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If the YourTubeAdvocate Account Is In Danger of False Flagging, Are Any of Us Safe?

 

This is a video response to the YourTubeAdvocate’s video entitled “Why videos were removed”.

 

 

This is to the Advocate who goes by the name of “20”. I realize that this video will be appearing very late in your term— too late for you to respond as an Advocate

. And for that I apologize. But it has taken me a fair amount of time to put it together, and I think there are things that must be said, even if you don’t have a chance to respond. Perhaps JustA11en will allow you to post a video response to the YourTubeAdvocate channel even though your term has expired.

You explain that you had to remove your videos out of fear that YouTube would suspend the YourTubeAdvocate channel as a result of a false flagging campaign. It is perfectly obvious that you had nothing in your videos that could legitimately be construed as a violation of the Community Guidelines or the Terms of Service. That the YourTubeAdvocate would fear being suspended as a result of false flagging is a damning commentary about the way that YouTube is being run.

Take a look at YouTube’s Community Guidelines. Look under the section labeled “We Enforce These Guidelines.” Here is what YouTube has to say about flagging:

“YouTube staff review flagged videos 24 hours a day, seven days a week to determine whether they violate our Community Guidelines. When they do, we remove them. Sometimes a video doesn’t violate our Community Guidelines, but may not be appropriate for everyone.”

Since you have not done anything to violate the Community Guidelines, this means one of three things:

Now personally, I don’t believe the last possibility. I don’t believe they are flat out lying. But neither of the other two possibilities reflects well on YouTube. Let’s look at the first scenario. Let’s assume that YouTube does a conscientious job of reviewing flagged videos so that accounts are not wrongfully suspended. If that is the case, then why are you so paranoid??? And why are so many other people paranoid? Is it because they have seen YouTube removing videos and suspending accounts for reasons that are mysterious at best?

Let’s suppose that you are mistaken in your perception that YouTube wrongfully removes videos and suspends accounts that have been falsely flagged. If you are mistaken in your belief, at least you have some consolation in knowing that you are not alone. Many others believe the same thing too. At the very least, this suggests that YouTube is doing a terrible job of communicating with its users. And there is no doubt that YouTube is terrible about communicating with us.

I am older than most of the people who post here. I am 52 years old. That means I have communicated with a number of companies in my time, and I have never seen ANY company with worse communications with its users. Let me explain.

Starting in 2006, another individual and I had, shall we say—a very adversarial relationship. He posted comments on people’s channels threatening to rape them. He filed false DMCAs. He used sock puppets and broke nearly every rule in the book. I exposed his shenanigans and he didn’t like it. So he filed DMCAs against two of my videos that made legitimate fair use of his videos in order to expose his wrongdoing. And he posted a video in which he made a veiled death threat against me. And about five months after his veiled death threat, he filed a totally bogus DMCA against me for a video that he had no copyright interest in. Now, YouTube knew this guy was a bad boy, because they had suspended him time after time after time. Yet they honored his totally bogus DMCA and suspended my account.

I wrote to YouTube to inform them that I did not want to file a counternotice because I would have to sign my name and address to it and they, in turn, would turn this information over to someone who had made a veiled death threat against me. I am going to put a link in the sidebar to a copy of my correspondence with YouTube’s copyright office.

I encourage everyone to read it. But for those who don’t want to take the time to read it, here is the Reader’s Digest version.

They basically ignored what I said and told me I HAD to file the counternotice to get my account back. This was despite the fact that I could PROVE that the final DMCA against me was totally bogus. There was something very special about the last video that they removed that got me suspended. Other people had posted copies of that video on their channels and I begged YouTube to watch the video. If they had done so, they would have seen that it was made by Firefly515, and about 3 minutes into the video he was BEGGING everyone to repost it to their channels.

 

 

It was OBVIOUS that I had permission of the copyright owner to post the video, and it was OBVIOUS, had they taken 3 minutes to investigate, they would have known that the DMCA was bogus. But nooooo. YouTube in effect told me that if I wanted my channel back I would HAVE to file a counternotice and give my docs to someone who had made a threat against me.

To their credit though, I must state that they did give me back my account without my having to submit a counternotice. It took them four months to do so. Four months to do what should have been done within one or two days. And when they did restore my account, did they send me an email apologizing for wrongfully suspending me? Of course not. In fact, they didn’t even send me an email notifying me that my account had been restored. I found out that I had my account back when another YouTuber messaged me telling me that he could see my videos again.

Now, my correspondence with YouTube occurred back in the good old days of late 2007 and early 2008. YouTube is worse today. Back then, they actually provided an email address where you could send them messages. Now if you want to send them a message you can only do so if you find a hard to find form, and the textbox only allows a 350 character message. This is not enough space to protest an improper video removal or suspension. In fact, if your account has been suspended, YouTube’s policy is that you can’t open a new account. So if you do open a new account, just to try to email YouTube over an unjust suspension, you are technically violating the Terms Of Service and they could make your suspension permanent.

