peer video-sharing technologies such as PeerTube. Note that the independent route may also be subject to copyright claims (will your Internet provider cut you off?), harassment, and/or cracking attempts. YouTube does actually protect you a gainst a fair amount of that. You'll also want to find out what CDN options are available for that video that makes you Internet Famous for a day. I'd strongly urge you to file complaints with your political representatives and consumer-protection agencies. This would include local (city/county), state, and national representatives, as well as your state's attorney (usually, there may be another consumer protection agency), and national communications and trade agencies (in the US: FCC and FTC). This step combined with seeking out and promoting alternatives is our best way out of the present monopoly hell. I'd specifically request: - Appeals processes for account bans. - Full reports on why invalid bans were imposed. There's a long list of other reforms people who've spent more time than me on this have come up with. Look up Cory Doctorow, Tim Wu, Tristan Harris, the EFF, and others who are advocating for reforms.
- dmitrygr 5y ago
  Re: threat model I am sure it is I considered. There was that one shooting at the YouTube, campus caused by precisely this.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    I am aware.
- daveevad 5y ago
  > There's the approach of showing up in person to voice displeasure. People should remember that someone showed up at Youtube HQ with a gun a few years ago[0]. [0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_headquarters_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_headquarters_shooting)
cab404 5y ago
Just for the record: if you don't really plan to monetize your videos -- just share and store, consider using Peertube https://joinpeertube.org/ https://joinpeertube.org/ It's instances usually have low quotas though~
TekMol 5y ago
I wonder how hard it would be to create a protocol which avoids problems like this. A user who wants to publish a video could do that in the form of special links which contain a hash of the video (maybe magnet links do that?). They could do that on their own website for example. Or in multiple places. Their website, their GitHub pages, their Twitter etc. The viewer (say Joe) who wants to see such a video would click the special link and have a software that searches it on a decentralized network of nodes. Some other viewer (say Paul) who recently viewed the video and still has it in his cache could deliver the video to Joe. In return, Joe could automatically get some crypto currency. Say worth $0.01 or so. Content aggregators could crawl all these sites and create an experience similar to YouTube. Or maybe this could also be implemented in a decentralized fashion.
- genewitch 5y ago
  No one wants to wait for decentralized videos to load. Sure, the hundred or thousand most popular videos will load relatively quickly, but some video I saw 10 years ago that is relevant to a conversation I am having would either take a very long time to load, or not load at all. And now you, the human, as a content producer, need to game the algorithm to be viral with every video. Don't get me wrong I think YouTube and Google drop the ball constantly, but you can't decentralize content distribution and have the selection you do now. It'd be like going back to the 70s with broadcast television.
  - TekMol 5y ago
    If the $0.01 is more than what it costs to store the video until someone requests it and deliver it, then loading will be super fast. Because tons of players in the market will compete for this margin.
- photon-torpedo 5y ago
  This, minus the cryptocurrency, is IPFS. (Though I've never used it, so I may be wrong.)
  - TekMol 5y ago
jdprgm 5y ago
It's wild to me the strength of Youtube's monopoly. I was just talking with a friend about this the other day... I can't think of another consumer app with as dominant a position.
1970-01-01 5y ago
Your problem going viral is the only tried and true solution for human involvement. Sorry.
winternett 5y ago
YT, TikTok, IG (etc) are having extensive problems with people gaming their algorithms. The algorithms were launched way too early without proper testing of course, and they now allow content spammers and re-uploaders (content thieves) to make creator fund money for literally stealing content. Right now their storage is balooning with duplicate content because of the wave of content theft that TikTok has encouraged, and it may be necessary for the clock to be reset, and for their copyright policies and support to be fixed in total. This means that original content creators, and creator funds may also take a big hit until something stable is finally worked out, but it shouldn't let platforms like YouTube off the hook for shoddy copyright policies and and mis-management of the process for many years. They need to implement a cutoff date for enforcement, the trend of content copying was not popular until TikTok surged in popularity, somewhere around then should be the cutoff point (around 3 years ago). YouTube also created shorts, which was only another poorly thought out enticement for content theft and cloning. I followed procedure over 2 years ago to request my profile be converted into a music artist profile, and YouTube still has not done anything nor responded... They need to also hire real life moderators and implement a real support and moderation team/process that is professional and accountable. If they don't the entire site will turn into a platform of spam and junk ads and triggering content like TikTok is fast becoming now. Original content creators are the lifeblood of social media platforms, they shouldn't be required to go unrewarded, and worse yet, they shouldn't be abused and ignored by the platforms they post to... OC creators are the only ones that help platforms to disguise the fact that they're collecting money under the table from big industry.
eatbitseveryday 5y ago
I wonder if you could just try putting your videos elsewhere? Vimeo? Self-host?
jahav 5y ago
We need a rule of law from these unaccountable tech-giants. It's not an acceptable to say "algorithm did it" with no recourse.
enriquto 5y ago
My impulsive answer to this problem is "you had it coming for subscribing to a service with unacceptable terms". For the non-impulsive answer, I don't really have anything of value to say.
fruit2020 5y ago
Imagine getting a fine for speeding but without revealing the location where you were speeding. What size do these companies need to be before we get some consumer protection regulations
mayregretit 5y ago
Can "banned for repeated violations" be construed as defamation (libel)? Maybe average internet users go to OP's channel, see it's banned, and assume that OP did something illegal—like posting pirated movies, stealing money earned from copyrighted music, or even worse things like posting violent videos, terrorism or child pornography—thus tarnishing OP's good name. I wish we had some legal mechanism for average citizens that covered the increasingly common case where "company X forced me to spend a bunch of time/money because of their mistake." P.S. Sorry that happened to you. Good that you had local backups, that's a lesson for us all!
