YouTube restores SineVibes channel after Peter Kirn & Ars Technica get involved
29 comments
·February 4, 2025richrichardsson
roenxi
It is an interesting variant of the "you owe bank $1k it is your problem vs you owe the bank $1B it is their problem" saying. This is a problem for small companies as long as YouTube/Alphabet are generally good moderators. It is a problem for YouTube/Alphabet if they start clamping down too hard. Some of these people are going to go elsewhere, set up shop and start peeling the audience away from YouTube. Audiences aren't smart, but sooner or later they figure it out if they should be using a different site.
joemi
It's absolutely maddening that this is the only way to get some problems fixed sometimes, _especially_ with Google.
floydnoel
it is why i refuse to use almost all google products. my one exception is gmail, which is impossible to get away from.
i once had google emailing me every single week to bother me about trying out GCP (i used it at work and nearly got certified for that company so i didn't need to scope it out). they offered hundreds or thousands in free credits. well now, you are trying to give me many free dollars, but i have an issue. i couldn't get Google's captcha to work. So i said if you can put me in contact with some person who can help with this very prevalent google product- then i will consider it.
the answer from google is something i will never forget. it was just "we don’t offer support, sorry"
why would i ever give you money? google even sent me a CR-48 for free as a tester, that's how much i used to use them. never again! (except gmail, ugh)
darig
[dead]
DecentShoes
A lot, I suspect:
CursedUrn
This is why we need an online Bill of Rights.
_heimdall
How would that work exactly? And are there things that need to be protected in the online world but not the physical/real world?
When it comes to YouTube censorship freedom of speech seems applicable except for the fact that YouTube is a private platform with terms of service you have to agree to for them to host and distribute your content.
harimau777
At a practical level, once a platform like YouTube becomes The Commons, then certain rights become necessary for us to live in a free society. No idea how you implement that legally though.
Perhaps something like utilities where a company operates at sort of a midpoint between private and public?
nradov
One way it could potentially work is for Congress to legislate that large online platforms operate as common carriers and refrain from censoring any legal content. I think this is worth considering. It would create challenges for content moderation but there are ways to deal with that by giving users better tools to filter out objectionable content from their feeds.
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/05/984440891/justice-clarence-th...
spamorenko
Anon for obv reasons. They were flagged for "spam and deceptive practices" - this isn't always for content, it can totally be based on behavior of associated accounts along with other web activity. Trying not to tar a whole group of people with the same brush, but I'm afraid most spam and deception online have certain common attributes. These are easily detected and actual false positives are rarer than you'd think. This person is lucky media got involved.
floydnoel
so you’re saying their youtube channel did nothing wrong, but some associated account activity was flagged? what a joke of a company.
soraminazuki
> A reporter from Ars Technica, after reading the article by @pkirn.bsky.social, was able to reach out to us and then directly contact a Google employee that could accelerate our appeal to be looked into.
Or the reporter was able to contact someone that could get the issue looked into at all, more like. You don't "accelerate" something that was never going to happen in the first place.
Also, this is a good time to remember that Google occasionally doubles down when they cause serious harm to individual users, even after being contacted by the media. Google invaded the privacy of numerous parents sharing sensitive medical pictures of their children with doctors, took away access to their entire digital lives including Gmail, called the cops, and effectively called them criminals after being contacted by the New York Times. Absolutely disgusting behavior that Google hasn't taken accountability for to this very day.
floydnoel
never forget! who would want their phones to call them perverts and send them to jail and delete their online identities over trying to be good parents to their kids in a horrible situation. good job google, really not evil at all
joemi
What's SineVibes? And it'd be nice to read the mentioned Ars Technica article.
phdelightful
The Ars Technica article:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/youtube-briefly-...
(PS: Ars Technica is a bit sluggish for me this evening. Not sure why.)
ghfhghg
They make audio software. Notably lately they make additions to to some programmable korg products like the NTS-1
pier25
So weird. SineVibes is an audio dev who posts videos about their products.
Why would YouTube flag them?
null
uwagar
to have your whole business depend on another business is frightening.
nipponese
You're describing every B2B business. The issue is the monopoly power of Youtube - Durable B2Bs will have a list of quality partners they can turn to.
yen223
Unless you are prepared to roll out your own video-delivery + user subscription infrastructure, what's the alternative here?
recursive
The lack of alternative makes it more scary not less.
CursedUrn
Especially one you can't even get into contact with, besides automated rejection messages.
DiscourseFan
It is the case for many businesses. This relationship, however, is quite egregious.
risenshinetech
Can you name a business that depends on zero other businesses? What a completely wild take.
gessha
The key word here is _wholly_, not _any_.
So how many channels get removed for no reason each week for people who don't have the benefit of being a respected audio developer whom Peter Kirn will fight for?