YouTube breaks silence on mass channel bans and moderation criticism
The big wigs at YouTube haven't always been a popular bunch with the people that use the incredibly popular video sharing platform, but they have recently faced significant criticism after a mass wave of channel deletions has left creators feeling 'wrongfully' terminated.
While it started out as a simple website designed for people to share videos they found interesting, YouTube quickly catapulted itself into one of the internet's biggest hubs, and is now second only to its parent company Google when it comes to traffic on the web according to data from Semrush.
Somewhere in the midst of that ascent YouTube started to offer its creators an incentive to share videos in the form of revenue, where they'd be able to use ads played before, during, and after videos to cash in on their content so long as it proved popular enough.
That might sound great and a wonderful partnership between YouTube as a host and the creators themselves, many feel like they've been let down over the years by the site, and it has capitulated in a recent outburst of frustration thanks to a wave of channel deletions.
Advert
As reported by Dexerto, an alarm was sounded by tech creator Enderman, who had several of their YouTube channels removed without warning, with the supposed reason behind these permanent bans being links to a trio of copyright strikes on a non-English language channel.
The creator claims that they had no knowledge of the account in question, but it quickly became apparent that they weren't the only one hit by this unexpected ban wave, as many others have shared their experiences with recent takedowns that seemingly came out of the blue.
Many have rightfully put pressure on YouTube management to provide answers amid the chaos, with some claiming that automatic moderation tools – potentially powered by AI – are at the heart of the issue.
YouTube has finally responded to everyone in a new blog post shared on November 13, with the platform attempting to clear up some of the confusion surrounding recent bans.
"This past week, @TeamYouTube worked with our Trust & Safety team to review hundreds of social posts, and corresponding YouTube channels, outside of our typical workflows," the company outlined.
"The vast majority of termination decisions were upheld, with only a handful of nuanced cases being overturned. We also confirmed there were no bugs or known issues with our systems."
It also illustrated that it uses "a mix of automation and human review" for content moderation, adding that it's something that has been employed "for many years."
Mistakes are part of the system though, and creators can appeal directly against any suspension or termination inside YouTube Studio if they believe that it was applied wrongfully, so long as the process is started within a year.
"Finally, there's always more we can do to improve how our systems work, and improve transparency and communication with creators around policy decisions," the blog post concludes.
"One area we're working on is providing more specific policy descriptions and timestamps, as we know this is a top request from creators."
While this is certainly clear in how it lays out the termination process, many still might not feel satisfied if their appeals haven't been successful. Unfortunately, with the monopoly that YouTube holds in the video sharing space, there's little that creators can do other than continue to post and hope that they're not hit unexpectedly in the next wave.