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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 Googl

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
  I've been managing most of my YouTube consumption via RSS. Well, that is until they remove their channel RSS feeds at some point in the future... I would still be sad if they blocked my account. I'm actively trying to get better at making videos and there are some very nice memories on there (which I have saved locally, of course, but still).
can16358p 5y ago
This is unbelieable. Googlers are smart people, how can they believe in something this plain wrong?
- csours 5y ago
  Motivation and Cognitive bias. It is very believable, every organization and person has them.
- kreeben 5y ago
  Because humans, even smart ones, are tribal and these particular people are part of a tribe that believe in said points.
- snerbles 5y ago
  You've answered your own question. The System constructed by Googlers is so smart, the Googlers themselves are subject to a form of papal infallibility.
  - javajosh 5y ago
    Isn't it more of a Tyler Durden calculas, "If it costs less to payoff the wrongful death suits than to issue a recall, then we don't do one."
- vb6sp6 5y ago
  > Googlers are smart people they are smart enough to know that "improved customer service" will never get them that promotion
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  Oh, I doubt most Googlers believe those things. I'm sure they know they have terrible customer service and support. I would say it's borderline non-existent. I suspect the rationale is something like "Well, you don't pay for your YouTube account (or don't pay that much) so you shouldn't expect good support or moderation."
  - 5y ago
iamevn 5y ago
Even if you get Google employees to see (which you almost certainly have now), it's frustratingly difficult to escalate this sort of issue internally. While I worked at Google (not in YouTube) I'd tried to escelate this sort of issue on several occasions and gotten absolutely nowhere. It really seems like the only way to get help is to go viral and raise enough of a stink that they're forced to help. I wasn't even able to get my one of my best friends' access to their account restored when they had all the correct info and the automated account recovery form was breaking with absolutely useless error messages.
- tmaly 5y ago
  maybe there needs to be a new service to help the little guy? Bring back some form of the Don't be Evil
  - spaniard89277 5y ago
    It won't happen unless they're forced to do so, or a competitor arises. But competing with YT is nearly impossible. Maybe YTubers should start talking about some sort of association.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      > Maybe YTubers should start talking about some sort of association. Like some sort of union of workers with similar interests?
      - nickff 5y ago
        It seems like this would be more of a cartel.
        ethbr0 5y ago
        Because producing creative videos is a limited resource than can be cornered?
8ytecoder 5y ago
With a tiny bit of creativity in your queries you can find the channels that skirt the spirit of the rule without breaking it. Both the algorithms and the overworked humans behind the moderation just let it stand. Then there’s channels that do everything from outright stealing content to adding a voiceover to get around copyright, playing the real video in a frame surrounded with other content and on and on. I don’t think I have a particular knack for it but I see way too many of these channels every single time I open YouTube. They’re all perfectly fine. AND that’s what is extremely annoying. If the rules are applied by a bit but in a consistent way and mercilessly, people will either not break the rules by being aware or they’ll switch to something else where their stuff is not banned.
awbraunstein 5y ago
As someone who worked at YouTube for some time, I'd actually say that this isn't an accurate assessment. Most of my former coworkers were disheartened at these stories. Some individuals actually were very active on the r/youtube subreddit and worked to handle individual cases that came up like this one. I think many are just resigned (but not content) to the fact that unless Google decides pump lots of money into human moderation, we are stuck with the algorithmic moderation that is responsible for many of these issues. And unfortunately, that isn't a problem that can be simply solved with code.
- S_A_P 5y ago
  Thanks I will try the Reddit channel.
- winternett 5y ago
  They are simply too big now, and there is this dumb idea about promoting one path of success across many different types of creators. A plumber that wants to promote their business and it's reliability should not be required to make funny scripted videos using the "OhNo song" just to get views. A doctor that pops pimples should not be required to make funny or gross scripted videos using the "OhNo song" just to get views. A musician that want's to promote their music as well should not be required to make funny scripted videos using the "OhNo song" just to get views, especially because that song is probably not their own, and it has nothing to do with their music. None of those "creators" should be required to pay to promote/boost their originally produced content either (especially when they're primarily promoting "OhNo by Creeper", but somehow that's become