- cronix 5y ago
  Everything you listed is someone else's opinion on what happened, but never stated by the company. All the company did publicly was say "this account is banned" with no libelous or defamatory statements attached. IANAL.
cletus 5y ago
Best way? I can think of four: 1. Have a large enough Twitter following such that complaining will get somebody's attention; 2. Know someone at Google who can contact the right people to resolve this; 3. Be a large enough advertiser such that your account manager will make noise on your behalf; or 4. Be a large enough content producer such that the threat of you pulling your content from Youtube is sufficient to get their attention. This isn't unique to Youtube or Google. It's just how "support" works on platforms these days.
nanidin 5y ago
I lost my Google account the same way in 2007ish. I never got it back, nor was I able to get any explanation of the violation or chance at redemption. Best of luck to you, but until there is regulatory pressure to give some rights to account owners, you’re probably not getting anywhere.
robflynn 5y ago
I uploaded a private video of a screen recording of me demoing an in-development feature of a website for a client so that I could ask them if that's how they intended it to function. There was no audio. That video received a strike and was flagged as a scam... before I ever even sent it to the client. YT is ridiculous.
stefantalpalaru 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_headquarters_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_headquarters_shooting
ChrisArchitect 5y ago
this is not worth upvoting ppl. Help out in the comments and move along. here's a previous recent thread on similar: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26916096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26916096
frogpelt 5y ago
Do you have a desirable username?
m1m 5y ago
What is your yt channel url/id?
tradertef 5y ago
For me only their twitter support worked @TeamYoutube. All other channels were silent.
filoeleven 5y ago
From their ToC: https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms&noapp=1 https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms&noapp=1 > Notice for Termination or Suspension > We will notify you with the reason for termination or suspension by YouTube unless we reasonably believe that to do so: (a) would violate the law or the direction of a legal enforcement authority, or would otherwise risk legal liability for YouTube or our Affiliates; (b) would compromise an investigation or the integrity or operation of the Service; or (c) would cause harm to any user, other third party, YouTube or our Affiliates. Where YouTube is terminating your access for Service changes, where reasonably possible, you will be provided with sufficient time to export your Content from the Service. Given the nature of your videos, and the fact that they did not give you a reason for the ban, the EFF might be interested to hear from you. There’s a case to be made here that YouTube is not fulfilling its side of the EULA. I’m not even remotely adjacent to being a lawyer, but EFF has good ones. Since you still have access the 5 videos in question, meaning you can provide EFF with their content, you might possess a significant test case. The sticking point could be the private video content; I have no idea how that works. EFF would. EDIT: upon second read, “or would otherwise risk legal liability for YouTube or our Affiliate” is big enough to drive the broad side of a barn through, and might invalidate the rest. It’d be nice if “adding clauses to make you feel good but which we can 100% ignore” was banned from EULAs.
diordiderot 5y ago
If you're from the EU or UK write a letter and have it sent with proof of delivery. It's illegal to be denied a request without a human evaluation.
- kingcharles 5y ago
  [citation required]
dantodor 5y ago
Let me describe my experience with contacting youtube. An ad popped up, prompting me to subscribe to the family plan, and since I was getting fed up for a while, I went with it. Surprise, my wife and my daughter couldn't join, for whatever mystic reasons yt considered. I contacted YT via chat support. While the technology behind their support bots has evolved a lot, they even simulate passing you from one support rep to another, and they show even empathy towards your issues, they aren't able to solve anything. So, about two days lost in training YT bots for me, and stuck with family plan without being able to add my family. Great experience, and pleasant waste of time chatting :))))
p1peridine 5y ago
> 4) music video of my own music. No samples or other copyrighted material contained. 5) another music video also with no copyrighted material. This is probably the reason why. Was in a similar situation ~2 years ago when my 2006 YouTube account got banned. I was given the chance to appeal the decision where I had to fill out a form. In the form I wrote that I believe the reason I got banned was because of the music that was on my channel and that it may have looked like I was trying to share copyrighted music (I had download links in the description as well, btw). I closed my statement explaining that the music had no copyright. One week later, to my surprise, the account was restored. Check your email and see if you got a link to where you can fill out the same form I did. Good luck.
SpelingBeeChamp 5y ago
Something doesn't add up. Why would you submit a request to the YouTube forum? The email notification you received should have contained instructions on appealing.
foxbee 5y ago
Upvoting this for signal Youtube is becoming heavily commercialised leading to the little man getting pushed out, and Youtube losing it's best asset - the wild west of videos. On top of that, there seems to be more ads than ever and I don't see this ever stopping.
some1else 5y ago
Lost a channel that was in good standing for 14 years in a similar way. I would have appreciated being able to download the hundreds of playlists and the watch history I built, as is guaranteed under the provisions of the EU GDPR legislation. Unfortunately the export tool didn't produce any data.
z3ncyberpunk 5y ago
The best way to contact YouTube Google or alphabet is to drag them through the news and force them to do something
labso 5y ago
I had a same kind of situation. I had only one video 7 year old and no activity. Appeal did not do anything. Not even getting response. After the appeal they deleted also my YouTube account which was even more scaring. It is crazy how much playlist, channels and history was in the account. I am really puzzled that my mobile version still works with my user data.

