Demonetiwhatnow?
Added 2020-02-13 20:26:22 +0000 UTCHi there!
There are about 40 (!) of you who are pretty new here thanks to what happened this morning. Well actually, it happened last night at about 8:45 PM but I went to bed early. And I'm very glad I did or I wouldn't have slept a wink!
The good news is, the drama is over. I think. So apparently a bot somewhere thought a significant portion of my channel was in violation of the Partner Program guidelines which... while I don't like to toot my own horn (except for in that one video) I'm pretty sure is very not true. This meant that I could no longer monetize my channel. At all. So, as you do, it was off to Twitter to tag Team YouTube and stir up the drama.
Which apparently worked.
Now, as per usual, nobody at YouTube has reached out to tell me "Whoops, we did a bad. Here's your monetization back!" Instead, things in the Dashboard look normal again and somebody who works for YouTube asked me via their personal twitter if it was fixed because they asked somebody and they said it should be. I mean, that's better than nothing, I guess!
I'm hoping somebody over there has gone "Bad bot! Bad bot!" but ehh... I'm not in control of these things.
But I do want to give you all a heartfelt thank you. I don't do it enough. There aren't a lot of creators on YouTube who can wake up to the news I did and not completely panic. It's entirely because of you that I could live my day pretty normally. In fact, I'm already editing the next video!
So. Thank you. Thank you for being awesome.
Comments
"Twitter is the sole method of contacting YouTube" ... citation needed. As I wrote down in a more elaborate comment, there's a chat/email support built in right in the Studio web site.
Raphaël
2020-02-15 18:02:27 +0000 UTCAs for contacting YT, I noticed in the YouTube Studio (at least in the classic one, and I mean the web site), one of the help items is "Contact the YouTube Creator Support team" and they offer options for chat and email support. In the new Studio web site, I can see it also by clicking the ? at the top right, then select the "need more help > contact us" option at the bottom of the help window. I never tried these options yet I'd be curious how that would work vs rushing to Twitter -- we need a comparison experiment to know how much that works vs Twitter; what about you try these to ask for follow up e.g. what went wrong, is it fixed, etc.?
Raphaël
2020-02-15 17:59:27 +0000 UTCWell, thank _you_ for being awesome.
Raphaël
2020-02-15 17:56:19 +0000 UTCI'm glad I'm on that team as of today :)
2020-02-14 18:22:49 +0000 UTCThat sux, but I don't understand what just happened. I'm a bit behind. What Partner Program piece did it claim you violated to demonitize?
2020-02-14 16:17:40 +0000 UTCIt is outragous how YT doesnt care for problems of their users. Just like when you fight copyright scammers. YT is like "We dont interfere with claims..." ... yeah and by that they enable organized copyright crime to do what they like.
2020-02-14 14:00:09 +0000 UTCIt is absolutely insane to me that Twitter is the sole method of contacting YouTube for any type of service. Like, that right there is...so unprofessional that it literally makes me angry. Imagine if your veterinarian could only be contacted by sending a letter and hoping they read it and reply with an appointment time.
alphawhiskey
2020-02-14 13:24:30 +0000 UTCThe fact that "get people on Twitter to bombard them" has become the normal way of getting YouTube to fix their shit is kind of depressing. That or happening to know someone who works for them and can actually get messages to people via back channels.
Chris Crowther
2020-02-14 10:48:02 +0000 UTCBad bot! E: a bloke who does a video on *brown* gets my money. I can usually only give a few $ a month so it rotates around.
!
2020-02-14 10:22:04 +0000 UTCBad bot! No entropy!
Robert Butler
2020-02-14 07:23:23 +0000 UTCPatreon wouldn't even have to exist if it wasn't for YouTube doing stuff like this.
awesomepossum
2020-02-14 01:37:08 +0000 UTCIronically, the demonetisation has resulted in greater profit. Hooray!
2020-02-13 23:18:58 +0000 UTClol I was just listening to the episode of HI where he was talking about it yesterday (I'm still catching up after not being able to listen at work for a year)
Sam Cyanide
2020-02-13 21:54:18 +0000 UTCHe probably made a post on YouTube or Twitter about it.