a widely accepted thing as well... It's all dumb, and pretty much a modern-day pyramid scheme. If you spend most of your time working on designing thumbnails and writing scripts, finding daily trending hash tags, and in shooting and editing videos according to success advice, you're simply not working on improving your "bread and butter". As trends become coveted goals, the overall quality of content declines as well, and it burdens attention spans of viewers overall (just look at how many videos now over-use jump cuts, overly excited and sensationalized dialogue, and zoom effects)... :\ This is what also encourages content theft as an easy route to getting views and likes that ultimately do nothing good for most people... It's popularity without profit for anyone but the platform. People get frustrated only after years of trying to climb the mountain and finding out there is nothing at the top, the platform loses it's foothold, and then is replaced by something new... Rinse and repeat... Friendster, Myspace, Mp3.Com, Napster, etc... :\
CGamesPlay 5y ago
As an ex-FB, which has a pretty similar culture, I'm apparently picking today to halfheartedly stand up to these grave injustices against company culture. My input here is mostly just to humanize the people who stand on the other side of the robotic wall that is preventing our OP from posting videos of his son, but understanding the problem a little better may help resolve it in the end. > * 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. Spot on. False positives are part of the game when you're trying to improve on $1.3MM revenue/employee. > * They think their support channels are more than adequate. Anybody at any internal discussion would probably disagree with this, instead saying something along the lines of "there may be deficiencies with our support process but we can always improve them later on." > * 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. Nobody thinks that the bans solely result in bad actors being harmed and the fact that there are endless fake companies is what necessitates these robot walls that don't have human connections. False positives will happen and a goal is minimizing them... however goal #1 is growing the product (which indirectly requires keeping false positives from getting too high) and goal #2 is preventing company liability (which directly requires that false negatives stay really low). When you have strong pressure to keep false negatives low and less pressure to keep false positives low, then you end up with a bias toward positive results. OK, well, that's why we end up here. Is this helpful to OP? Probably not. Sorry, OP!
- xg15 5y ago
  > Spot on. False positives are part of the game when you're trying to improve on $1.3MM revenue/employee. Algorithmic moderation will always have false positives. The question is how you deal with them: Do you have an appeals process that involves human review or do you just say "sucks to be you" and let the false positive be the user's problem? In a similar way, car accidents will always happen. However the car industry decided (not completely on their own) to invest in safety so that when accidents do happen, they are less deadly. > Anybody at any internal discussion would probably disagree with this, instead saying something along the lines of "there may be deficiencies with our support process but we can always improve them later on." The mythical time of "later on". When exactly would that be? And yes, you can always improve anything. This is a vaguely pleasant-sounding non-statement.
b20000 5y ago
right, out of touch, like with many other of their products.
Seanambers 5y ago
When your paycheck depends on you not understanding something. You will sure make an effort to not understand :)
mleonhard 5y ago
Nothing will happen. Helping users costs money. One of my friends was bullied and a humiliating video of it posted on YouTube. I was a Google employee at the time and filed a ticket with YouTube to have the video removed for violating the site's rules. YouTube ignored it and did nothing. Google employees (including YouTube employees) only do what gets them promoted. This is all Larry & Sergei's fault. Only governments can make them behave as responsible members of society. So here's what you can do: 1. Report bad business practices to the FTC [0] or the European Commission department for Justice and Consumers [1] 2. Report the problem to your elected representatives [2]. 3. Use the company's products less or migrate to a better-behaved product. I've done this with Facebook, Instagram, Google Maps (Apple Maps is good enough now), Google Search (DuckDuckGo is good enough), and Facebook Messenger (iMessage is good enough). [0] https://reportfraud.ftc.gov https://reportfraud.ftc.gov [1] https://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/justice-and-consumers_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/justice-and-consumers_... [2] https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
createunderrate 5y ago
The most frustrating part of all this is that they could afford to hire people to manually do all of this work, they just choose not to, because it saves them money. If we pressured companies like Google to hire people to do customer support and to review flagged videos manually, it would create more jobs and make using the internet a better experience. But for now, they can just choose not to, and save a buck.