604 points by S_A_P 5y ago

bitwize 5y ago

Put them on blast on Twitter or HN, get upvoted/retweeted a lot. It's kinda like Linux tech support: ask "How do I do X?" and get told to RTFM. But say "Linux sucks because I can't do X" and nerds will fall all over themselves to help you.

scrumlord 5y ago

[flagged]

smsm42 5y ago

Why do you need youtube? You have the videos. You are not deriving any revenue from it being hosted on youtube or need their monetization capabilities, I presume. Just host it on an alternative platform (rumble? Odyssey? Others?) and tell your friends to do the same. Fortunately, youtube is not the only game in town, why insist on using a platform that clearly doesn't want to be used?

nocubicles 5y ago

Don't know the answer but thanks for the information. I have also user in youtube where I have uploaded some random recorded videos with my brother and other memories that I have no local copy of. Will make that ASAP!

JimWestergren 5y ago

This also happened to me in march 2021 on a channel with almost no videos and no activity at all "We have reviewed your content and found severe or repeated violations of our Community Guidelines. Because of this, we have removed your channel from YouTube.". Got another email later the same day from YouTube: "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." Must have been an error or glitch, I did not take any action. Maybe the same for you.

bastardoperator 5y ago

If you aren't flooding Google with insane amounts of cash, good luck ever talking to a real person.

pixelgeek 5y ago

Maybe the squirrel sent in a DMCA takedown?

riffic 5y ago
that only applies if the squirrel holds the camera and takes the shot itself.
- eropple 5y ago
  Squirrel barratry is real and it's here.
- imadethis 5y ago
  It's the squirrel equivalent to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...
mdoms 5y ago
This isn't Reddit.

