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YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

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Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#281

Post by Hard_Space »

bambax wrote: post #41

The problem is not the content of the video, crypto or not. The problem is not that YT moderates aggressively (it doesn't do enough IMHO) or even how it moderates. The problem is that there is no serious appeals process, and no third party oversight of moderation decisions. This is true for all the big platforms. How do we fix that, IDK, but probably at the government level.

> that there is no serious appeals process, and no third party oversight of moderation decisions

Yes there is, see [0] - also posted by me in another reply in this thread, where I mention that my own YouTube account was suspended identically to OP earlier this year, but was restored 3-4 hours after filling out the form. The decision may or may not have been AI-driven, but I'm pretty sure there was a human in the loop behind the solution.

Don't mistake me for a Google fanboy - I had my primary Gmail account locked last week for daring to use a VPN, so I'm currently looking at de-Googling myself a bit. But to be fair, I was able to fix both issues within a few hours.

[0] https://support.google.com/accounts/contact/suspended?p=yout...

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#283

Post by gwerbret »

Presumably, many Googlers who are directly involved in designing and implementing content moderation are active readers of Hacker News, as is evidenced by the fact that having a story hit the front page is an effective way to solve problems like these.

But what I never see is any of those Googlers taking the time to explain why they feel these seemingly-broken approaches are the only ways to solve the problem of moderation at scale. To me, it seems insulting to one's intelligence to receive an automated message that your channel's been banned, be given the option to appeal, and to receive an equally automated message rnd() minutes later that your appeal has been denied. But what do I know? I've never been tasked with solving such an engineering problem.

I know FAANGers here may feel put upon by what appears to be a hostile environment against their companies, but that's at least in part because you've never said exactly which technical and practical challenges lead to this state of affairs. If it's not against your company's NDAs, I challenge you all to try; whether the community agrees with you or not, I think we would all learn something useful from a productive discussion about the problem.

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#284

Post by lotsofpulp »

gwerbret wrote: post #283

Presumably, many Googlers who are directly involved in designing and implementing content moderation are active readers of Hacker News, as is evidenced by the fact that having a story hit the front page is an effective way to solve problems like these. But what I never see is any of those Googlers taking the time to explain why they feel these seemingly-broken approaches are the only ways to solve the problem of mode…

> But what I never see is any of those Googlers taking the time to explain why they feel these seemingly-broken approaches are the only ways to solve the problem of moderation at scale.

They are not broken approaches. They are optimizing for net income. Higher net income for the company means higher compensation for individuals at the company, since they are being paid with equity. Spending more money on labor means less net income for the company means lower compensation for individuals.

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#285

Post by pwned1 »

thijser wrote: post #258

Update: 3 hours after posting and being on the hacker news front page: Automated email out of the blue: "We’re pleased to let you know that we’ve recently reviewed your YouTube account, and after taking another look, we can confirm that it is not in violation of our Terms of Service. We have lifted the suspension of your account, and it is once again active and operational." Thanks hacker news for voting this up and…

You're lucky you got some attention. I had google kill my adsense account, which I've had for 10 years+, because I logged in to another google business account of mine with the same phone number I used on my adsense account. They declared that I tried to create duplicate accounts. Account killed. Appeal? Yeah right, that was denied too. No possibility of talking to a human being to explain the simplicity of the issue. A major source of income dead because of an algorithm.

If there are any googlers on here who could grant a little mercy and guide me on how to try and talk to someone to resolve this, I'd be eternally grateful.

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#286

Post by thijser »

Hard_Space wrote: post #278
thijser wrote: post #258

Update: 3 hours after posting and being on the hacker news front page: Automated email out of the blue: "We’re pleased to let you know that we’ve recently reviewed your YouTube account, and after taking another look, we can confirm that it is not in violation of our Terms of Service. We have lifted the suspension of your account, and it is once again active and operational." Thanks hacker news for voting this up and…

I would only add that the same thing happened to me for entirely mysterious reasons, earlier this year, and my YouTube account was restored by the 'usual channels' [0] within about 3-4 hours, without the need for publicity. [0] https://support.google.com/accounts/contact/suspended?p=yout...

Great that the process also sometimes works. I also tried that form before posting here and it just lead to an email notifying me of the rejection of my appeal within 10 minutes.

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#287

Post by sneak »

zucker42 wrote: post #123
101008 wrote: post #53

I know losing a YouTube channel is horrible, especially after you dedicated so much time, effort and money - and for some people it may be a source of income as well. It is totally unfair. But my nightmare in here is that you lose access to your whole Google account and that would devastate me. Not only email access (and thus, access to every service I use because I have my Google account linked to it), but also Goog…

The simple solution is never use the same google account for YouTube and Gmail/Drive.

Google correlates all of the accounts that you log in to from the same devices. If you have YouTube on iOS logged in to one account and Drive on iOS logged in to a different one, Google is aware that those accounts are used by the same person.

TOS-violation suspensions are likely to involve all of your accounts at once.

The simple solution is to stop doing business with Google.

They'll also hand all of your shit over to the CIA without a warrant even if you aren't doing anything wrong, so there's that, too.

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#288

Post by ivegotnoaccount »

wayoutthere wrote: post #152
bambax wrote: post #41

The problem is not the content of the video, crypto or not. The problem is not that YT moderates aggressively (it doesn't do enough IMHO) or even how it moderates. The problem is that there is no serious appeals process, and no third party oversight of moderation decisions. This is true for all the big platforms. How do we fix that, IDK, but probably at the government level.

Quite frankly, now that YouTube has built its media ecosystem, they have an incentive to marginalize the long tail. The big channels (or rather, their distribution companies) have dedicated account managers who can clear this kind of stuff up. Big channels are easier to manage from a platform perspective since there’s someone you can call to clear up any issues (who you already have a contractual relationship with),…

Honest question, do you actually get as many ads on YouTube as on TV ? With the former, I am used to 2 10-seconds to 1-minutes ads every 10-15 minutes and that are usually skippable (~16% in the worst case). On TV, at least in France, there are at least as many ads, but they can't be skipped.

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#289

Post by rickreynoldssf »

A lot of YouTube's "customer service" people are poorly trained contractors in India, may of which don't even understand English well. I've gone back and forth with them sometimes being asked for things that I clearly provided in previous emails and one time I got a reply with instructions that included a bunch of You Tube internal network only links (that were in India which is how I know where they are), then when I replied to that without providing anything they asked for (because I can't get to the links) was told I wasn't being cooperative. So its not always AI being dumb.

Re: YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video

#290

Post by ComodoHacker »

thijser wrote: post #258

Update: 3 hours after posting and being on the hacker news front page: Automated email out of the blue: "We’re pleased to let you know that we’ve recently reviewed your YouTube account, and after taking another look, we can confirm that it is not in violation of our Terms of Service. We have lifted the suspension of your account, and it is once again active and operational." Thanks hacker news for voting this up and…

I'm thinking of chances they've managed to make the process fully automatic. Including all communication, news/social networks analysis and weighing reputation hit if the case go unresolved. Have human factor completely ruled out from the process of ruling on people's lives and careers. Would make it even more disgusting.
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