Not sure this belongs here but didn't think it was worth it's own thread. Has anyone noticed Youtube heading down the slippery slope of censorship? Is this a sign of things to come across social media?
I've not been able to use my youtube account for over 2 weeks now, they suspended my account but the reasons were vague, they said it was because my content was offensive and that they don't allow repeated violations, so my channel has been removed. Pointing at it being a youtube channel content related issue.
So I appealed, to tell them my channel was empty and asked why didn't anyone check this before issuing a suspension?
Anyway they replied, said they looked into it and found I had not breached the Terms of Service and the suspension had been lifted. So I logged in... They lied, I'm still not able to use youtube and I'm not able to appeal again because you only get one appeal. From there, there is no way to contact them other than the support forum, which they simply ignore and let other google users reply with "help".
I also said in my appeal, if it was to do with the comment sections, which not the reason I was given but it's pretty much the only thing I log in for and I do give as good as I get to be fair. I said I'd want the comments shown in the full context, including what I was responding to, otherwise they haven't adequately explained their justification. I suspect they just take the report button at face value, judging by the generic email they sent. I generally only swear when someone's initiated the abuse and rarely say anything hostile unless someone is blatantly trolling with inflammatory remarks where they shouldn't be. In that context, it would be hard for them to justify a suspension of my account. Which is probably why they conceded that I hadn't violated the terms of service.
I do know communities such as the LDBC(boxing) specifically target people's channels(successfully having them taken down unfortunately) if they say something about Wilder they don't like for example. I'm sure it's the same with anti-City clowns, who can't argue with what you've put forward. This is what I think is happening and I've noticed in the support forum, it's a growing problem and youtube support is generally none existent. One guy was saying he only uses youtube to watch fishing videos and he's been banned with no explanation for over a month. It looks like, unless you run your own channel, they wont be sorting your issue and even then you could be unlucky.
It's not that big of a deal, I can make a new account easy enough and I've quite enjoyed the break tbh. It's the principle of the matter though, for such a popular product to beable to deny service without providing any details of the supposed breaches, doesn't seem right. It opens things up for certain groups to abuse the system to censor opinions they don't like. Can you imagine for example, a future where they are able to just ban City supporters who simply correct misinformation across all of social media, in the midst of the constant barrage of anti-City propaganda?