This suggests one of two possibilities.

Or

 

And even if you do get through to them, they are seldom helpful. I have heard of many YouTubers who have written to YouTube asking them why their video was pulled and YouTube just responds with a standard form letter telling them to look at the TOS and the community guidelines. This is most unhelpful because the TOS and guildelines are ambiguous and could be used to suspend anyone for almost any reason. There are no clear lines of demarcation, and the guidelines seem to be enforced differently for different people. For example, take a look at the video called “Poop in a cup” by YouTube partner Charles Trippy.

 

 

Now, let me read you part of the community guidelines.

“YouTube is not a shock site. Don't post gross-out videos of accidents, dead bodies or similar things intended to shock or disgust.”

Does anyone really think that this video complies with the guidelines? If an ordinary YouTuber were to make a video like this, do you think YouTube would remove it and put a strike against his account? Why is this video still up? Is it possible that YouTube doesn’t know about it? Is it possible that out of the 174,000 people who watched this video, hardly anyone flagged it for review?

And IF this video falls within the guidelines, then what do the guidelines really mean? Where are we to draw the line? How are we to know what is allowed on YouTube and what is forbidden without further guidance. We may WANT to avoid running afoul of YouTube’s rules, but how can we do so if we don’t know what they mean? And why are we not given any meaningful way to contest the removal of videos that we post if we post them with the good-faith belief that they did not violate the rules?

Let’s look at another example of how the Terms of Service Community Guidelines are ambiguous. Why did YouTube remove a video by dprjones exposing VenomFangX’s fraud and suspend dprjones’ account for two weeks? I will post a link in the sidebar to a copy of the video that got him suspended.

 

 

If YouTube wanted to make sure that their website wasn’t being used to commit fraud then they should have applauded dprjones’s efforts instead of punishing him.

I have heard someone claim that YouTube had reason to suspend dprjones. This person claimed that 16 or 17 of dprjones’s roughly 35 videos were about VenomFangX and this constituted stalking. Oh really? This seems like a gross distortion of the word “stalking” to me. Suppose I make 20 videos discussing why George Bush was the worst President in my life time. Does that make me a stalker? What if all 200 of my videos were devoted to an examination of the shortcomings of the Bush Administration? Would that make me a stalker? Or might this not just be a sign that I am a good and thorough historian.

The fact is that some YouTubers attract a lot of attention because they act outrageously on YouTube. If YouTube wants to define stalking by the number of videos that you post about someone else, then they should spell it out in their terms of service. We shouldn’t have to guess about these things. And if they don’t want us to expose the fraud and abuse of others, then they should spell that out as well. Perhaps they should change their name from YouTube to the Scam Protection Zone.

So far I have only discussed the most benevolent interpretation for YouTube’s actions. My discussion thus far has focused on the scenario that the YouTube staff are genuinely trying to avoid suspending accounts that have been falsely flagged and that your paranoia is due mainly to YouTube’s lack of communication.

But now let’s look at the other likely scenario. Let’s look at the possibility that they don’t really care if someone’s account is wrongfully suspended. Let’s look at the possibility that they only superficially review flagged videos and that they are only touting their review process for the PR benefits it will bring. After all, they probably don’t want us to think that they will automatically suspend accounts if their videos have been hit with a large number of flags. If they are only superficially reviewing videos for the PR benefit of being able to say that they are reviewing videos, then this is even more damning indeed.

If this is the way that YouTube is operating then they don’t seem to be living up to their promise of being the world’s largest town hall for political speech. This is, after all, how they described their “You Choose ‘08” platform in their March 31, 2008 blog entry.

Though the election is over, it still remains the world’s largest town hall for political speech. If you want ANY chance of having your videos seen by a large audience, YouTube is the place to be. This is something that both the President and members of Congress realize. YouTube is unique in that it is THE place on the internet where the President and Congress have set up shop in order to communicate with the widest audience possible. I will post links in the sidebar to the channel for the Whitehouse as well as the central channels for the House and Senate.

I will also post a link to a video by the leaders of the House and the Senate. I want you to watch it.

 

 

Pay close attention to the last 20 seconds of the video where Senator Mitch McConnell says that it is easier than ever to voice an opinion about what is going on in Washington, now that they have set up shop on YouTube. And pay VERY close attention to Congressman John Boehner who invited us to share our videos and comments with them. Clearly our Congressional representatives want us to be able to communicate with them through YouTube. As far as I know, if you want to address your representatives in an open “letter” in video format, YouTube is the place you HAVE to be. This places a special moral obligation on YouTube to avoid suspending accounts unnecessarily.  IF (and I stress IF) YouTube is taking a cavalier approach to account suspensions then this seems to fly in the face of the will of Congress. This would be pretty sad behavior for a company whose unofficial corporate motto is “Don’t be evil”.

 

This has been themaskedanalyst

Under and In

 

 

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