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
I've been managing most of my YouTube consumption via RSS. Well, that is until they remove their channel RSS feeds at some point in the future... I would still be sad if they blocked my account. I'm actively trying to get better at making videos and there are some very nice memories on there (which I have saved locally, of course, but still).

can16358p 5y ago

This is unbelieable. Googlers are smart people, how can they believe in something this plain wrong?

csours 5y ago
Motivation and Cognitive bias. It is very believable, every organization and person has them.
kreeben 5y ago
Because humans, even smart ones, are tribal and these particular people are part of a tribe that believe in said points.
snerbles 5y ago
You've answered your own question. The System constructed by Googlers is so smart, the Googlers themselves are subject to a form of papal infallibility.
- javajosh 5y ago
  Isn't it more of a Tyler Durden calculas, "If it costs less to payoff the wrongful death suits than to issue a recall, then we don't do one."
vb6sp6 5y ago
> Googlers are smart people they are smart enough to know that "improved customer service" will never get them that promotion
ALittleLight 5y ago
Oh, I doubt most Googlers believe those things. I'm sure they know they have terrible customer service and support. I would say it's borderline non-existent. I suspect the rationale is something like "Well, you don't pay for your YouTube account (or don't pay that much) so you shouldn't expect good support or moderation."
- 5y ago

iamevn 5y ago

Even if you get Google employees to see (which you almost certainly have now), it's frustratingly difficult to escalate this sort of issue internally. While I worked at Google (not in YouTube) I'd tried to escelate this sort of issue on several occasions and gotten absolutely nowhere. It really seems like the only way to get help is to go viral and raise enough of a stink that they're forced to help. I wasn't even able to get my one of my best friends' access to their account restored when they had all the correct info and the automated account recovery form was breaking with absolutely useless error messages.

tmaly 5y ago
maybe there needs to be a new service to help the little guy? Bring back some form of the Don't be Evil
- spaniard89277 5y ago
  It won't happen unless they're forced to do so, or a competitor arises. But competing with YT is nearly impossible. Maybe YTubers should start talking about some sort of association.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    > Maybe YTubers should start talking about some sort of association. Like some sort of union of workers with similar interests?
    - nickff 5y ago
      It seems like this would be more of a cartel.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        Because producing creative videos is a limited resource than can be cornered?

8ytecoder 5y ago

With a tiny bit of creativity in your queries you can find the channels that skirt the spirit of the rule without breaking it. Both the algorithms and the overworked humans behind the moderation just let it stand. Then there’s channels that do everything from outright stealing content to adding a voiceover to get around copyright, playing the real video in a frame surrounded with other content and on and on. I don’t think I have a particular knack for it but I see way too many of these channels every single time I open YouTube. They’re all perfectly fine. AND that’s what is extremely annoying. If the rules are applied by a bit but in a consistent way and mercilessly, people will either not break the rules by being aware or they’ll switch to something else where their stuff is not banned.

awbraunstein 5y ago

As someone who worked at YouTube for some time, I'd actually say that this isn't an accurate assessment. Most of my former coworkers were disheartened at these stories. Some individuals actually were very active on the r/youtube subreddit and worked to handle individual cases that came up like this one. I think many are just resigned (but not content) to the fact that unless Google decides pump lots of money into human moderation, we are stuck with the algorithmic moderation that is responsible for many of these issues. And unfortunately, that isn't a problem that can be simply solved with code.