DoItToMe81 5y ago

Tell us how it goes. My channel was taken down for the same reason. A private video of a friend singing was marked as hate speech and my whole channel was wiped for it. I never got it back, no matter how many emails I sent.

tmp538394722 5y ago

Malice hat: Maybe bots are trying to muddy the waters of legitimate take down requests by flooding support with fake ones. Incompetence hat: Maybe YouTube’s abuse detection is broken.

formerly_proven 5y ago
You can wear multiple hats at the same time.
javajosh 5y ago
>Malice hat...Incompetence hat How can you tell them apart? ;) Jokes aside, I'd like to add another hat, which is "ambivalence hat", which says: This person's pain is not all that important. The (very mild) harm it does to YT's reputation can be safely ignored. Ambivalence hat synergizes with "ignorance hat" which is the one that says, "Gosh, I'd like to help but I just don't know what to do." (A person wearing both ambivalent AND ignorant hats is a good approximation of the population at any given time about any given topic, btw.)
smsm42 5y ago
Cynic hat: Youtube doesn't care about false positives, not even a little bit. If some random Joe with five videos gets run over - the cost is really zero. Not having any support ensured the random Joe won't waste anybody's time and money on something the company doesn't care about. The money comes in from million-subscriber channels carrying ads. The rest can shut up and watch the ads - or just shut up. Youtube is not for Joes with five videos - they are tolerated, but that's all, nothing is optimized for them.

logicalmonster 5y ago

I feel for you and you have my upvote for the signal, but good luck getting any action unless this goes sufficiently viral. I've had this discussion with Googlers here before and this is apparently what they actually believe. * They're content with algorithmic approaches to spam prevention and other moderation that results in numerous false positives and don't see the problem with that. * They think their support channels are more than adequate. * They think their bans result solely in bad actors being harmed and don't realize that shady businesses that actually do spam have endless fake companies at their disposal to keep on trucking.

S_A_P 5y ago
I’m also just realizing that all my subscriptions are inaccessible since my channel is cut off so I will have to re-create that list with a new account now. Sigh. That’s probably the worst part is finding and recreating my subscription list.
- logicalmonster 5y ago
  I'm not sure what other browsers its available for, but there's a Safari extension PocketTube that can save and categorize your YouTube subscription list apart from your actual account. So if you get banned, resubscribing is possible.
  - ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
    It's crazy their is a big enough need for that, that someone made that a product.
    - alpaca128 5y ago
      There's also the application called FreeTube which stores subscriptions offline as well. And comes with complete adblocking including the ad placements within videos.
- stefandesu 5y ago

ganeshkrishnan 5y ago

Most likely some spambots hit the "report" button on your channel. sometimes its people with very similar video as yours and want their content to be viral. youtube "Hero" is a dumpster fire. Someone mass banned my google dev account for one app that I had for around 8 years as "impersonating or trying to impersonate" whatever that means. I applied for review and got an automated review that even all related accounts will be banned and they went ahead and banned a related play dev account. Weird thing is that I have a google cloud account with $120k yearly spend and my startup on it. Time to hedge my bets and move off google cloud.

spaniard89277 5y ago
> Weird thing is that I have a google cloud account with $120k yearly spend and my startup on it. Time to hedge my bets and move off google cloud. Aren't you afraid to get your startup down by some automated BS hell?
- ganeshkrishnan 5y ago
  I am too ingrained into google cloud. I can migrate only at the cost of very annoyed customers and employees. besides as a solo boostrapped company, I hardly have any time for tech work.
sabellito 5y ago
Reminds me of the Terraria dev saying that doing business with google is a liability. https://www.byteside.com/2021/02/terraria-dev-to-google-doing-business-with-you-is-a-liability-cancels-stadia-port/ https://www.byteside.com/2021/02/terraria-dev-to-google-doin...
xtracto 5y ago
> Weird thing is that I have a google cloud account with $120k yearly spend and my startup on it. Time to hedge my bets and move off google cloud. I wouldn't trust Google with anything valuable... their customer support is non existent and the company seems to be "full of themselves" in dealing with their errors and things that are their fault. For all shit that Amazon gets, my experience with AWS has been generally positive: Their technical support is really good (you get a HUMAN who guides you through screen share to achieve what you want) and it has been quite dependable in the more 10+ years that I have used them commercially. Today's Google feels like Microsoft in the 90s or early 2000: "You don't like us, tough luck, fuck you and you still have to use us".

comeonseriously 5y ago

I think the only real way to get their attention is to convince someone sufficiently tech famous to tweet that you're getting a shit deal from YouTube. Only then will a real person step in.

ratww 5y ago

I'm suspicious of video #4 being the reason. There is a wave of people copying other people's music, claiming as their own and then sending claims to the original video. Maybe since your channel is small, Youtube decided to just ban. I've seen it happened with people who tried to pirate music more than once. I don't post any music at all on Youtube. It all goes trough a third-party service that posts on my behalf and on streaming services.

