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UPDATE 8/11: Great news -- the StartupBros YouTube Channel is back! Thanks so much for your help bros!
For anyone in the same situation -- check out our guide on how to get your terminated YouTube channel reinstated...
For the past 6 years, the StartupBros YouTube channel has been churning out all sorts of YouTube videos helping new entrepreneurs grind themselves out of their day jobs. It's not the biggest channel, but we did pretty well -- and built up over 2-million views on our ~200 videos...
I know some of you really enjoyed these videos -- we had well over 30k subscribers (rapidly rising), and we had just invested well over $10,000 into our studio to deliver even better videos to you...
But today that all abruptly comes to an end. YouTube has permanently & immediately terminated the StartupBros channel -- with no warning whatsoever.
What Exactly Happened?
About an hour after our latest YouTube video went live, we received our first ever Community Guidelines Strike...
All right, no big deal. Sounds like we got caught up in some algorithmic moderation, and just need to appeal this strike. Worst case scenario, we'll re-edit the video and cut whatever YouTube's algorithm doesn't like...
But wait -- not more than 15-minutes later, there's another email --
Uhhh...wait....WTF?!
Apparently there was a 'complaint', and a 'review' that determined we were inciting users to commit crimes. And not just any crimes -- but crimes so heinous, simply removing the offending video wasn't enough...
For the world to be safe -- YouTube had to completely scrub StartupBros from their platform...
But You Must Have Done SOMETHING?!
Before we blamed YouTube for anything -- we first blamed ourselves...
We went back and listened to all our most recent videos for anything that could be misconstrued as inciting users to commit crimes. Our best guess was from our latest video (published just a few hours before our suspension)...
You can watch the video YouTube deems so dangerous here --
In this video -- I point out that your IRA's are protected even in bankruptcy. Because of that it makes sense to fund your retirement accounts before making any debt payments...
And although I explicitly tell you NOT to do it (3 times) -- I make the point that it would even make sense to go into debt to fund your IRA...
It's a fairly sophisticated and complex financial point, and I'm pretty sure it's completely legal...
But I KNOW that YouTube's content moderators don't know if it's legal or not -- so how did someone manually decide to terminate out entire account instantaneously for that?
Seems like a longshot...
So What DID You Get Banned For?
Outside of a junior content moderator at YouTube getting overzealous with their CPA knowledge -- we truly don't know...
Before last night, we were the 'ideal YouTubers' -- we worked hard to follow the rules, and had never received a single strike (community or copyright).
What's really interesting, is that YouTube is actually violating their own policy here. Just take a look at some of the language from their "clear and consistent" Community Guideline Strike policy...
I can now tell you personally that this is all bullsh*t. We received no warnings, no strikes, no video removals...
In fact, we received no contact from anyone at all. Just an email letting us know all our hard work has been deleted. Thanks for using YouTube!
Our Appeal to YouTube
YouTube's termination email included a link to appeal, so went ahead and submitted the best appeal we could. Here's what we wrote, for anyone in the same sitatuon --
Thanks so much for your help in advance!
We just had our account terminated, and are hoping to get it back. The account was in good standing before tonight -- we've never even had a single strike on the channel.
We received the notice "We don't allow content that encourages illegal activities or incites users to violate YouTube's guidelines"
It also states "The only depictions of such activities that we may allow need to be educational or documentary in nature"
In our latest video we posted on 7/27/2020, we do precisely that...
At 5:39 we talk about how important it is to fully fund your IRA & 401k. To show how important it is -- we make the point that IRAs are protected in bankruptcy (so that makes it REALLY important to fully fund them).
But at 5:40 and from 6:06 - 6:14 we give explicit warnings that say "I am 110% saying you should not do this" and "it's...bankruptcy fraud".
We are not sure how this got picked up as illegal activity, but we'd be happy to remove the video.After submitting our appeal, we received a strange G Suite notification --
I tried doing as much as I could with this, but it seems like just a random notification to let you know your appeal has been received...
So Now What?
Well -- that's it, silly!
Now we wait to see if our corporate overlords decide to allow us onto their platforms. But we won't hold our breath -- there's no obligation for them to even grace you with so much as a human reply...
