A termination (also known as a suspension, deletion, removal and commonly referred to as a ban) is when a YouTube channel gets removed, and their content and monetization revenue will be lost for violating the rule or rules under Google's policies and/or YouTube's Community Guidelines. A lot of popular channels have been banned for violent content, sexual content, spamming, illegal or drugs, irregular goods, copyright infringement, sanctions evasion, or other violations.
Any signed-in user can report a video in an attempt to take it down.[1] Videos can be also flagged by YouTube's machine learning system. When a video is flagged, it's NOT immediately taken down. YouTube staff reviews videos 24/7 to determine if videos violate YouTube's Community Guidelines.[1] YouTube also uses a machine learning to detect if a video violates their policies. If you click on a terminated channel's link, it will lead you to a page saying that the channel's account is terminated.
If a copyright owner notices that their content was reuploaded without their permission, they can send a copyright takedown request to YouTube.[2] YouTube staff will review the request and take down the allegedly infringing video.[3] The video owner will receive a copyright strike.
Users who are not signed in on YouTube cannot report videos to prevent false reports and report spam,[1] but due to how the system works with reports, and the fact YouTube's team does not double check videos determining what goes against their Community Guidelines to crack down on false reporting against flaggers with conspiracies to take down channels for a certain reason, a certain amount of chances for signed-in users can get a channel penalized after reports as any reason (i.e. spam or phishing scams, while the actual content being reported does not), possibly immediate termination without warning. If a signed-out user tries to report content, they will be redirected to the Google account sign in page.
Consequences[]
When a user has violated YouTube's terms of service, they receive an email explaining what policy they violated and how it affects their channel. If the violation affects their channel, the user receive a Community Guidelines strike or a warning.[4] If the user gets three strikes, their YouTube account gets banned.[4] If YouTube detects that the whole channel violates their policies or if there's a single case of severe abuse, the channel will get banned immediately without any prior warnings. YouTube may also contact law enforcement if the violation is serious enough.
If a user allegedly infringes someone's copyright, the copyright owner may send a copyright takedown notice do not permit upload owner to the infringer.[3] If this happens, the user receives an email stating that their video was removed due to a copyright takedown request. The channel owner receives a copyright strike. If the user receives 3 strikes, their account gets banned.
Until the Google acquisition, banned accounts on attempts to sign in were given the Your account has now been permanently banned error popup. Suspended accounts are now redirected to the "Unable to access a Google product" help page, and in addition, the user is later required to verify their Google phone number first in-order to regain access to all other Google right after the account gets suspended. A bunch of banned YouTubers have the same error popup, without the "now" on login attempt.
Strikes[]
Strikes could be issued to your channel by YouTube to help keep content safe for everyone. If your channel violates the YouTube Community Guidelines or Terms of Service, your channel will get a copyright strike or Community Guidelines strike.[5]
Copyright strikes[]
YouTube Copyright School
The video presented in Copyright School to first-time offenders. This video is a special Happy Tree Friends episode.
These occur when some of your content was taken down due to a valid legal request to YouTube from a copyright owner. For example, if you used someone else's content without their permission, there may be serious consequences for your channel. If the copyright strike message is displayed on your channel page, it will show a purple referee man looking and holding a yellow card. If you want to appeal the strike, you will have to attend Copyright School. Copyright strikes expire after 90 days, as long you complete Copyright School.
Strike 1 - First strike.
Strike 2 - Second strike.
Strike 3 - Channel termination. Your account will be terminated unless you send a counter notification. If the claimant doesn’t respond to the counter notification within 10 U.S. business days, your account will be reinstated. Channels that are in the YouTube Partner Program will be given a 7-day grace period to resolve the strikes before being terminated. Submitting a counter notification will put your account’s termination on hold until the claimant responds.
