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YouTube suspends a YouTuber's Patreon-exclusive account for self-impersonation

• JeremyBanks 4y ago
  [dead]
• sschueller 4y ago
  I hate this practice of these companies to state "This decision is final", it's insulting and childish when everyone knows that people and especially automated systems make mistakes. It makes it even worse wenn we all know that if a person has enough clout or gets enough attention it isn't final. If you are going to say stuff like that, then you should keep your word and when you do make a mistake don't undo that mistake. Live with the bad press you are going to get for being the assholes you are.
  • ncallaway 4y ago
    For me it’s more the “there’s not more we can do on our end” language. The fuck you can’t, you implemented the suspension. Don’t go talking like it’s an act of god that you have no control over. If they’re not willing to change their mind, at least say so.
  • prox 4y ago
    “We reviewed this carefully” - we took like 3 seconds to look at a screen that doesn’t give insights.
    • raverbashing 4y ago
      At this point I think chatGPT would have done a better job than Google's "reviewers" (if it's actually a biological reviewer they have doing that)
      • SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
        ChatGPT apologises when it makes a mistake, and corrects it. That alone puts it in, like, the top 20th percentile of human interactions.
  • 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
    happened to me a few months ago on github. Apparently "sign in with" lets the dev do whatever they like with your account. In reality, i simply signed in with github because why not and suddenly everything is gone. A single email from github about "engaging in illegal behaviour of star farming so my account is deleted". I signed in to github, i just clicked a bunch of buttons simply out of form fatigue and in the background, the dev had used my account to star their repos. the problem is, why not punish the dev and why me? if the workflow was sign in, why did it allow my account to be used for stars farming? secondly, why to blame me? did i willingly engage in stars farming when i clicked on "sign in with" ? they said the same thing, "decision is final". I made a bunch of noise on HN and tomorrow everything was back in order for me. Learning outcome: dont use sign in with. ever
    • xigency 4y ago
      Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. I certainly appreciate this heads-up.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    • 8organicbits 4y ago
      Ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33917962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33917962 That's horrible, I'm so sorry that happened to you. But I think that's the wrong learning outcome. As a technology, OAuth uses scopes to grant permissions. You mentioned that you didn't read the permissions before granting access. An app that requests zero scopes is still safe, as it can't star repos for you, but the burden falls on you to read. This is inherent to the design of OAuth. There is a problem with GitHub scopes being overly broad, and users can't audit what an app actually does with those permissions. GitHub and others should be policing apps that request unreasonable permissions.
      • paranoidrobot 4y ago
        > There is a problem with GitHub scopes being overly broad, and users can't audit what an app actually does with those permissions. Auditing is only one problem. Why is granting permissions an all-or-nothing approach? Way too many apps are requesting all the permissions. If I want to use it, I've got zero choice. I want an 'Advanced' option with a way to deselect certain permissions.
  • mrtksn 4y ago
    They probably A/B tested it and find that it works, by works I mean people give up and stop bothering them.
  • nikanj 4y ago
    It's final unless you know someone who works inside the company, or manage to catch enough traction on some news site to catch the attention of someone who works there
  • hoseja 4y ago
    It probably saves more money by shutting down scams than it loses even on bad PR, sadly.
• aestetix 4y ago
  My favorite part of the response he got is "there's not much more we can do on our end." Coming from the same company that did the suspension. Among things they could do: * Have another team review the complaint * Be more transparent as to the "offense" * Have an appeals process other than direct messages * Click the button to unsuspend the account, since they run the software * Give him a phone number to call to talk with a real person Remember, when using Big Tech products, you are not a customer, you are the data.
  • quaintdev 4y ago
    Big tech should not grow to the levels they grow if they can't handle simple cutomer complaints.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • lb1lf 4y ago
      The problem, cynically speaking, is that you're not the customer. Their revenue is ad-based, so you're the product.
      • anonymousab 4y ago
        They treat you this way even if you pay.
        • quaintdev 4y ago
          And even the creators
        • heavyset_go 4y ago
          Do they do this to their customers that have millions of dollars in contracts with them? I'd hope not.
