Our YouTube Account Terminated: This is How You Tube Preys on Small Media Organizations
- By Dr. Munish Raizada, Editor-in-Chief of NewsGram
Chicago, December 10,2017:
Today is Human Rights Day.
And YouTube tweeted on this: "It's #HumanRightsDay!
Join us as we spread the message that all human beings are born equal in dignity & rights."
Apparently, the Giant Google is not able to see the violation of rights it is causing to smaller players. Yes, let me narrate the story!
The YouTube Channel of NewsGram was Terminated more than 8 months back. And it is still Terminated.
Our YouTube account Terminated for No Reason!
This is a story of how Monopolistic Google treats other media organizations, albeit, small and helpless (read: not resourceful) with disdain, contempt and unilaterality. You can appeal to YouTube (essentially, its parent company Google), but that also is a very limited window: no phone calls, no proper explanation. In other words, holier than thou and higher-than thou attitude.
At YouTube, our (terminated) channel of NewsGram does not represent an individual's account. It is not a personal account. It represents a media organizations' account. NewsGram is a media organization incorporated in Illinois and approved by IRS as a tax-exempt charitable organization. In other words, we are a 501(c)(3) entity.
As a media organization, we publish all kinds of news and views and at our YouTube channel, we publish(ed) various educational videos. We cover a wide variety of topics and issues, ranging from current affairs, politics, society, religion, entertainment and opinions.
If CNN is a media organization, so is NewsGram. If BBC is a media organization, so is NewsGram. If NY Times is a media organization, so is NewsGram.
We are a small fish in the pond, we may be financially crunched, but we are treading along!
Google (YouTube) terminated YouTube channel of a media organization, without even alerting or suspending. No explanation, no prior communication. It did not flag us, expressing the concerns. It just Terminated.
Just Terminated! Reason?
It Terminated using a sweeping clause:
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.
So, again, NewsGram is a media organization. It is not an account of an individual in personal capacity. We are not spamming anyone (in fact, people spam us), we are not doing any deceptive practices (what we publish is for everyone to see), we are not producing any misleading content( and, as said above, as a media house, we present a wide variety of content and point of views and opinions, which we have the right to). And coming to 'other terms of service violation! Well, that is as ill defined as it could get by YouTube.
Note: NewsGram's account was not terminated because of copy right violation. I am glad that the snobbish YouTube did not slap us with that 'false accusation'! Glad!
We appealed several times. Almost every month.
And that is the issue. YouTube sounds very democratic. You can appeal! Yeah, you can appeal! Wow! So much freedom!
But, every time, YouTube will send you back the same cliche:
Hello,
Thank you for your account suspension appeal. We have decided to keep your account suspended based on our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service. Please visit http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines for more information.
Please do not respond to this email. Replies to this email will not be processed. Please refer to our Help Center for more information.
Sincerely,
The YouTube Team
While appealing to YouTube, , every time we at NewsGram gently remind to the Lords sitting at YouTube that:
"Being a media house, we publish divergent views, but at no time have "spam, scams or commercially deceptive content" which seems to be have been reason for the suspension of our account.
Also, we have a direct agreement with Voice of America and other news agencies and get several of videos from them, with a permission to use on our YouTube channel and our website."
We even asked them to explain to our organization what violations have we committed so that we could fix that.
But, each time, the lords just brush aside our application using a sweeping brush. They can not explain because they probably can not explain.
YouTube has no reason, so the best policy: Keep mouth shut. Why care about small creeps like NewsGram! Right!
After all, what benefit NewsGram brings to YouTube? We do not advertise, so we do not bring any revenue to YouTube. Note: We were not monetizing at YouTube, yet our solace was that our educational videos were getting hundreds of thousands eyeballs.
Will YouTube terminate a media organization's YouTube account citing vague and generalized reason? Do not we owe an explanation to know what 'violations' have we done and how do we fix them, if any?
But why Google will care? After all, it is easier to talk of Human Rights Day , rather than looking at its own backyard and see how things can improve!
With this public post, we are again applying to YouTube today to reinstate our terminated channel with a hope that YouTube wakes up from its deep slumber and helps us through the process of revocation, rather than keeping is 'terminated'!
Updates:
On the day of writing this article, we applied again to YouTube to un-suspend our account.
The result? Same! Lord Google threw trashed our submission and replied via email:
We have decided to keep your account suspended based on our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service. Please visit http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines for more information.
Please do not respond to this email. Replies to this email will not be processed. Please refer to our Help Center for more information.
