mornin

Update - their email had, I kid you not, word-by-word the same quotes as in the chat conversation I posted. See my last post for details. 🤡

For those missing context, here's a summary of the whole thing, along with the "guideline-violating" video itself:

As @matthew_lugg put it: Can I have more details? "No, no. But it's all correct. We promise." Can I know the reasoning? "Of course not! But we did it right. Pinky-promise!" Can I know if these are user reports? "Nope! But we're very careful, don't worry."

I seriously doubt anyone has even looked at my re-appeals. I'm just supposed to trust that the "human reviewer" did their job right. I'm supposed to hear "the decision is final" and settle right down. What happened to "people make mistakes"? I mean, if THIS is who works there...

Why even bother sending that email? The post @TeamYouTube replied to had these same exact quotes. Why pretend like I'm getting a different answer? Circus. I've been through this countless times now, and every single time they avoid accountability by pasting prewritten scripts.

For the record, they just sent me a "case ID" and told me to wait for an e-mail. I can't fathom this going any differently from the last soulless email exchange. I'd say "here's hoping", but I've lost the strength to hope.

Oh, by the way, the related Short (which is just a summarized version of the full video) is still up. Granted, it has almost no views, but the re-upload was taken down instantly- when it had just 2.3K views.

The lack of responsiveness, too... They offered an e-mail exchange, a DM conversation- none of that took place. Maybe I'm impatient, but the month is over halfway and I can't afford to just pause my work for this long without consequence.

I completely accept if there really is a mistake I've made. I just want to know, so that I can fix it or avoid it in the future. Is it because you could briefly access Doom's E2/E3 in the first release? Is it because I didn't add some network safety disclaimer? Just tell me!

If you need more context, here's a link to a point-by-point rundown of why my video unmistakably conforms to the guidelines they cite: https://t.co/6HRztOYwzG A link to a self-hosted video file can also be found there, if you wish to confirm for yourself. Or to just watch it.

This has to be some terrible joke. It took 5 days since my video's takedown until I found a way to talk to a human, only for them to drop all accountability. @TeamYouTube I genuinely no longer feel safe posting on your platform. Do you employ anyone who doesn't follow a script?

So, um, @TeamYouTube - about those next steps? I've followed your account, my DMs are open, I'm looking forward to finally clearing this case up.

I don't mean to be pushy, but it's been a day and I haven't received anything, not even a "we'll get to you shortly". The month is halfway through, and I've still got 0 out of the 2 uploads I need to keep my channel going. Still no answers on the takedowns. @TeamYouTube Please?

@TeamYouTube For full context, here's a link to the re-uploaded version of the video. Personally, I can't fathom how it's "harmful" or "dangerous":

7/7 Of course, I'm very upset about losing this month's pay/work, but most of all it terrifies me that I don't even have a reason. What if my next compsci project gets taken down too? Can I just not do this kind of content anymore? If a human is willing to talk, my DMs are open.

6/7 My "theories" include suspicions of piracy and hacking. However, my project only allows you to play the free shareware Doom episode, and that's all that the video shows. It's also not "hacking" anything, and I make this explicitly clear. It's my servers running everything.

5/7 Within 2 hours, the reupload got taken down, and my channel received a strike. My second appeal directly targeted Every Single Point in that article. Still rejected. Still don't know why. Still nothing but automated/canned responses.

4/7 I modified my program and edited+reuploaded the video, making sure to specifically address each point in that article. I still have no clue what the actual reason is, but I figured I'd doubly cover every point, even if it meant breaking the flow of the video.

3/7 My appeal got rejected instantly. I opened a YouTube support ticket which specifically outlined the points one might have misunderstood, and asked specific questions about the "why". None of these got answered. Instead, I got a canned response stating "our decision is final".

2/7 The article cited for the takedown was "harmful or dangerous content". This is just a silly video about running Doom in a Discord GIF. I read the article, and confident that I didn't break any of those rules, I appealed the claim.