        • yellowapple 4y ago
• yellow_lead 4y ago
  Wow - his account has over 170k subscribers and he's still treated this way. [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/craig1black https://www.youtube.com/user/craig1black
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • crote 4y ago
    YouTube recently suspended one of the Linus Tech Tips channels - with 5 million subscribers. Their brand has over 20 million subscribers in total. Google just doesn't care about you - regardless of your size.
    • junon 4y ago
      This was different, admittedly. Their account got session jacked and taken over by a crypto scamming farm. Google was in the right to shut down the account until it could get resolved. The fact people can get session jacked by Google, though, is still wild. Linus explained that their access control granularity is woefully underdeveloped, especially for such a large company.
      • notRobot 4y ago
        Their account was shut down days after the crypto scam issue was resolved. They discussed it on the WAN show from the week before last.
      • eis 4y ago
        Still, the way they handle it is extremely bad. It takes a long time to get the account re-instated and they just take down the whole thing in the meantime. What they should do is make the account read-only and if it was taken over by a malicious actor then just rollback to a previous state asap. For accounts with millions of followers they should have emergency contacts and a process that resolves this within less than 24h. These Youtube channels generate serious revenue that easily would justify the costs.
• eiiot 4y ago
  While it does seem a bit odd that all 3 of his channels have almost identical names[0], YouTube/Google's lack of response to its own creators & users is still a disgrace. Good reminder to back up all of your Google data[1], just in case they determine you've violated some random policy and terminate your account without any warning. [0]: https://twitter.com/craig1black/status/1645655035517476865 https://twitter.com/craig1black/status/1645655035517476865 [1]: https://takeout.google.com/ https://takeout.google.com/
  • indrora 4y ago
    They're named in the style of the Apple, apple ][, and Apple ///. Adrian specializes in mostly Classic mac and apple hardware
• haunter 4y ago
  The lowercase typing and “other q’s” makes it look like so unprofessional.
  • defanor 4y ago
    If this was a comic strip (or some other kind of parody/satire), I imagine it would have been explained by Google noticing that "the decision is final" is not great to write in public, wondering how to improve it, and deciding on this informal-looking style, instead of fixing the wording itself and/or actually fixing the issue.
• hmate9 4y ago
  Allow people to pay say $50 in order to get someone to actually review all the facts about the case and refund the user the money if they were right.
  • prox 4y ago
    I feel this one should be enshrined in law.
  • Broken_Hippo 4y ago
    So, no poor people get this. I mean, it is the cost of nearly 7 hours work if you only make minimum wage. It doesn't really matter if the money will be refunded - it can't be used on food while the company holds the money for weeks. Honestly, they should be required to simply have a case worker look at everything if the person has exhausted other options. Those other options should be easily found on the company's website (or facebook page, etc). And the case worker should actually have the power to decide either way, free from coercion and without quotas leaning either direction.
  • patates 4y ago
    I like the idea, while thinking the next steps in case that goes wrong gives me a pause. What do you do if that person you get for 50$ seems incompetent? Exponentially increasing fees to get a review? Remembering again, perfection is the enemy of good, what we have here is more than good enough for most of the cases perhaps.
    • whatshisface 4y ago
      Here's a little sci-fi short fiction... In 2041, Google begins offering a service where you can pay $28 ($50 in USD2041) for a human to review your claim. Since it costs them $8 to do this, they will allow you to appeal their decision as many times as you want. In 2042, a data analyst discovers that routing claims to a specific subset of reviewers maximizes this revenue stream and updates the business logic accordingly.
    • searchableguy 4y ago
      This is a business model for many hardware vendors who sell support and insurance with gross profit margin of more than 50% so I don't think it might improve the situation all that much in the long run.
• andrewstuart 4y ago
  Not just "a YouTuber" - it's the guy from Adrian's Digital Basement - a classic retro channel and mainstay of geeks everywhere. Though it should be noted it's not the Adrian's Digital Basement channel that has been booted.