Community Guidelines strikes[]
Community Guidelines strikes are enforced by YouTube's automated machine learning system to scan millions of content to check if content violates their Community Guidelines, and they are also enforced by the Trust and Safety team at YouTube who review videos against their Community Guidelines, but copyright strikes are submitted by copyright owners directly to YouTube. Sometimes, if there are multiple videos that violate a policy or there’s a single case of severe abuse, the strike system is bypassed and the channel is terminated immediately. YouTube uses artificial intelligence to detect harmful content from videos and the video will be removed. Community Guidelines strikes affect your channel and they will expire after 90 days IF you do the "policy training". Deleting the content that caused the strike won't remove the strike itself.
First violation - Warning.
Strike 1 - One-week posting ban. You won't be able to upload videos or share community posts for a week.
Strike 2 - Two-week posting ban. You won't be able to upload videos or share community posts for 2 weeks.
Strike 3 - Channel termination.
Why are YouTube terminations important?[]
During the middle of 2005, the YouTube report system was added. And you might ask why YouTube needs to ban channels.
If the video or channel is dedicated to egregious channel violations, such as sex and nudity, violence, hate speech, spam, illegal or drugs or other inappropriate content, the Trust and Safety team will remove the video or channel immediately without prior warning.
Community Guidelines strikes were started to be reviewed by bots in the 2010s. The YouTube team sometimes doesn't review some content, because of the time it takes to look at other users' channels, check all their videos, and strike them manually if their content breaks the Terms Of Services or Community Guidelines. To combat this, they tried making a bot to detect explicit content from channels that violate YouTube's Community Guidelines.
Ban Messages[]
These are a list of all of the messages when a channel gets terminated, eg.: This account has been terminated for violating YouTube's Community Guidelines.
New channel termination message[]
"This channel was removed because it violated our Community Guidelines."
When a channel severely or repeatedly violates any of YouTube's Community Guidelines, this message will be displayed.[6] This message has replaced all the policy and community guidelines messages for channels that were terminated.
Harassment and bullying (discontinued message)[]
"This account has been terminated due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube's policy prohibiting content designed to harass, bully or threaten."
When a channel is uploading videos meant to harass, bully, or threaten people, it will receive a ban.
Copyright Infringement[]
"This account has been terminated because we received multiple third-party claims of copyright infringement regarding material that the user posted."[7]
When a channel gets 3 copyright strikes, the account will receive a channel ban.
"This account has been terminated because it is linked to an account that received multiple third-party claims of copyright infringement."[8]
If an account has multiple channels and one gets banned for copyright infringement, all other channels in that particular account will also be banned.
Terms of Service[]
"This account has been terminated for a violation of YouTube's Terms of Service."[9]
If a user is not following YouTube's Terms of Service, including misuse of reporting (or sanctions evasion), the channel will be banned.
"This account has been terminated because it is linked to an account that was suspended for violating YouTube's Terms of Service."
If a Google account has multiple channels and one gets banned for a policy violation, all other channels in that particular account will also be terminated, even if they did not break YouTube's TOS or Community Guidelines.
Google Terms of Service[]
"This account has been terminated for violating Google's Terms of Service."
If a Google account is suspended for their Terms of Service violation, their YouTube channel is also terminated during this process, even if the channel doesn't violate YouTube's TOS
Spam, deceptive practices and scams (discontinued message)[]
"This account has been terminated due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube's policy against spam, deceptive practices, and misleading content or other Terms of Service violations."
If a channel is uploading videos that are spam, scams, doing deceptive practices, or spreading misleading content, their channel will be terminated.[10] Their channel can also get banned for posting spam comments.
Hate speech (discontinued message)[]
"This account has been terminated due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube's policy prohibiting hate speech."
When a channel is uploading videos or posting comments that promote hatred or violence against individuals or protected groups, their channel will get banned.
Impersonation (discontinued message)[]
"This account has been terminated due to a violation of YouTube's policy prohibiting impersonation."
If a channel copies another channel layout by name, profile, and banner to trick others, it results in a channel ban.[11]
E.g., impersonating the original creator's name or an outsider, channel banner, channel profile picture, about me, stolen videos, copying community posts, stolen title and description, etc.