S_A_P 5y ago
I suppose that is possible but don’t they give you a strike for that instead of an outright ban for strike 1?
- ratww 5y ago
  That's correct, but I've seen this rule being broken often on channels that had pirate music.
  - S_A_P 5y ago
    The music has been there for 8 years for one and 2 years for the second one. I’m wondering If my channel name is the reason “stupid American pig” is my band name. But it’s been that name since 2008
    - ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
      Holy Shit! That's a fantastic name. Are you punk rock? But I agree that is a very dangerous name in the time of algorithm controlled moderation.
      - S_A_P 5y ago
        I’m a fan of punk rock but I wouldn’t call my music that. Mostly lofi type stuff.
    - ratww 5y ago

prettyStandard 5y ago

Just removed all my videos from YouTube, I can't be bothered with nonsense like this. Sorry friends.

ratww 5y ago
Yep. I just use social network or disposable/temporary video hosts for anything now.
- shmatt 5y ago
  Any example for said video hosts? Vimeo isn't much better these days
  - ratww 5y ago
    Streamable and Ufile are the ones I used last, if you don't want anything too permanent. Imgur has videos too I think.
Johnyma22 5y ago
I began this painful process just recently deleting the vast majority of my old videos. :(
winternett 5y ago
Why do that? Just leave them there and don't check on them. There is no benefit to dropping out of a game that you don't really need to do anything to play. You don't have to follow the stupid and time-wasting script they promote for being a creator.... It's a phony script. There are several other ways to skin the cat of promotion in getting people to listen.
- et-al 5y ago
  Ideally, it's a way to get Google to actually address these complaints. However, until professional YouTubers start leaving and cause Google's ad revenue to dip by 2-3%, we won't see any action. Most of us with a handful of random videos deleting our content from YouTube won't change anything. And even if the top 50 YouTubers quit en masse, there's still the queue of bright hopefuls more than willing to fill those spots.

Ansil849 5y ago

> 3)my son reacting to a scene from the movie hot rod(cool beans) this was a private video. This would seemingly be the most straightforward reason. The system flagged a copyright film clip. Though this doesn't explain why you didn't get a notice about just that video. But honestly, why spend time worrying about this? It sounds like you barely used your account, so just get a new one.

S_A_P 5y ago
I get that sentiment but I think it’s the fact that I have to start over and make a new channel. Lost all my subscriptions that I watch. The fact that 1 strike and you’re out is a thing. The private video did not show the movie and showed my son getting excited and trying to imitate the cool beans bit. It was barely audible in a few seconds of the 20 second video and my son was talking over it so I doubt automated solution would likely not fingerprint it. It’s also about 10 years old and has always been private.
- Ansil849 5y ago
  The fact that it's private is irrelevant. The fact that it's been up for 10 years may also be irrelevant if this property was just added to the scanner's library. Honestly, you're wasting way too much mental energy on this. Youtube is a blackbox. Effectively, it bans and otherwise penalizes accounts arbitrarily with absolutely no recourse. You either use their services understanding this, or don't. It's pretty straightforward.
avian 5y ago
> Though this doesn't explain why you didn't get a notice about just that video. I don't know if that's a thing with YouTube and private videos, but when I got a copyright strike on my YouTube account because of a private video I never got explicitly notified about it. I just have random stuff on my channel, similar to what OP describes and largely use YouTube for watching content. The video in question was a private video of me doing a quick demo of some project where a radio was faintly playing in the background (I didn't even notice that at first - only after finding the original video file and cranking up the volume did I realize that the mic picked up some recognizable music in the background). I would have never noticed that I had a copyright strike if I wasn't bored and randomly clicking through the YouTube UI one day.

rootsudo 5y ago

Through legal channels, but you agreed to Terms of Service. They may redirect your request to someone that could help, or a further black hole. Email: legal@support.youtube.com Fax: +1 650 872 8513 Address: Legal Support YouTube (Google LLC) 901 Cherry Ave. San Bruno, CA 94066 USA

hagbard_c 5y ago

Just put your videos on PeerTube, Odysee, Rumble or any of the other video platforms out there. If you have a server of your own you could host a PeerTube instance and put them there. Ditch YouTube.

