YouTuber's Channel Permanently Banned Over Censored Hellraiser: Revival Gameplay Video - "I'm Losing 10 Years of Hard Work"
https://www.ign.com/articles/youtuber-banned-over-censored-hellraiser-revival-gameplay-videoOpen linkView original on lemmy.ca
61 replies
Dang, 190k subscribers and his source of income? That's pretty awful.
Poor guy, fuck these people
Guy made an assumption about the rules and lost his account, no different from posting on any other website. If you are going to base your career on an online account you had better be 100% fucking sure about the rules before you post anything publicly to that account.
Generally true, but I have the impression YouTube has a history of being inconsistent with rules and punishing innocent creators, which would make it difficult to have any idea what the rules are.
Which is why a user who relies on YouTube so much should be taking the most conservative interpretation of the rules possible. There are several pages (reachable from the upload wizard) that talk about what may or may not constitute age-restricted content. Implied sexuality is on that list and if the video he uploaded contained even a censored version a sex scene in Hellraiser then that should have been a red flag for him.
I upload rarely enough that the upload wizard looks different pretty much every time I use it but the not-for-kids and age-restriction options are pretty prominent and both have links to gotcha pages that list how they should be used.
You are completely correct in your position here, I absolutely cannot comprehend the level of delusional pushback.
And I'm not talking out my ass, I was rocking over a million views a month at one point.
The channel owner even outright admits he just thought he could get away with consciously breaking the terms. After already having received two previous strikes. Well whoops-a-daisy, he didn't get away with it.
It is inarguable that this person brought this on themselves.
I don't really need to hear everybody's side-grievances about big businesses and enshittification as those are a complete red herring; The person deserved it and he shot himself in the foot.
Empathy for the loss. ZERO sympathy.
We all break tons of rules at work all the time. It would make sense to take down the one video he screwed up, not ruin him.
Agreed, and before terminating an account above some threshold size (say top 5%) there should be a human review or confirmation. But this is not surprising or even unexpected behaviour from YouTube. There are loads of horror stories from users who get their account shut down for 'minor' or accidental infractions. If a user is going to rely on a service with a history of unsympathetic and unpredictable enforcement then they should always take the most cautious approach when uploading.
and this is why I basically never login to any google account anymore, unless it's in a container.
It's not YOUR account, it's theirs.
Stop trusting corporations with the things you value.
Google can’t be trusted
Alphabet owns YouTube they set the rules, they host videos for free, sometimes they even pay users a portion of the ad revenue. YouTube is not a free (as in freedom) platform, it is a business. Choosing to base your income on that kind of platform is a risk, and users who do so should be extremely cautious about breaking rules on that platform.
Anyone is free to rent a VPS, install video hosting software, a message board, a blog, get advertisers who want to run ads on your site, and then you can do and say anything you want. Then YOU own the platform, you get to set the rules. But that takes a level of technical knowledge and personal responsibility that most 'Career YouTubers' are unwilling to take on.
You own the platform, you own the rules, you die from no reach as every single platform silences you if you try to get users offsite!
Yup you are only ever renting the space. This trajectory was obvious years ago but people still followed it rather than diversifying.
It’s just another extension of you’ll own nothing and be happy. The quicker people move away from google/YT and all the tech bros media the better.
I understand that dragging traffic away from YouTube/Instagram/TikTok/whatever is a monumental task but people are literally gambling with their livelihood on the hope that a corporate service will always work in their favour. You can follow the rules as conservatively as possible, YOLO and be ready to loose your account, or host your online business on your own platform.
Impossible task really do you think a federated network is going to keep every video ever posted to it like Youtube does? I mean the storage that Youtube uses must be massive.
They simply have a massive monopoly, and it is impossible to replace them, no matter how good your platform.
Because you depend in them and their buddies for advertisment.
Evidently they don't keep all of them. 😉
As a thought experiment, do you think that the ad revenue from watching ONLY videos on that guy's channel were enough to cover the operating costs and infrastructure required to store and host all of that channel's videos? If so then it should be possible, if extremely painful, to operate a vlogging business outside of YouTube.