In fact, I'm not sure there have been any humans involved in this process whatsoever. This is just another story of algorithms gone haywire, and probably a vision into the algorithmic tyranny we're moving into...
We Need Your Help!
It's insane to me that it's come to this -- but if you want the StartupBros YouTube Channel to live on -- we've all got to FIGHT for it!
Most of the appeals I've read about are DENIED -- and the ONLY way to beat the censorship systems is to MAKE SOME NOISE!
So PLEASE, if you've ever found value in what we do here at StartupBros -- PLEASE MAKE SOME NOISE!
It's up to the entire StartupBros community to keep the drive alive! This is the ONLY time I'll ever ask you -- PLEASE TWEET!
@YouTube you mistakenly terminated one of the best startup business channels last night. Please reinstate @StartupBros @YouTube channel @TeamYouTube @ytcreators
Why was @StartupBros @YouTube channel completely deleted? Your algorithms are going crazy -- reinstate and FIX THE PROBLEM @TeamYouTube @ytcreators
Please reinstate the @StartupBros @YouTube channel @TeamYouTube @ytcreators -- it was mistakently terminated with no warning
Any extra attention you can bring to this (particularly to the @TeamYouTube account, or anyone you know at YouTube), will be DEEPLY appreciated!!!
What You Can Learn From All This
It feels weird talking about myself, so let me give you some takeaways from all this...
- Being a YouTuber, blogger, influencer, or content creator doesn't make you a business owner. It makes you a slave to whichever platform is supplying your traffic.
Amazon, Google, Facebook -- use these platforms to get your message in front of more people. But never forget they can be taken away from you instantly. You don't own squat -- you're just building their platform for them...
The only thing these monopolies can't take from you is the RELATIONSHIPS you've built up with your audience. For example, Joe Rogan couldn't build his podcast anywhere but YouTube -- but now that he's built rapport with his audience, he can lead them off to Spotify...
Never confuse your current position in someone's algorithm with your real long-term worth. - Speaking of algorithms -- don't depend on them to build your business 'organically'. Organic growth used to mean you had a product or a message that was so awesome -- it just naturally spread like wildfire. Go for that kind of growth, and everything else will work itself out...
A company built around the latest algorithmic loophole might make money right now, but it's going to become a nightmare as those algorithms continue to be developed. And my version of financial freedom certainly isn't losing sleep over what some recent college grads are doing with some computer code...
Instead, build an experience that creates a lasting, memorable impact -- and use these platforms as a way to help spread your message. Don't just create random time-wasting clickbait because the algorithms like it -- create memorable experiences, and people will naturally want to come back for more... - Once you have an audience, don't be stupid enough to send them OFF your platform. Try to keep them in your eco-system as much as possible (else they fall back into the hands of our corporate overlords).
For example -- I was stupid enough to send out these videos with direct links to YouTube. And now, everybody clicking that link is seeing a terminated YouTube channel. Bad move...
If I simply embedded that video on the StartupBros website -- I could have just replaced the YouTube embed with a Vimeo embed, and lots more people would have seen the video.
So be smarter than me -- and keep your audience on YOUR platform instead of THEIRS. - Backup everything. The cloud is not a permanently safe place to store your important files. This type of algorithmic policing is only set to get worse -- and it's slowly spreading even into people's private storage like Google Drive.
I don't know why this is happening to entrepreneurs, but it's happening. I assume we are getting unintentionally caught up in extremely overzealous algorithmic moderation (although YouTube says there's humans doing the checking).
But the point stands true. You can't depend on cloud services to safely store the fruits of your labor. You MUST have HARD BACKUPS of your work.
In Closing -- Please Help 🙁
I'll keep this post updated as the situation progresses, even if there's technically no update to give.
If you'd like to see more StartupBros videos in the future, be sure to make some noise and tweet @TeamYouTube -- and hopefully we can get an actual human to take a look.
And for those of currently investing your time & money into YouTube -- I hope this helps, and hope you can avoid the arbitrary ban-hammer longer than I...
God Speed into this Brave New World, Bros...
UPDATES
8/5: We tried making a post on the YouTube Support Forums to try getting someone's attention. This seems to have worked for some channels in the past...