paulpauper 5y ago

almost impossible to reach a human unless you know someone who works there, or unless you get the media's attention, or are a huge brand, or spend a lot of money on ads, sorry

numpad0 5y ago

Don’t worry, “repeated violations” means their backend workers flagged your content or processed reports on your content multiple times. Not a fault on your side. Could be 1.5s of silence in your video repeatedly flagged automatically and cleared manually, or had been script reported by 65535-node botnet that claims to be real individual non-group of people in a remote Eastern Europe village. Every major social networks has this class of problems, worsening each minute as time goes on, and while your online fame can be exploited to exempt yourself from it, it will probably need a legislative action to control.

mcherm 5y ago

It is obvious to everyone involved (except, apparently, employees of Alphabet) that YouTube's system for reporting violations and adjudicating them is broken. I would happily move to using a competitor instead except that between the price point (free or better) and the mass audience, there are no effective competitors. What can we do about this?

ju-st 5y ago

Did you post any comments on other videos while being logged in that channel?

S_A_P 5y ago
Never anything other that “this is great content” type content. I purposely do not comment on videos I don’t like or post negative or argumentative comments. I’ve a few YouTuber friends and we chat on their channels now and then. Again much like here on HN I do make an effort to keep most comments friendly and positive.

winternett 5y ago

If you think that's bad, imagine a whole year of missing the entire "good" music promotion wave on TikTok because they were automatically muting every video I posted of my own music (without any explanation or POC) due to applying vague copyright rules against me... Now TikTok is flooded and promo capability is very weak. I decided to just develop my own site further though, and it's automatically targeted to people who like my music without me having to figure out which hashtags are trending every day at least... The best way I've found to spur YouTube into action though is to @ their account on Twitter... It works for now.

dredmorbius 5y ago

There's the approach of showing up in person to voice displeasure. Even if it's not an avenue you plan on taking, it's sufficiently viable that Alphabet / Google / YouTube should include it in their threat model. I'd strongly recommend taking steps to remove yourself from the platform, voting with your feet. You're cetainly not strongly wedded, as major YouTube creators are, many of whom have been taking steps to establish themselves more independently of that one platform and its advertising revenue, through direct donations (generally through Patreon, which I'd put fair money on one of the monopolists buying out at some point, possibly to shut down). What I'd strongly suggest is trialing peer-to-peer video-sharing technologies such as PeerTube. Note that the independent route may also be subject to copyright claims (will your Internet provider cut you off?), harassment, and/or cracking attempts. YouTube does actually protect you a gainst a fair amount of that. You'll also want to find out what CDN options are available for that video that makes you Internet Famous for a day. I'd strongly urge you to file complaints with your political representatives and consumer-protection agencies. This would include local (city/county), state, and national representatives, as well as your state's attorney (usually, there may be another consumer protection agency), and national communications and trade agencies (in the US: FCC and FTC). This step combined with seeking out and promoting alternatives is our best way out of the present monopoly hell. I'd specifically request: - Appeals processes for account bans. - Full reports on why invalid bans were imposed. There's a long list of other reforms people who've spent more time than me on this have come up with. Look up Cory Doctorow, Tim Wu, Tristan Harris, the EFF, and others who are advocating for reforms.

dmitrygr 5y ago
Re: threat model I am sure it is I considered. There was that one shooting at the YouTube, campus caused by precisely this.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  I am aware.
daveevad 5y ago
> There's the approach of showing up in person to voice displeasure. People should remember that someone showed up at Youtube HQ with a gun a few years ago[0]. [0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_headquarters_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_headquarters_shooting)

cab404 5y ago

Just for the record: if you don't really plan to monetize your videos -- just share and store, consider using Peertube https://joinpeertube.org/ https://joinpeertube.org/ It's instances usually have low quotas though~

TekMol 5y ago

I wonder how hard it would be to create a protocol which avoids problems like this. A user who wants to publish a video could do that in the form of special links which contain a hash of the video (maybe magnet links do that?). They could do that on their own website for example. Or in multiple places. Their website, their GitHub pages, their Twitter etc. The viewer (say Joe) who wants to see such a video would click the special link and have a software that searches it on a decentralized network of nodes. Some other viewer (say Paul) who recently viewed the video and still has it in his cache could deliver the video to Joe. In return, Joe could automatically get some crypto currency. Say worth $0.01 or so. Content aggregators could crawl all these sites and create an experience similar to YouTube. Or maybe this could also be implemented in a decentralized fashion.