Getting users TO your personal vlog site is a whole other problem but through Patreon (as an example) it is possible to funnel users out of the Alphabet/Meta/ByteDance networks. If any of my favorite channels were to announce they were transitioning to a new video sharing network I would gladly follow them off of YouTube.
Hear me out…maybe these services have grown so much they should be regulated as a utility just like the airwaves used to be. Not saying that will fix the problem, but will at least make them accountable beyond their opaque corporate structures and whims.
Maybe? The problem I have with that is they are not a radio station or TV station. or even an analog to one like a streaming service that provides access to local news/weather. They do not chose a bunch of programs to host and they generate a VERY small amount number of their own videos, they are a user generated content hosting site.
A comprehensive regulation of the conduct of a user generated content hosting services would have to be written by competent, intelligent, and technologically knowledgeable lawmakers. Otherwise it is guaranteed to make things worse for the end user (see age verification laws).
I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying. I’m certainly not competent enough to speak on anything close to the technical nuances. But something like radio stations, water and gas utitilites, or public transportation systems - while many in the us are for profit, once they get too large, they should be managed as a utility.
Like, “congrats. You’re idea was super great, you won capitalism” now as a community we have to regulate it because it has become so intertwined in the fabric of our lives.
Regulation is important. Good Regulation is essential to a functioning society…otherwise, people start talking about guillotines or Tea Parties.
I thought you had 3 strikes and your out? Also he could/should have been a lot more cautious:
I think that's for external claims like copyright takedowns, not violating YouTube rules.
Copyright strikes are a cumulative deal, community guidelines can be one and done depending on the nature of the video. In this case the video was not "advertiser friendly" and would have been considered inappropriate for anyone under 18. Not only does that restrict YouTube's ability to monetize the video it also could be a liability for them should someone complain about a lack of warning/age gating.
I actually had mine unbanned after years. I now stiffle myself heavily.
JFC almost every top comment is "giant corporations can do what they want with their stuff. Go start your own giant corporation if you don't like it!" Does Google have this many bots and shills doing image work even here?
That's mostly one guy posting over and over. I'm surprised at the upvotes but I assume it's because he adds a vague anti-corporate message to the end of most of them
That's why you don't just assume and gamble.
Right wingers literally build entire platforms to lift each other up and report/bitch en masse when anyone does this to one of theirs up to and including making millionaires our of people meanwhile, the alternate side…
Lectures Bring each other down Endless “i told you so”s Offer alternatives they themselves do not back monetarily
Then you wonder why the fuck no one buys into this bullshit.
It's not only "right wingers" that do this, as you very well know. You're on Lemmy, for the love of God.
So... why do you leave the lefties out of this, and pretend it's a "right" thing?
I know why...
Sure bro, we're brigading and review bombing all the time here in between our jobs at the Cancel Factory.
Moron, lmao.
Would you be just as outraged if someone started running an online business via their lemmy.ca profile and then their account was closed for spamming (or breaking some other part of the TOS)?
Alphabet is not a good entity. They took what was Google and YouTube, and just crushed them into the same corporate hellscape that is every big business, BUT Alphabet does not force anyone to base their career on their platform. If you choose to use their platform you are subject to their rules whether you know what they are or agree with them. Like moving to the UAE for a high paying job, if you break the local, ridiculous and arbitrary laws, you are going to loose your job and maybe land your ass in jail.
The game itself has an ESRB rating of Mature 17+ which should be enough of an indication that the video should have been age-restricted, the fact that he had to add his own censor bars means he was fully aware that the video was not appropriate for general consumption.
YouTube does not specifically state that censored nudity should immediately qualify a video for age-restriction but the several pages^[1][2]^ of guidelines heavily suggests that you should err on the side of caution.
Guy was greedy, he didn't want to miss out on the ad revenue. When you have tied your livelihood to an account/service that uses automated checks and moderation, it is extremely irresponsible to push the boundaries, or even test them gently. YouTube is not YOUR job, you work for them, they own the platform, they set the rules.
[1] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2950063
[2] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802167
Sounds like a brazen and cavalier flouting of the obvious rules, with the assumption that because other channels got away with it, he should too.
I am not callous, I can completely feel the pain of the loss, but at the same time it seems like a self-inflicted wound.