Sam Cyanide
2020-02-13 21:52:21 +0000 UTCit's impossible to not read this post in your voice
Sam Cyanide
2020-02-13 21:52:09 +0000 UTCConfused. Why did the temporary ban cause 40 people to become Patreon supporters?
Wolf
2020-02-13 21:51:14 +0000 UTCOrange with context
Marcel de Jong
2020-02-13 21:40:38 +0000 UTCPro-tip: Shift-enter lets you do a line break :)
Technology Connections
2020-02-13 21:04:12 +0000 UTCI lean pretty against it, to be honest. I would prefer to keep my content on a more open platform and use Patreon to make it possible. Even though I know those wouldn't need to be exclusive or anything, it still feels a little weird to me. Frankly, I'm really happy where I am and wouldn't want to change it barring some sort of catastrophe.
Technology Connections
2020-02-13 21:03:51 +0000 UTCIt happens, I mean don't get me wrong- it shouldn't, but it does. Which is very unfortunate for a platform like YouTube.
Robert Butler
2020-02-13 21:01:33 +0000 UTCDamn you enter to submit! Whatever happened to line breaks? Anyhoo, glad it’s sorted :) I do quite like your videos.
2020-02-13 21:01:06 +0000 UTCIf I were to speculate, I’d say the robots forgot/didn’t know how to/broke and decided not to consider audio when comparing uploaded videos to determine whether they were the same or not... or, if they do analyse sound, they’re not very good at it (human speech probably appears the same to them).
2020-02-13 21:00:37 +0000 UTCRelated question: have you considered also putting your content on Nebula or Floatplane? I'm sure you know best for your channel, so I am not saying you "should" do anything. But I like the idea of high quality creators being on these other platforms. Platforms that don't treat creators worse than a disposable paper cup, to be basically thrown in the garbage -- without any human intervention! -- at the slightest hint of a problem.
Daniel Pritchard
2020-02-13 21:00:07 +0000 UTCUgh. YT... That reminds me of when they totally deleted my sister channel which left me with no access to my Big Car channel, and left me to start from scratch again last June. If there was an alternative to YT, I'd use it in a heartbeat, and I won't use any Google product if I can help it.
Big Car
2020-02-13 20:59:59 +0000 UTCGlad it worked out, must be odd having your income partially dependent on an AI. Although I guess we all are 'ruled by them' to some degree. My channel isn't monetised but still find YouTube content policies rather obtuse. Would like to use some copyright music in a travel video but can't see how, but a search returns hundreds (at least) of people using it.
Robin Capper
2020-02-13 20:36:58 +0000 UTCIt happened to Grey, too. Those robots gotta have something to do, I guess.
Mitch SuperKnot
2020-02-13 20:35:18 +0000 UTCWhat the hell should be a "violation" in your channel?!? I'm happy to hear that things are OK now, we like your channel! And yes, I also experienced some times that videos were blocked because of "content matching" although I was playing myself just an improvisation, or some quiet background music was there...
MrHammond
2020-02-13 20:33:52 +0000 UTCGlad everything worked out! By the way, check your messages for one from me!
James Jepsen
2020-02-13 20:32:06 +0000 UTCThe whole monetization abuse thing is crazy to me. I’ve worked at and dealt with a lot of service providers that rightly have a “we don’t get involved in party disputes” policies, but YouTube can’t rightly claim that because *they are the monetary source*. It is their ads, their payouts. How they don’t have an escrow system in place yet for monetization disputes in the case of content claims, and how they can simply defer to the claimant, boggles my mind.
VxJasonxV
2020-02-13 20:31:58 +0000 UTCAwesome to see how fast the community jumped in to support you! Sending love from Chicago.
2020-02-13 20:31:28 +0000 UTCStupid algorithm stress is maybe the worst stress. I’m glad they fixed things quickly.
Paul Macejewski
2020-02-13 20:30:39 +0000 UTCNo worries mate 😋
2020-02-13 20:30:16 +0000 UTCDon't worry, we support you and your BROWN plaid coat.
Elizabeth Sullivan-Burton
2020-02-13 20:30:10 +0000 UTC