genewitch 5y ago
No one wants to wait for decentralized videos to load. Sure, the hundred or thousand most popular videos will load relatively quickly, but some video I saw 10 years ago that is relevant to a conversation I am having would either take a very long time to load, or not load at all. And now you, the human, as a content producer, need to game the algorithm to be viral with every video. Don't get me wrong I think YouTube and Google drop the ball constantly, but you can't decentralize content distribution and have the selection you do now. It'd be like going back to the 70s with broadcast television.
- TekMol 5y ago
  If the $0.01 is more than what it costs to store the video until someone requests it and deliver it, then loading will be super fast. Because tons of players in the market will compete for this margin.
photon-torpedo 5y ago
This, minus the cryptocurrency, is IPFS. (Though I've never used it, so I may be wrong.)
- TekMol 5y ago

jdprgm 5y ago

It's wild to me the strength of Youtube's monopoly. I was just talking with a friend about this the other day... I can't think of another consumer app with as dominant a position.

1970-01-01 5y ago

Your problem going viral is the only tried and true solution for human involvement. Sorry.

winternett 5y ago

YT, TikTok, IG (etc) are having extensive problems with people gaming their algorithms. The algorithms were launched way too early without proper testing of course, and they now allow content spammers and re-uploaders (content thieves) to make creator fund money for literally stealing content. Right now their storage is balooning with duplicate content because of the wave of content theft that TikTok has encouraged, and it may be necessary for the clock to be reset, and for their copyright policies and support to be fixed in total. This means that original content creators, and creator funds may also take a big hit until something stable is finally worked out, but it shouldn't let platforms like YouTube off the hook for shoddy copyright policies and and mis-management of the process for many years. They need to implement a cutoff date for enforcement, the trend of content copying was not popular until TikTok surged in popularity, somewhere around then should be the cutoff point (around 3 years ago). YouTube also created shorts, which was only another poorly thought out enticement for content theft and cloning. I followed procedure over 2 years ago to request my profile be converted into a music artist profile, and YouTube still has not done anything nor responded... They need to also hire real life moderators and implement a real support and moderation team/process that is professional and accountable. If they don't the entire site will turn into a platform of spam and junk ads and triggering content like TikTok is fast becoming now. Original content creators are the lifeblood of social media platforms, they shouldn't be required to go unrewarded, and worse yet, they shouldn't be abused and ignored by the platforms they post to... OC creators are the only ones that help platforms to disguise the fact that they're collecting money under the table from big industry.

eatbitseveryday 5y ago

I wonder if you could just try putting your videos elsewhere? Vimeo? Self-host?

jahav 5y ago

We need a rule of law from these unaccountable tech-giants. It's not an acceptable to say "algorithm did it" with no recourse.

enriquto 5y ago

My impulsive answer to this problem is "you had it coming for subscribing to a service with unacceptable terms". For the non-impulsive answer, I don't really have anything of value to say.

fruit2020 5y ago

Imagine getting a fine for speeding but without revealing the location where you were speeding. What size do these companies need to be before we get some consumer protection regulations

mayregretit 5y ago

Can "banned for repeated violations" be construed as defamation (libel)? Maybe average internet users go to OP's channel, see it's banned, and assume that OP did something illegal—like posting pirated movies, stealing money earned from copyrighted music, or even worse things like posting violent videos, terrorism or child pornography—thus tarnishing OP's good name. I wish we had some legal mechanism for average citizens that covered the increasingly common case where "company X forced me to spend a bunch of time/money because of their mistake." P.S. Sorry that happened to you. Good that you had local backups, that's a lesson for us all!

cronix 5y ago
Everything you listed is someone else's opinion on what happened, but never stated by the company. All the company did publicly was say "this account is banned" with no libelous or defamatory statements attached. IANAL.

cletus 5y ago

Best way? I can think of four: 1. Have a large enough Twitter following such that complaining will get somebody's attention; 2. Know someone at Google who can contact the right people to resolve this; 3. Be a large enough advertiser such that your account manager will make noise on your behalf; or 4. Be a large enough content producer such that the threat of you pulling your content from Youtube is sufficient to get their attention. This isn't unique to Youtube or Google. It's just how "support" works on platforms these days.

nanidin 5y ago

I lost my Google account the same way in 2007ish. I never got it back, nor was I able to get any explanation of the violation or chance at redemption. Best of luck to you, but until there is regulatory pressure to give some rights to account owners, you’re probably not getting anywhere.

