Massive Rant 6YouTube and "violating their terms of use"
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Welcome back to another rant of mine, this time the sixth. So, if you remember waaay back in June 2014, I parodied the YouTube series
Did You Know Gaming? by making a Blockland Forums version. (Mirrored video can be seen
here) stuffty video, right? Well, Setro had an issue with the very short portion of the video that included a picture of himself that he posted. Fair enough, but he decided to contact me about it through YouTube's messaging system. The thing is, because YouTube changes their layout every loving couple of months, I had no idea that messaging still existed, let alone where it was located. Unfortunately, I discovered his message shortly after my video was removed due to him flagging it, giving my channel another strike. The message read;
Delete the video and keep it down or edit my photo out and that bit about me "liking child research". It wasn't even child research.
If you do not take action I will file a Privacy Complaint and have the video taken down myself.
Thanks.
This sparked a
whole debate and argument and eventually was dropped after sometime. Nearly a year later, I received an apology from him via a forum message;
hey man, i just wanna say that i'm sorry for being a prick back then, i was way too self-conscious
i might seem to be trying to rationalize the problem here (the video you got taken down), but i'm gonna be honest, life was hard back then, blah blah, insert filler here
you may upload the "do you know gaming" video as many times as you'd like. i'm trying to not be a richard anymore.
if you for some reason still have the community warning strike on your account from that, i will contact google and attempt to have it taken down, but since 6 months have passed, i think it's expired.
sorry for not taking a joke
I do appreciate him sending that, but it doesn't change anything, my account still was in bad standing. Now what that exactly means is that my channel can not have any external annotations, custom thumbnails, paid content, videos exceeding fifteen minutes, and no live streaming. While I probably wouldn't use most of those features, it's still good to be in good standing and to be able to use my YouTube account to it's fullest ability if I ever needed to. Around 3 days ago, I had an idea. Because I received this form of permission to use him in the video, I decided to try to appeal the removal and attempt to rid my account of being in bad standing. Well, when I got on to my email today, I had an email from YouTube saying that I had received
another strike. Here is the email if you want to read though it.
Hi video man,
The following video(s) has been reported to our team for their use of misleading thumbnails. They have been reviewed and are in violation of our policy against misleading descriptions, tags, titles or thumbnails in order to increase views.
"Blockland Forums - Did You Know Gaming? - Feat. Nal" (https://youtu.be/6mlohjKoXik)
YouTube's Terms of Service explicitly prohibit such conduct and does not allow you to submit material that is contrary to the YouTube Community Guidelines. Specifically, the Community Guidelines state, "do not create misleading descriptions, tags, titles or thumbnails in order to increase views."
We have removed the custom thumbnail from the video(s). Please refrain from posting videos with misleading descriptions, tags, titles or thumbnails in the future.
Note: this is your first warning for violating our custom thumbnails policy. After you receive three warnings, your privilege for custom thumbnails will be revoked.
Repeated violations of these or other Community Guidelines may result in exclusion from the Partnership Programme and possible termination of your YouTube account.
Thank you for your prompt cooperation in this matter.
- The YouTube Team
So from what I can tell, YouTube agreed to remove the content rejection, but automatically removed it again for violation of terms. But here's why this is bullstuff, I can't upload custom thumbnails at all and I've never been able to on this account. I can't violate their "custom thumbnails policy" if I don't even have access to that feature. Now, the main reasoning behind why the video was re-removed was because the video apparently violated their terms against misleading descriptions, tags, titles and/or thumbnails to increase views and possible ad revenue. I do understand how the video could be misleading, but here's the thing. In the video's description, I clearly stated that it was a parody and had no relation or affiliation with
Did You Know Gaming?. So yes, I understand that the title can most definitely be a factor into why this was marked as "misleading", but that isn't why. The main issue was indeed the supposed "custom" thumbnail.
Note: this is your first warning for violating our custom thumbnails policy. After you receive three warnings, your privilege for custom thumbnails will be revoked.
I find it funny how my custom thumbnail privilege is in jeopardy, yet it isn't even eligible for use, nor has it ever been.
Also, here is the alleged "misleading thumbnail".
If you can see it, the thumbnail is from the beginning of the video and is a screenshot of the homepage of the Blockland Forums. (In my mind, the complete opposite of misleading) I still do not understand why this thumbnail got me another community guideline strike and I wish YouTube would give out a more precise explanation why instead of the plain automated message on why it's against any guidelines. To try and get a better idea, I read through YouTube's entire pages about their community guidelines. Throughout reading, I narrowed my situation down to the "Misleading or racy thumbnails" portion. It reads;
Please select the thumbnail that best represents your content. Selecting a loveually provocative thumbnail may result in the removal of your thumbnail or the age-restriction of your video. The thumbnail is the title card that will be shown next to your video across the site and should be appropriate for all ages.
If you are uploading a a parody, review or vlog, please choose appropriately representative metadata that will not confuse users into believing that your video is something it is not. This is especially important to remember in relation to current events or viral videos. Please select a thumbnail and title that clearly illustrate that your video is commentary and not footage from an actual event. Videos that are deemed deceptive will be removed from the site and strikes may be issued to the uploader.
This is all fine and dandy, but my video is definitely not the most misleading parody or remake of
Did You Know Gaming? on YouTube. Take this for example.
(click for video)This was made by a channel named
DidYuoKnowGaming?, an obvious parody of
DidYouKnowGaming?. The description gives no credit to the original works it was based off of, and the thumbnail is as "misleading" as mine is. If anything, my video has no reason to be deemed as misleading or against guidelines if videos as old and with more views like that one aren't considered the same.
YouTube is honestly a stuff service to use, especially when it comes to appealing removals and dealing with guideline/copyright issues. I've worked a huge amount on my YouTube channel for nearly 5 years and have gained almost 500 subscribers and over 250,000 total views. While I don't make monetize any videos or make profit whatsoever, it would be a huge shame to lose all of my videos and subscribers just because an automated bot/employee finds my video to be against their policies for a vague and wrong reason. I could just be overlooking/thinking this whole thing, but I really do think it's bullstuff and deserves a massive rant topic. Anyway, give me your thoughts on this whole situation.