• eis 4y ago
  This happens way too frequently nowerdays. A friend of mine had his Youtube account banned. He never even uploaded a single video nor post any comments. How could it even possibly have created a reason to be banned? Of course support requests went into the void and he just gave up. Luckily his gmail was not affected. A company I was involved with had a business account with Wise (Transferwise). One day out of the blue they froze our account and said only withdrawals from now on. The "reason" they provided was Violation of Acceptable Use Policy. They wouldn't even say which clause or give any details whatsoever. When asked for review we got an reply that after extensive review they can't reinstate the account, the decision is final. During the whole process it was painfully clear that they didn't read our messages or even try to understand the situation. After a few weeks and many emails with supporting evidence that we really can't see how we broke any of the terms the account was reinstated - a surprise to us. It seems like eventuall someone actually did take a look at the issue. But we never heard why it was frozen in the first place or what made them reinstate it. We probably just got really lucky. During that time we couldn't do payroll. We couldn't collect customer payments. It could have killed us did we not quickly scramble to get an alternative setup. The common theme is that a company makes ill-advised banning decisions that have a big impact on a single user and then appeals are not treated seriously. This can have devastating effects. Usually this happens after the company who is running the platform grows to a certain size where they don't need to care about a low percentage of users anymore and rather save on support staff costs. And to add insult to injury they lie in your face about having conducted "extensive" reviews and having "carefully" decided all the while it being clear that they spent no energy or time on the matter. What's the solution here? Some mandatory third party appeal service which you can call upon? Many victims of wrongful banning would be glad to carry the costs of a review by a real human to get their accounts back.
  • sumedh 4y ago
    > How could it even possibly have created a reason to be banned? Maybe he posted comments using that account which broke the terms?
    • eis 4y ago
      I explicitly mentioned he did not post any comments. > He never even uploaded a single video nor post any comments. He wasn't really using it in that way. It was a pure video watching account.
• susanwceo 4y ago
  dammit this just happend to me too. my fifth ASMR live octopus mukbang react channel was unfairly terminated for impersonation, but luckily my live lobster crush mukbang, baby spiders ASMR zit popping prank react and disney elsa spiderman yoga morning routine main channels are still doing quite well
• andrewstuart 4y ago
  All businesses must mitigate against big tech companies cutting them off. If that big cloud hosting company decides they don't like your company anymore, and you've put all your eggs in that one basket - that's your fault. There's ample evidence now that big tech companies are elephants that don't even notice the ants they're stepping on as they lumber around. Built your entire company on AWS, or Google or Azure? You're a fool if you haven't built it to survive a cloud chucking you out. Most unfortunately, there's no alternative platform for YouTubers. Hard to understand why no company has directly taken on YouTube - not Apple, not Netflix, not Amazon, not Microsoft - until there's an alternative platform, YouTubers just have to hope they don't stray in the way of the elephants foot.
  • xigency 4y ago
    > Hard to understand why no company has directly taken on YouTube Up until recent history, it was a money losing business. I’m sure that’s turned around now but mainly through heavily injecting ads. It would be difficult to disrupt them because of the network effects of all the content, viewers, and creators. And it would be hard to compete on price (whether subscription cost or amount of ads) without having the kind of infrastructure Google has. It might be done in the future, but it will be anything but easy.
    • omeysalvi 4y ago
      Exactly, it is the same philosophy with which VCs will pour billions of dollars into a business to prioritize growth over everything. When all competition is eliminated, there is no one left to challenge you and you get all the benefits of a monopoly.