robflynn 5y ago

I uploaded a private video of a screen recording of me demoing an in-development feature of a website for a client so that I could ask them if that's how they intended it to function. There was no audio. That video received a strike and was flagged as a scam... before I ever even sent it to the client. YT is ridiculous.

stefantalpalaru 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_headquarters_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_headquarters_shooting

ChrisArchitect 5y ago

this is not worth upvoting ppl. Help out in the comments and move along. here's a previous recent thread on similar: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26916096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26916096

frogpelt 5y ago

Do you have a desirable username?

m1m 5y ago

What is your yt channel url/id?

tradertef 5y ago

For me only their twitter support worked @TeamYoutube. All other channels were silent.

filoeleven 5y ago

From their ToC: https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms&noapp=1 https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms&noapp=1 > Notice for Termination or Suspension > We will notify you with the reason for termination or suspension by YouTube unless we reasonably believe that to do so: (a) would violate the law or the direction of a legal enforcement authority, or would otherwise risk legal liability for YouTube or our Affiliates; (b) would compromise an investigation or the integrity or operation of the Service; or (c) would cause harm to any user, other third party, YouTube or our Affiliates. Where YouTube is terminating your access for Service changes, where reasonably possible, you will be provided with sufficient time to export your Content from the Service. Given the nature of your videos, and the fact that they did not give you a reason for the ban, the EFF might be interested to hear from you. There’s a case to be made here that YouTube is not fulfilling its side of the EULA. I’m not even remotely adjacent to being a lawyer, but EFF has good ones. Since you still have access the 5 videos in question, meaning you can provide EFF with their content, you might possess a significant test case. The sticking point could be the private video content; I have no idea how that works. EFF would. EDIT: upon second read, “or would otherwise risk legal liability for YouTube or our Affiliate” is big enough to drive the broad side of a barn through, and might invalidate the rest. It’d be nice if “adding clauses to make you feel good but which we can 100% ignore” was banned from EULAs.

diordiderot 5y ago

If you're from the EU or UK write a letter and have it sent with proof of delivery. It's illegal to be denied a request without a human evaluation.

kingcharles 5y ago
[citation required]

dantodor 5y ago

Let me describe my experience with contacting youtube. An ad popped up, prompting me to subscribe to the family plan, and since I was getting fed up for a while, I went with it. Surprise, my wife and my daughter couldn't join, for whatever mystic reasons yt considered. I contacted YT via chat support. While the technology behind their support bots has evolved a lot, they even simulate passing you from one support rep to another, and they show even empathy towards your issues, they aren't able to solve anything. So, about two days lost in training YT bots for me, and stuck with family plan without being able to add my family. Great experience, and pleasant waste of time chatting :))))

p1peridine 5y ago

> 4) music video of my own music. No samples or other copyrighted material contained. 5) another music video also with no copyrighted material. This is probably the reason why. Was in a similar situation ~2 years ago when my 2006 YouTube account got banned. I was given the chance to appeal the decision where I had to fill out a form. In the form I wrote that I believe the reason I got banned was because of the music that was on my channel and that it may have looked like I was trying to share copyrighted music (I had download links in the description as well, btw). I closed my statement explaining that the music had no copyright. One week later, to my surprise, the account was restored. Check your email and see if you got a link to where you can fill out the same form I did. Good luck.

SpelingBeeChamp 5y ago

Something doesn't add up. Why would you submit a request to the YouTube forum? The email notification you received should have contained instructions on appealing.

foxbee 5y ago

Upvoting this for signal Youtube is becoming heavily commercialised leading to the little man getting pushed out, and Youtube losing it's best asset - the wild west of videos. On top of that, there seems to be more ads than ever and I don't see this ever stopping.

some1else 5y ago

Lost a channel that was in good standing for 14 years in a similar way. I would have appreciated being able to download the hundreds of playlists and the watch history I built, as is guaranteed under the provisions of the EU GDPR legislation. Unfortunately the export tool didn't produce any data.

z3ncyberpunk 5y ago

The best way to contact YouTube Google or alphabet is to drag them through the news and force them to do something

labso 5y ago

I had a same kind of situation. I had only one video 7 year old and no activity. Appeal did not do anything. Not even getting response. After the appeal they deleted also my YouTube account which was even more scaring. It is crazy how much playlist, channels and history was in the account. I am really puzzled that my mobile version still works with my user data.