S_A_P 5y ago
Thanks I will try the Reddit channel.
winternett 5y ago
They are simply too big now, and there is this dumb idea about promoting one path of success across many different types of creators. A plumber that wants to promote their business and it's reliability should not be required to make funny scripted videos using the "OhNo song" just to get views. A doctor that pops pimples should not be required to make funny or gross scripted videos using the "OhNo song" just to get views. A musician that want's to promote their music as well should not be required to make funny scripted videos using the "OhNo song" just to get views, especially because that song is probably not their own, and it has nothing to do with their music. None of those "creators" should be required to pay to promote/boost their originally produced content either (especially when they're primarily promoting "OhNo by Creeper", but somehow that's become a widely accepted thing as well... It's all dumb, and pretty much a modern-day pyramid scheme. If you spend most of your time working on designing thumbnails and writing scripts, finding daily trending hash tags, and in shooting and editing videos according to success advice, you're simply not working on improving your "bread and butter". As trends become coveted goals, the overall quality of content declines as well, and it burdens attention spans of viewers overall (just look at how many videos now over-use jump cuts, overly excited and sensationalized dialogue, and zoom effects)... :\ This is what also encourages content theft as an easy route to getting views and likes that ultimately do nothing good for most people... It's popularity without profit for anyone but the platform. People get frustrated only after years of trying to climb the mountain and finding out there is nothing at the top, the platform loses it's foothold, and then is replaced by something new... Rinse and repeat... Friendster, Myspace, Mp3.Com, Napster, etc... :\

CGamesPlay 5y ago

As an ex-FB, which has a pretty similar culture, I'm apparently picking today to halfheartedly stand up to these grave injustices against company culture. My input here is mostly just to humanize the people who stand on the other side of the robotic wall that is preventing our OP from posting videos of his son, but understanding the problem a little better may help resolve it in the end. > * 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. Spot on. False positives are part of the game when you're trying to improve on $1.3MM revenue/employee. > * They think their support channels are more than adequate. Anybody at any internal discussion would probably disagree with this, instead saying something along the lines of "there may be deficiencies with our support process but we can always improve them later on." > * 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. Nobody thinks that the bans solely result in bad actors being harmed and the fact that there are endless fake companies is what necessitates these robot walls that don't have human connections. False positives will happen and a goal is minimizing them... however goal #1 is growing the product (which indirectly requires keeping false positives from getting too high) and goal #2 is preventing company liability (which directly requires that false negatives stay really low). When you have strong pressure to keep false negatives low and less pressure to keep false positives low, then you end up with a bias toward positive results. OK, well, that's why we end up here. Is this helpful to OP? Probably not. Sorry, OP!

xg15 5y ago
> Spot on. False positives are part of the game when you're trying to improve on $1.3MM revenue/employee. Algorithmic moderation will always have false positives. The question is how you deal with them: Do you have an appeals process that involves human review or do you just say "sucks to be you" and let the false positive be the user's problem? In a similar way, car accidents will always happen. However the car industry decided (not completely on their own) to invest in safety so that when accidents do happen, they are less deadly. > Anybody at any internal discussion would probably disagree with this, instead saying something along the lines of "there may be deficiencies with our support process but we can always improve them later on." The mythical time of "later on". When exactly would that be? And yes, you can always improve anything. This is a vaguely pleasant-sounding non-statement.

b20000 5y ago

right, out of touch, like with many other of their products.

Seanambers 5y ago

When your paycheck depends on you not understanding something. You will sure make an effort to not understand :)

mleonhard 5y ago

Nothing will happen. Helping users costs money. One of my friends was bullied and a humiliating video of it posted on YouTube. I was a Google employee at the time and filed a ticket with YouTube to have the video removed for violating the site's rules. YouTube ignored it and did nothing. Google employees (including YouTube employees) only do what gets them promoted. This is all Larry & Sergei's fault. Only governments can make them behave as responsible members of society. So here's what you can do: 1. Report bad business practices to the FTC [0] or the European Commission department for Justice and Consumers [1] 2. Report the problem to your elected representatives [2]. 3. Use the company's products less or migrate to a better-behaved product. I've done this with Facebook, Instagram, Google Maps (Apple Maps is good enough now), Google Search (DuckDuckGo is good enough), and Facebook Messenger (iMessage is good enough). [0] https://reportfraud.ftc.gov https://reportfraud.ftc.gov [1] https://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/justice-and-consumers_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/justice-and-consumers_... [2] https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

createunderrate 5y ago

The most frustrating part of all this is that they could afford to hire people to manually do all of this work, they just choose not to, because it saves them money. If we pressured companies like Google to hire people to do customer support and to review flagged videos manually, it would create more jobs and make using the internet a better experience. But for now, they can just choose not to, and save a buck.