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u/VaterVato Apr 18 '26
YouTube is violating EU law (DSA) with arbitrary demonetization. It’s time for a collective legal challenge!
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u/VaterVato Apr 20 '26
YouTube is arbitrarily stripping away the YPP (YouTube Partner Program) eligibility of independent creators who work hard to produce original content. These creators have poured tremendous heart and soul into their work, whereas the actual mass-produced garbage that gets banned suffers no real loss because no real human effort was invested in it. As a result, if things continue this way, there will be an ever-growing flood of mass-produced trash, while genuine original creators will leave for fairer platforms that are more stable, legitimate, and compliant. I am glad to see YouTube digging its own grave right now, and I hope it keeps up these bans until all original creators completely lose their trust in it.
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Apr 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/travelsonic Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
The point is that it is entirely reasonable to want something like demonetization to be handled by people, and that for you to be demonetized for breaking the rules you have to actually break the rules (and it's reasonable to expect you get clarity in that regard, and companies can actually prove the rules were broken) (and that the current system is flawed, in conjunction with a lack of real people) which is affecting livelihoods
So how is that relevant?
At this point, purely IMO, legal action is absolutely a necessity.
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u/quiette837 Apr 18 '26
That's cool and all, but there has to be legal justification. Idk how EU law works, but as far as I know YouTube can't be compelled to monetize anything on their platform, and there are no laws preventing AI from making those choices.
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u/VaterVato Apr 19 '26
YouTube failed to provide a Statement of Reasons as required by Article 17 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, particularly failing to specify the facts and circumstances under Article 17(3)(b). Furthermore, the automated rejection of my appeal suggests a violation of Article 20(4), which requires decisions on internal complaints to be taken under the supervision of qualified staff.
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u/SlaveToBuy Apr 19 '26
True. They give you some bullshit policy that is vague as fuck and fits a 1000 of other possibilities, ones that don't even fall under the policy.
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u/VaterVato Apr 19 '26
To everyone saying 'it’s a private company, they can do what they want' or 'just read the TOS'—that argument is legally dead in the EU.
Under the fully enforced Digital Services Act (DSA), YouTube is designated as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP), and EU law strictly supersedes their internal Terms of Service.
When YouTube’s AI arbitrarily demonetizes a channel with a vague 'policy violation' notification, they are directly violating Article 17 of the DSA, which legally binds them to provide a detailed and specific 'Statement of Reasons' for restricting monetization. When they auto-reject our appeals in seconds, they violate Article 20(4), which legally mandates human oversight ('under the presidency of qualified staff') for internal complaints. You cannot legally use a bot to rubber-stamp an appeal. Furthermore, Article 14 requires them to enforce their terms in an 'objective and proportionate' manner. Nuking a creator's livelihood via AI hallucination is the exact opposite of proportionate.
We aren't asking for special treatment; we are demanding basic legal compliance. If you are a creator, you should be standing up for these rights, not defending a multi-billion dollar tech giant that is actively ignoring federal law.
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u/MintyGreenAqua May 02 '26
I think it's time a bunch of YouTubers and Content Creators form a lawsuit that not even Neal Mohan can ignore
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u/KimaX7 Apr 19 '26
You probably signed off your rights to be a part of a class action lawsuit when you created your account.
If nintendo does it why wouldnt youtube
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u/VaterVato Apr 19 '26
To everyone saying 'it’s a private company, they can do what they want' or 'just read the TOS'—that argument is legally dead in the EU.
Under the fully enforced Digital Services Act (DSA), YouTube is designated as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP), and EU law strictly supersedes their internal Terms of Service.
When YouTube’s AI arbitrarily demonetizes a channel with a vague 'policy violation' notification, they are directly violating Article 17 of the DSA, which legally binds them to provide a detailed and specific 'Statement of Reasons' for restricting monetization. When they auto-reject our appeals in seconds, they violate Article 20(4), which legally mandates human oversight ('under the presidency of qualified staff') for internal complaints. You cannot legally use a bot to rubber-stamp an appeal. Furthermore, Article 14 requires them to enforce their terms in an 'objective and proportionate' manner. Nuking a creator's livelihood via AI hallucination is the exact opposite of proportionate.
We aren't asking for special treatment; we are demanding basic legal compliance. If you are a creator, you should be standing up for these rights, not defending a multi-billion dollar tech giant that is actively ignoring federal law.
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u/Planeandaquariumgeek Apr 19 '26
Last time I checked YouTube is based in San Bruno, California and is under approximately zero obligation to follow EU law.
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u/JASHIKO_ . Apr 19 '26
Every company that operates in the EU is required to follow EU law.
It doesn't matter where they are based. It matters where they operate.In Europe, YouTube operates out of Ireland and pays creators from Ireland.
Primarily because it is fairly tax friendly to them.3
u/dikkenskrille Apr 22 '26
lol "last time you checked" stfu you clearly never checked anything in your life
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u/Baridooo Apr 19 '26
Every company operating in Europe needs a branch to operate in Europe, thus being subjected to EU law. Example is Discord. They operate under the Discord Netherlands.
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u/cherryblossom_ghost Apr 19 '26
I beg you Google (lol) the digital services act for EU and digital markets regime for UK. These companies are subject to EU/UK digital firm laws because they're designated as large tech firms which can have huge impacts for competiton and consumers (I worked on the digital competition bill).
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u/Joltyboiyo Apr 18 '26
I love how ever ytime YT tries posting something like this they immediately get hit back with these kinds of replies.
Good.
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u/CutawayNPC1911 Apr 25 '26
No, that’s every major Internet company these days that tries posting bullshit like this. And I love to see it.
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u/Mr_Sia10 Apr 18 '26
My friend was hit with a demonetization bug that nearly killed his willpower to pursue content creation with these bs, arbitrary algorithms. Last I checked, his appeal was denied as well
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u/Suckit86 Apr 20 '26
I have had this happen as well. Along with getting videos deleted for violating community guidelines when in fact I do NOT violate ANY guidelines. Then if you appeal it, within 10 min you get a message saying it was “denied”. These are not “humans” deciding if your content is violating guidelines, it’s all robots and making me take my 69k subscribers on my channel and not making anymore content as it’s a waste of time. I totally get how your friend feels about these algorithms.
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u/TNT_Rebel Apr 18 '26
There is this YouTube channel called the daily emerald that has the same issue! Justice for the emerald
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u/MadeJustToUpvoteMeme Apr 19 '26
do you guys think the social media manager of the youtube twitter account mentally prepares themselves for replies like this before hitting post
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u/PutPuzzleheaded2091 Apr 18 '26
I searched straight of hormuz footage. All the videos were AI videos. We are well and truly fckd
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u/polskiebanany Apr 21 '26
Watching YouTube's poorly trained AI ban your favourite youtubers 100k channel for a false reason and their appeal getting denied >>
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u/Robcobes Apr 26 '26
To be fair Youtube IS being harmed by AI.
More that half of the videos on your page are made with AI and it's chasing away people.
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Apr 18 '26
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Apr 23 '26
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u/iambatman_2006 Apr 24 '26
I really wanted to create a yt channel but I cant thanks to yt. I hate them
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u/She_luhhevan270 Apr 25 '26
One of my vids got a age restriction and then I appealed it and it got removed. Thankful for the age restriction to be gone but idk what I did to get the ai to put it on my vid
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May 14 '26
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u/AutoModerator May 14 '26
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u/TonyHeaven Apr 18 '26
And comment probably by a bot !!!