E flouting
Yeah, I get "there are lot of cheaters who got away with it, why am I then banned?" energy.
Forgive me if I have no sympathy for losing work done for someone else, especially a corporation and especially one like Google.
If I paint a mural at a company's office, if they decide to remove the wall, it sucks to see but it's not my wall. If I tend a tree at work and they decide to cut it down, same thing. A YouTube channel is never yours.
Your analogy sucks because the example given with the mural is actually against the law if they don't give the artist an opportunity to preserve the work.
Did they delete his videos? Or just ban the account? Can they still log in and download them?
It's in the TOS. You use their service with the full knowledge that you can loose access to that service at any time for any reason.
The TOS explicitly states that they can stop hosting your videos whenever they want, you own the copyright to the video that you uploaded, they own the platform.
It sucks for that guy but basing your career on an online account is a huge risk, taking chances with that account is irresponsible and ultimately the decision of the user.
Anecdote about the YouTube TOS and it's enforcement.
My dumbshit employer (with 20 locations globally and tens of thousands of employees) decided to install TVs all over the factory floor with a looping corporate wank videos uploaded to YouTube, and played on a loop. YouTube has blacklisted the plant's IP, it's been impossible to watch any YouTube videos at our plant for the past 2 years. YouTube does not care who you are, they set the rules, they enforce the rule.
Not if you'd done backups ...
They’re losing the monetization. Not sure any 3-2-1 strategy can help with that
Sounds like 3-2-1 would have helped in this case.
"hard work" bring the views and subscribers. I'm sure they have copies of all the videos.
Well, backups would have saved his content, but for what viewer base? How is he supposed to use his backups to get his viewer base and income back? It took 10 years to get that.
Oops did 10 years of hard work on a Nazi platform, and now shocked that they stole it?
You feel good about youraelf when you do this?
I do not understand why I’m being downvoted for my comment - Google / YouTube is a fascist, evil corporation
There are exactly zero good and magnanimous corporations, and yet if you want to live you work with what you have. Someone lost their living because of a double standard and you took the opportunity to "I told you so" as if you knew their individual failure was always going to happen. There is so little help or meaning to this action and yet now you act like you ahould be applauded.
This is, very strickly speaking, dickhead behavior. Be better.
There have been literally a thousand signs that Google is a bunch of fucks, so I am wondering why this person allowed themselves to be the frog that got boiled. Yes it’s sad, but it was absolutely telegraphed over and over again and was extremely predictable.
My sincere hope is that this will happen more and everyone will leave Google
You're only trying to justify your own shitty behavior by saying someone else is way worse. If you honestly care about why you are being downvoted then stop hiding behind 'being right' and just realize you're being an asshole. There are better ways to spread awareness and advocate for change.
I didn’t try to justify anything, and stand by my comments. It’s fine if you disagree
This isn't about disagreeing. I already said there are zero good companies out there. I don't actually think Google is fascist, I think they're a corporarion who relies on Government contracts and will Kowtow to whatever power is in office. You could claim that that is worse, but the bad news is we can't escape it so you have to think of a better strategy than "punch down on victims of capitalism because I think I'm morally superior"
Please stop with this nonsense. It diminishes the gravity of the word "fascism".
sus ass response ^ to any accusation of fascism, especially in 2026, and extra especially in defense of google/youtube who for years and years now have been arguably the largest and most well funded nazi propaganda operation in history with their algos leaning literally everyone's accounts to further and further right wing extremist content. nevermind the obvious and recent immediate gulf of america change or inaugural 'donation'.
sus ass.
They literally removed the phrase “don’t be evil,” and they bow to the head Fascist. What more proof does anyone need?
Because this isn't a situation of fascism at all, even if Google is fascist in general.
A fascist player on one side of any transaction makes it fascism
A poor understanding of issues and concepts makes for a useless and unpopular contribution.
Hey I think you're real do I want to respond.
You're right, Google is evil. And getting your channel banned without process or warning is common when expected on yt. That's all true.
But somebody still lost their primary source of income. This is going to make their life materially bad. Humans empathize with each other, so even though they were supporting a platform and company that doesn't care about them, it's still sad to see a fellow human being hurt.
i wouldnt call it a full nazi platform. grok/X would be a nazi platform.