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False Flagging, YouTube, and Congress

(Transcript)

There have recently been several instances of flagging and account suspensions that I want to comment on. But first, I want to review once again why it is important for YouTube to be VERY careful to avoid suspending accounts inappropriately. There is something special about YouTube. YouTube is amongst the five most popular sites on the internet, and if you want to voice your opinion in the marketplace of ideas by making a video, YouTube is the place to be. More importantly, YouTube is the place where our Senators and Representatives hang out, and if you want to post an open letter in video format to your representatives, you HAVE to be on YouTube. In fact, the leaders of Congress have made a video ASKING you for your input through comments and videos.

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Congress WANTS us to be able to communicate with them through YouTube, and if YouTube suspends people wrongfully it is doing them a big injustice.

Having said that, I want to discuss three people who have either had their videos flagged or have had their accounts suspended. I’ll be talking about whattheheck124, SMP films, and Alex Jones. These three people run the gamut from a relatively small YouTuber, to a very popular YouTuber, to an individual whose notoriety goes well beyond YouTube. I’ll discuss whattheck and smp films in this video and Alex Jones in the future.

Whattheck124 is one of the most decent people on YouTube. Unfortunately, he was a victim of a troll who constantly imitated him in a manner that made HIM look like the troll. I’m speculating here, but apparently he was flagged by people who thought he was the real trouble maker and YouTube suspended his account because they mistook him for the person who was imitating him.

YouTube’s screwup is certainly not unprecedented.

I’ll post a link in the sidebar to his new account if anyone wants to subscribe to him.

Last year, a user named Thoughtblock stole five videos from Sheldonwh. Sheldonwh sent a DMCA notice to Youtube demanding that the videos stolen from him be taken down. Instead of removing Thoughtblock's stolen videos and closing Thoughtblock's account, Youtube suspended the wrong account! That’s right, they suspended Sheldonwh’s account! He was the guy who made the videos and he was the rightful copyright owner of the videos! YouTube eventually restored Sheldonwh’s account, but to this day they haven’t suspended Thoughtblock’s account. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Sheldon has set most of his videos to private so you can’t see exactly what happened. But I made my own video documenting this incident and I will post a link to it in the sidebar: (The relevant portion starts at 9:35).

More recently, Daryl Horner received death threats on YouTube. Horner made a video response challenging the guy who threatened him. YouTube’s response? They gave Horner a two week suspension. They suspended the victim of the death threat and not the person who made it. I’ll post links in the sidebar to a video by HappieCabbie about this incident.

And on April 1, VenomFangX made a video asking people to give him money for his ministry. He promised to give anything he received over $500 to the Sick Children’s Hospital in Canada. He later made videos weaseling his way out of this pledge. I think it is fair to call what he pulled a bait-and-switch scam. And dprjones made a video exposing this scam. What did YouTube do? Did they give dprjones a reward for helping them keep a scammer from using their site to get money from donors under the pretense that much of it would go to this specific charity? Of course not. They removed the video exposing VenomFangX and gave dprjones a two week suspension for his good deed. Here is a mirrored copy of the video that got dprjones suspended.

I discussed this incident in detail here:

Unfortunately, YouTube wasn't content with wrongfully giving dprjones a two week suspension. Today they suspended him for the following video entitled "20 questions for Frankretard". Admittedly, he wasn't very polite in this video, but surely this is not worth a full suspension.

Here is a mirrored copy of the video announcing his suspension.

So we have plenty of evidence that when it comes to protecting YouTuber’s from unjust treatment, well YouTube does a sloppy job.

Cory, Mr. Safety from smpfilms just had a couple of videos flagged for inappropriate content. The videos weren’t removed, but YouTube did change their status so that only those who declare that they are over 18 can view them. Cory isn’t too happy about this because he is a partner, and when partner videos are flagged and moved into the “over 18” category, they no longer make money on those videos. I’m not mentioning Cory because I think he’s been censored. I wouldn’t really call what happened to him censorship since his videos are still up. I am mentioning him because he is one of the most popular YouTube video makers and because this incident casts doubt on YouTube’s claim of reviewing flagged videos before deciding whether to leave them be, change their status to over 18, or delete them entirely. YouTube claims in their Community Guidelines that they don’t automatically delete videos that are flagged and that they have someone review them before deciding what to do with them. Presumably, YouTube wants us to believe that this is a safeguard that they use to prevent our videos from being removed by false flagging. Well, the incident involving Cory demonstrates just how faulty and slipshod YouTube’s review process is.