Community Guidelines, Copyright Infringement, or Terms of Service (Old/discontinued messages)[]
"This account has been terminated due to repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines and/or claims of copyright infringement." (For copyright termination)
"This account has been terminated due to repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines." (For community guidelines termination)
"This account has been terminated due to repeated or severe violations of our Terms of Service." (For terms of service termination)
These were the oldest messages that used to be shown on any terminated channel. These messages are discontinued.
Abusive comments (discontinued message)[]
"This account has been terminated due to repeated abusive, hateful and/or harassing comments that violate YouTube's Community Guidelines."
If a channel posts continuous comments that contain harassment, hate speech, or violent threats, it results in a channel ban.
Nudity or Sexual Content (discontinued message)[]
"This account has been terminated due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube's policy on nudity or sexual content."
If a channel has sexually explicit content, their channel will be terminated. But however, nudity is allowed if it's artistic, educational or a documentary, and sexual content is allowed as long as it's not too excessive, but the content in question will be age-restricted.
G Suite for Education[]
"This account has been suspended since Brand Accounts are not supported for G Suite for Education users in primary/secondary schools."
G suite education accounts are not able to create a brand account on YouTube.
Trademark[]
"This account has been terminated due to a Trademark claim by a third party."
If a channel infringes someone else's trademark, the trademark owner may send a trademark complaint which results the infringer to be banned.
Legal Complaint[]
"This account has been terminated due to a legal complaint."
If YouTube receives a legal complaint regarding a particular channel, the channel is subject to termination.
Violent or Graphic Content (discontinued message)[]
"This account has been terminated due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube's policy on violence."
If a channel posts violent or gory content that's meant to shock or disgust viewers, it will result in a channel ban.[12] And if a channel posts content that encourages others to do violent acts, it will also result in a channel ban.
Counterfeit[]
"This account has been terminated due to a counterfeit claim by a third party."
If a channel infringes someone else's counterfeit, the counterfeit owner may send a counterfeit complaint which results the infringer to be banned.
Account closure[]
"This channel does not exist." (old message)[13]
"This channel is not available in your country."
"This channel is not available." (new message)[14]
"This channel was closed and is no longer available."
If a channel closes their account via the settings, or hides their account or the channel is not available in your country.[15]
How do I report a video?[]
If a user wants to report a video that they believe violates YouTube's Community Guidelines, they must do the following in order to report it on YouTube:
- Sign in to their account in order to report the video.
- Search for the abusive video.
- Select the video if they want to report (click the three-dot for more options), or try watching the video under a point of duration.
- Select the report reason.
- Write the full reason if the user has selected one. They must make sure to include as much detail as possible.
- Click the "report" button and it will send your report to the YouTube team.
YouTube reviews content 24 hours a day and 7 days a week to determine whether or not content violates their Community Guidelines. If the video violates YouTube's Community Guidelines, it will be removed and the uploader will either get a Community Guidelines strike, or if the violation is egregious, have their whole channel removed from YouTube without prior notice. If a video doesn't violate a policy, no action will be taken, and no amount of reporting will change the outcome. If a video doesn't violate a policy but may be inappropriate for some viewers, it'll be placed behind an age restriction.
Users can send copyright takedowns on content that allegedly violates their copyright through YouTube's webform, but false takedowns can result in their channel being banned and face possible legal consequences.
Gallery[]
.png "Impersonation termination (Used inspect).png (24 KB)")
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802027
- ↑ https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2814000
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/13823830
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/12950271
- ↑ https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802032
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_f6Xzn20v5HhuovNx-ZErg
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOFt1g3Kl3cYjimRvGrSFYQ
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Hlz-ek2GEoQ-4e49o7ifQ
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmY0wmY2qxvLscaix720OYA
- ↑ https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2801973
- ↑ https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2801947
- ↑ https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802008
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYqqR3gi7Zg4TatSXOsQGow
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/@KonekoKitten
- ↑ https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/55759