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YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

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Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#151
post #116

I keep hearing stories about similar issues. Suddenly someone is terminated from a Google service for unknown reasons, without any possibility of reversing such decisions. This appears to be true of Twitter and others as well. From my vantage point, it appears to be quite arbitrary. And quite concerning in a number of cases, given the centralization of email, docs, etc. I do make backups of google content every so of…

It used to be much harder to knock someone you didn't like offline. You used to have to organize a DDOS attack. But now, all you have to do is organize a much easier mass-flagging attack. We need to update our threat models to account for how unreliable major platforms have become.

We can no longer rely on these companies. After big tech spent so much time investing in their own infrastructure, they are undermining themselves like this.

We need to just accept that a major liability of using a major platform like this is that your content may be removed and your account deleted, for unknown reasons.

Want to host your podcasts? Well don't rely solely on Apple Google or YouTube, they are not up for the job. Instead, you have to span it on multiple platforms and tell your audience where to find you if you get deleted.

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#152
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They bought an existing service, made very few improvements to it Huh? AFAIK the Youtube Google bought wasn't profitable and it had much fewer viewers and content creators. It even lacked transcode options! Other than the basic functionality it provided (you could upload clips for free, you could watch other people's clips for free) it isn't comparable to today's Youtube.

Given the many years all of that took, I don't think it's reasonable to compare what exists now with what it was when it was bought. It's perfectly reasonable to hypothesize that it would have been as good or better feature wise. Also, saying it didn't have a big userbase? Compared to what? It was easily as much of a giant relative to the competition then, as currently youtube is to its competition.

Youtube had a lot of users but dailymotion, myspace and google video had a fairshare of marketshare. Now youtube is so much bigger than facebook, dailymotion, vimeo in terms of videos.

Google has introduced many great features that would not be possible without google or google ai. Muting songs but not background sounds is a cool new feature. Identifying and categorizing videos and presenting similiar videos is better than anywhere else.

For years youtube couldn't make money. Without google figuring this piece out a site like this would still be too expensive.

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#153
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google has entrenched themselves in a monopoly here. I think antitrust laws should be applied. If it's true that it isn't profitable how would anti-trust laws make it better? If it's truly unprofitable then separating it from the mothership means it goes bankrupt so no more Youtube. That doesn't seem like a better outcome than what we have today. So it must be profitable to even begin to consider anti-trust regulat…

Because then someone who doesn’t have Google’s money could actually compete. It wouldn’t become a huge exercise in dumping.

If Google is subsidizing everyone else’s consumption of video, pricing it below market, that’s a good thing. Someone giving you free money or a discount you b didn’t even need to ask for is a good thing. Dumping out selling below cost harms no one but the seller.

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you change your birthday such that you were < 13 when you opened it? That is common thing that happens.

That's why you always put down your birthday as January 1, 1901 (or whatever earliest date they allow).

Then you've violated the terms of service and when they find out they have an excuse to kick you.

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#155
post #29

> accidentally Google don't accidentally terminate accounts or remove/block videos. They intentionally left that job to AlGoRiThMs instead of using actual people capable of reason/thought. That's no "accident".

You're not wrong, but you are probably being downvoted because you're trying to be cute with your capitalization of the word "algorithms". Please don't do that.

Well, "accidentally" also communicates that it was done automatically without human review and that human review ended up reversing the decision. I don't think splitting hairs with "well technically they intended for it to happen automatically so it couldn't have been accidental" adds to the discussion. Automatic processes absolutely make mistakes.

This should be obvious after 10 seconds of thought, but here's an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#156

Looks like youtube account has been restored. Update from the medium article: >> UPDATE: We’re back as of 8:39pm EDT April 11, 2020! I received the following email from YouTube: Hi there, After a review of your account, we have confirmed that your YouTube account is not in violation of our Terms of Service. As such, we have unsuspended your account. This means your account is once again active and operational. If you…

I wonder if that would have been the result if the author didn't make so much noise about it....

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#158
post #116

I keep hearing stories about similar issues. Suddenly someone is terminated from a Google service for unknown reasons, without any possibility of reversing such decisions. This appears to be true of Twitter and others as well. From my vantage point, it appears to be quite arbitrary. And quite concerning in a number of cases, given the centralization of email, docs, etc. I do make backups of google content every so of…

It used to be much harder to knock someone you didn't like offline. You used to have to organize a DDOS attack. But now, all you have to do is organize a much easier mass-flagging attack. We need to update our threat models to account for how unreliable major platforms have become. We can no longer rely on these companies. After big tech spent so much time investing in their own infrastructure, they are undermining t…

This concept of de-platforming is becoming more and more prevailant.

The big techs cannot differentiate between legitimate de-platforming vs a Denial of Service de-platforming. I think while the big techs have a legitimate concern for de-platforming things that are deemed hate speech, this same power can be utilized by individuals to target a de-platforming for people whose opinions they don't like.

I think big techs should consider a public-court like system - where in order to deplatform, a jury of peers should be used to make judgements.

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#159

How many Google accounts are arbitrarily nuked, and host content that is not famous enough to make the front page of HN, or Reddit, or some other noisy social media site?

A lot of them, I have two Gmail accounts randomly locked and one Ads account randomly locked as well.

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#160
post #156

Looks like youtube account has been restored. Update from the medium article: >> UPDATE: We’re back as of 8:39pm EDT April 11, 2020! I received the following email from YouTube: Hi there, After a review of your account, we have confirmed that your YouTube account is not in violation of our Terms of Service. As such, we have unsuspended your account. This means your account is once again active and operational. If you…

I wonder if that would have been the result if the author didn't make so much noise about it....

or how prevailent the problem is, and is just not heard because most people don't have a voice on the internet large enough to garner attention.
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