8/5: We finally got a response from a human being -- not to our appeal, but through YouTube's Creator Support! Unfortunately, it's not a very helpful one...
A fine gentleman named Mclin sent us this -
So apparently there was an internal review team who already reviewed our appeal decided to keep our account suspended based on "Community Guidelines" and "Terms of Service"...
Because Mclin is from a different department, we decided to NOT treat this as a final decision -- and continued waiting for an official response on our actual appeal...
8/7: We decided to submit another appeal. This one is a lot more broad that our original appeal, addressing a bunch of common algorithmic screw-ups people have ran into...
We were suspended based on 'encouraging illegal activity', which we have never done. We believe there has been an error or mistake.
- We work hard to follow YouTube's rules, and had never received any warnings or strikes in over 6-years of publishing 200+ videos
- We have NEVER encouraged users to do ANYTHING illegal. In fact, we actively teach AGAINST using any manipulative tactics or deceptive strategies.
We're trying to figure out what actually triggered the error here, and here's some things we've come up with...
- We have videos where we use the terms "Productivity Hacks", "Mindset Hacks", and other uses of the word "Hack". These videos have nothing to do with hacking or anything illegal.
- We have never promoted any cryptocurrencies or ICO's, but have talked about Bitcoin in some videos before
- We have videos that talk about counterfeit products from China and how you should NOT buy/sell them
- We have dirty competitors who report our content to try to harm us
Please help!
8/10: We published a new blog post asking for more help (we removed this now that we've got the channel back). Just a few minutes after publishing this update, we got an update on our case from a real human being!
I'm not proud of the amount of joy Lei brought myself and our team with this email -- just letting us know we haven't been forgotten about...
But it's definitely the best progress we've had so far. It looks like the duo of Lei & his sidekick Mclin may have finally gotten our appeal escalated to a human review...
We immediately replied to Lei to let him know he's our new favorite person at Google...
But until the StartupBros YouTube Channel is actually reactivated, we're still asking for all the help we can get...
8/11 UPDATE -- We Got The Channel Back!
After making enough noise for Lei to get involved, he worked his magic and got our channel back within 24hrs!
We immediately replied and just wanted to let Lei know how much he is appreciated by people like us...
I'm not sure we would have gotten our channel back without Lei taking the time to get involved. So we were delighted to see we could at least repay him with some appreciation...
So thanks again to the entire StartupBros audience for making enough noise to get Lei's attention!
I hope you never have to deal with a YouTube Channel Termination yourself, but if you do -- I know this guide to getting it reinstated will help...
We'll be back creating videos for you fine folks again shortly <3
Hi Will, I found your Youtube channel just 4 days ago. I watched your video about 99 designs, it impressed me so much, it felt like your can explain information so well in such an easy way that I can implement it, I trust you and you gave me clarity, you have an expertise and I become your admirer straight away. I found so much value and good cause in you and I was looking for a content like yours and think that you inspired me and I can look up to you. I came back to rewatch the video with a pen and 99designs website opened and I could’t find your channel. That’s how I found your own website :D. So I started to read more about you and what you do. I sow your interviews and get understanding that not only you can explain anything to even a golden retriever (a.k.a dumb me) but you’re actually having financial success in life, you’re smart and you make $50 millions K a year and you created it on your own! Somehow I felt that I’m so proud of you and imagined that you probably can battle and prove your parents that you have financial success and you have like an adult numbers to show them. For me it’s like a real life example or a proven sign that you’re smart (I don’t) and you can officially impress your parents (I don’t have any numbers to show them so I’m losing trust in me and afraid to believe my parents that I’m weird and very dumb and should better get back to my doctor’s degree). But Will that’s where I get that you sell courses. Why would you want to charge more than 1-7$ for your courses or just teach people with your wisdom? Why would a financially successful person want to charge for courses? I don’t get it. For what? I can’t even imagine what could be the reason behind that? You make me fear of do you want to scam… your pets? All best things in life are free (let’s say Google), don’t you think so? My first language is not English so I hope you can read through my mistakes.
Tweeting is for Pu$$ies, sue them and make them pull this back out of their crapper. 🙂 Humor of course.