    • smcl 4y ago
      > mainly through heavily injecting ads HNers are more likely to use an ad blocker so they may not quite appreciate how severe this has become. I recently switched my casual/kitchen computer from an old MacBook Air (where I’d browse with Firefox and uBlock Origin) to an iPad (where I use the YouTube app) so I got to experience the difference first hand. The amount of adverts is horrendous - two sometimes-skippable ads every three minutes. I guess they want me to go for YouTube premium, but I have simply been put off from using YT altogether. So that’s now Twitter and YouTube who have lost me as a user just through sabotaging their own product :-)
• nixgeek 4y ago
  Another fun “this decision is final” happened for me with Amazon recently. We ordered two pairs of Beats. One was ordered by me, the other by my spouse. We’d discussed the purchase but we weren’t clear on who was actually going to order. Received both via Prime. I setup a return. We return the item which was received on her Order ID against my return. Amazon tells us we’ve returned a fraudulent item because the Serial # do not match. Multiple emails (5+) back and forth with Customer Service to explain fall on deaf ears. We give them both Order IDs. We ask for ANY option to solve this mess. We’re told repeatedly that this is their policy, their decision is final, go away. Amazon won’t even send us the headphones back so we can send the correct ones — those have been destroyed. “To protect our employees and customers, we have disposed the incorrect item that we received as per our policy.” In a nutshell Amazon stole $250 from us, and is apparently creating tons of e-waste by destroying brand new, unused and perfectly good returns like ours.
  • justinclift 4y ago
    Is there something like a "small claims" court you could turn to?
    • nixgeek 4y ago
      Possibly? We’re in Washington State, but honestly unless it’s literally point-click-done and without a need to drive and appear in a courthouse, it’s just not worth it for $250 (to me). I expect this has been considered when creating policy at the largest companies — what’s the ease of obtaining recourse for unhappy customers? What’s additionally interesting is I thought Amazon CS had a degree of goodwill factored into policies based on LTV or some other calculation. We saw zero goodwill here despite having spent >$100k on Amazon.com in the last 5 years. Both this and the YouTube example seem like bad business; you’re disincentivizing your most ardent users from continuing to tolerate your services. They hadn’t looked at shopping on Walmart or B&H with every purchase previously and now will. They hadn’t considered Twitch or other places to serve video and now will.
      • db48x 4y ago
• unpopularopp 4y ago
  I wish Google employees had the same empathy about their own customers as signaling about civil rights. Maybe you would be able to change the company for good. And no “Google decides”. Google is not an AI (yet), people make decisions so everything “carefully reviewed” is [not] done by a human. But honestly it’s high time to break up Google. 0 customer service and 0 consequences is incredibly crazy in 2023. Imagine getting away with stuff like this in a retail store, regulators would shot you down in a second.
  • donalhunt 4y ago
    In general I think they do. The reason that these types of threads work, is that employees create a stink internally which results in issues being resolved. TGIFs would often shed light on such policies and issues which resulted in behaviour changes. No idea if that's still the case though. One thing I do have insight to from working at multiple companies is that for every error in applying policies there are often 10s or 100s of individuals trying the scam or abuse the same policies for their own gain. The amount of attempted fraud for non-profit / charity programs is eye opening. :/
• hexo 4y ago
  Sue them.
  • piva00 4y ago
    Are you going to provide the funding? Going to court is expensive in any case, against a multibillion dollar with double digits billions of profits every quarter? Good fucking luck...
• mekoka 4y ago
  Keep it up Big Co. Soon you'll have to deal with all these small businesses that you're bullying unionizing.
• AraceliHarker 4y ago
  The gist is, don’t monetize outside of YouTube.
• nikanj 4y ago
  Fortunately he was able to reach the real Google customer service (HN front page) and this issue will be fixed quite promptly.
  • nikanj 4y ago
    Called it, the issue is fixed and the decision wasn’t final after all https://twitter.com/craig1black/status/1645822291497062402 https://twitter.com/craig1black/status/1645822291497062402
• LightHugger 4y ago
  I know people say "but they cant give good support at their scale" but really at some point, with the amount of money they make, the real answer is that they choose not to give support and therefore choose to treat people like shit. It shouldn't be accepted as it currently is.
  • dariusj18 4y ago
    It's like how physical manufacturing will choose to save a few pennies on a part reducing the overall cost per unit, saving themselves millions at the expense of the actual quality. It's fine when you do it with one or two part, but when you do it with all the parts, you're just creating a crap product.
  • suddenclarity 4y ago
    There are supposedly 2.7 billion active users. How many employees would they need to actually offer what people ask for with personal support? The size of these companies are incomprehensible for most people.