Google is prepping to delete my YouTube channel. As of today (March 26, 2021), I now cannot post for another two weeks. YouTube "strikes" which are functionally unappealable (automatically rejected) last for 3 months. If they give thee concurrent strikes, you channel is permanently deleted.
If YouTube Jannies delete my YouTube channel, remember that 100% of my videos are still easily viewable, including new videos I will make. You have no excuse to whine if all you know how to do is consoooming product on YouTube's walled garden:
- Follow me on Odysee: https://odysee.com/@Luke:7
- Follow me on PeerTube: https://videos.lukesmith.xyz
- Follow me on RSS: https://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml
I can and have already done livestreams on PeerTube. Expect those as well. LBRY/Odysee will probably have livestreams too soon.
"When you're banned from YouTube will you keep making videos?"
Yes, at Odysee and PeerTube. I will also probably actually bring back Not Related! for real this time because the first reason I made a podcast was to communicate with people using less bandwidth.
I suppose my only regret is not shilling RSS, webrings and other classical internet technology to free us from social media companies.
The "importance" of YouTube
YouTube ad revenue by itself is a nice thing to have, but it is not a huge loss if I lose it (less than minimum wagies make). Very few megachannels actually make decent money on it and frankly, it's a kind of bloodmoney if you ask me.
The only concern for me is that YouTube is still the vehicle by which people find out about me and use other stuff I offer and that can mean other sources of income for me.
While I try to push people into a decentralized internet, use RSS feeds, superior platforms like Odysee and PeerTube, and encourage them to have websites and the like, most people still passively use YouTube recommendations and curation.
How you can help.
Encourage YouTube followers to follow me in proper places.
If you have friends who watch my YouTube channel or know of people on other sites who do, make sure they:
- Follow me on RSS: https://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml
- Follow me on PeerTube: https://videos.lukesmith.xyz
- Follow me on Odysee: https://odysee.com/@Luke:7
Google is not going to be accidentally recommending new people to me after they ban me. That's your job.
Donate
You can donate to me even without having extra money by using my affiliate links.
If you do have spare money:
- Donate money to me. You can easily make a monthly pledge for stability's sake.
- Donate Bitcoin (QR):
bc1qyvkzw7hrtp9ecxd2pa3w7p5dfg09tv6jfrs0df - Donate Monero QR):
48jewbtxe4jU3MnzJFjTs3gVFWh2nRrAMWdUuUd7Ubo375LL4SjLTnMRKBrXburvEh38QSNLrJy3EateykVCypnm6gcT9bh - You can donate BAT on this site, or LBC on Odysee/LBRY.
"What are they giving you strikes for?"
To be clear, before this year, I never received any strikes, but now I've received a warning and two strikes all for old videos.
I will emphasize that this is merely the sign of either: (1) coordinated third-party mass-reports or (2) YouTube specifically and arbitrarily adopting new standards in a bid to remove the channel.
The strikes are for the following very innocent videos:
- For a video I put up in either 2016 or 2017 where I made an ffmpeg slideshow with a bunch of Pepe memes set to music. Deleted for "inciting violence." I can't find the original video of this, I might've deleted it.
- For a video I did sometime in 2020 when I in passing made jokes about low-quality Indian tech channels that used to dominate YouTube. Deleted for "inciting violence." Here is the video so you can see how innocuous (also true) it was.
- For a video I made maybe in 2018 or 2019 on
youtube-dl. Here is the video. The absurdity is that I recommend people to use this tool to back up my YouTube channel (and all of my videos are in licensed permissively via Creative Commons). I guess it's a crime to distribute my own videos on a video distribution platform!
This is the arbitrariness of Google today. If my channel survives the storm of these strikes (which I severely doubt) expect me to be using PeerTube and Odysee as primary platforms. From now on, my YouTube exists to lead people to more healthy places.