Cory has started a new channel called InappropriateFilms which he uses to post his edgier videos, and he has reposted the two videos that I’m about to discuss to his new channel. The first video of his that was flagged was “Pissing on an Electric Fence.” I’ll post links in the side bar to his videos. In this video he at least pretends to get a shock while pissing on an electric fence.

We can’t be sure if he is really pissing on the fence because he has his back turned to us and nothing inappropriate is actually showing in the video. Perhaps YouTube decided to mark this video for adult viewers only because they thought he was setting a bad example for children and some kid might get hurt if he tried to duplicate his experiment.

So Corry made another video in which it appeared at first like he was urinating into a john. The title of the video is “Pee” and when you watched the start of the video, it looked like he was peeing into a toilet, but nothing inappropriate was showing.

By the end of the video he revealed that all he was doing was pouring a bottle of apple cider into the toilet. Corey mentioned some of George Carlin’s Seven dirty swear words, but they were very appropriate and necessary in the context of the video. No reasonable person would have flagged this video, and I can’t imagine why YouTube moved this video into the “adult only” category. Yes, there were some nasty words, but if YouTube thinks that most kids don’t hear these nasty words then they are living in LaLa Land. The fact that they put this video in the “adult” category suggests to me that they might not have watched the whole thing or that they didn’t give it even a minute of thought before marking it adult only. And if they don’t even take a minute to give due consideration to one of their most popular video creators, what is to protect the average YouTuber from unjust suspension do to a false flagging campaign.

Absolutely nothing. And unfortunately, if your account is wrongfully suspended there is little you can do about it. If you are suspended for a copyright violation then you will know why you’ve been suspended and if you don’t mind surrendering your anonymity you have the option of filing a DMCA counternotice to get your account back. But if you are suspended for any other reason then good luck finding out exactly why. YouTube will probably refer you to the Community Guidelines, but they probably won’t tell you specifically which rule you broke, much less give you a chance to challenge their call. In fact, if you visit the YouTube Help Center, they don’t even tell you where you can send an email protesting an unjust video removal or suspension.

Let’s face it. YouTube and Google are not acting as responsible Guardians of the world’s largest town hall for political speech. What can you do about it? There are three things.

First, watch the video petition by starfedrogue asking the powers that be to act responsibly. He did a wonder full job in drawing up this petition. I’ll post a link in the sidebar. Watch the video, sign the petition, favor it, and feature it.

Second, if you are unjustly suspended, get in touch with your Representative and Senator. Tell them that YouTube is wrongfully depriving you of your ability to respond to them on YouTube. Remind your Representatives that the Congressional leaders want YouTube to serve as a forum for communication with them. I’m not going to advocate that you open up a new account, because opening a new account once you are suspended is a violation of the Terms of Service. But if you DO choose to open up a new account, make sure you post a video response to one of the members of Congress. Representatives and Senators have made videos soliciting opinions on a number of issues. Your video should be a response to one of their videos, and you should give your opinion targeted specifically to a particular solicitation for input. Your video should be serious, and you should put forth your best effort to advocate a position in a cogent and thoughtful manner. Then if YouTube suspends your new account you can write to your Representative again and complain about YouTube thwarting the will of Congress. You might get YouTube’s attention if your Representative contacts them on your behalf and asks them to restore your channel. And if enough people get in touch with their Representatives, maybe the mighty executives at Google and YouTube will receive a very special invitation to appear before a Congressional inquiry to explain their actions.

Third, there was a very interesting article appearing in the New York Times a few days ago. It seems that the Obama Administration is getting tough on antitrust issues. In fact, it looks like the Justice Department is going to keep a close eye on Google. The gist of the article is that probably nothing will happen to Google because most of their services are free. However, according to the Times, Christine A. Varney, head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division said, and I’m quoting from the Times article, “the touchstone of antitrust policy should be ‘the protection of consumer welfare.’”

Though we do not qualify as consumers in the traditional sense, some of us devote many hours into making our videos. To see them wiped out due to YouTube’s incompetence or a false flagging campaign is certainly a negative consumer experience. More importantly, to be wrongfully told that we have no right to participate in the only place where we can address our Congressional Representatives in video format is an outrage. If enough people complain to the Justice Department, then maybe this will be something they will keep in mind when considering whether to allow Google to make their next big internet acquisition. YouTube has made it clear that they do not want to hear complaints from us about wrongful video removals and suspensions. It that’s the way they want it, well, so be it. Let them hear from our Representatives instead.

This has been the maskedanalyst

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