August 23, 2018 Censorship Violation

On 8/23/2018, I woke up to another censorship violation in response to one of my videos on YouTube, this time targeting the video you will see here (currently removed from YouTube, has been re-uploaded from backups here):

UPDATE:  This video is no longer publicly viewable as all Destiny videos on the channel were set to private after the 4/8/2024 attack.

The message when I logged in was as follows:

The appeal was filed giving the following reason, however due to character limitation, I had to put the actual reason in a DOC on my Google Drive & provide a link to it in the appeal reason:

The video itself was uploaded to show a disgraceful act referred to by gamers themselves as teabagging (a common porno term, one that just disgusts me & one of the reasons I take such an issue with its action in video games). The video itself shows the action (crouching multiple times over the enemy after killing them), so there is no defamation on that point, as the proof is in the video itself; it was published to point out the mindset of individuals that felt this type of action was acceptable, so the public would be aware of who they were.

The only point I can think of here that could have been considered as defamatory would have been the use of the word "faggot" in the title, which was a display of anger towards the disgusting nature of the action, not discrimination against sexuality, so it's likely one of the individuals in this video has reported it for the purpose of penalizing the owner of the account for making their actions public (I have no problem with removing that word from the title, but this violation is only another example of the benefit of abusing the report system).

I am already aware of a group of people that have been doing this on Twitch through iBreezyy's channel, this has been an ongoing issue since the griefing incident in Fortnite on 2/19/2018 (by iBreezyy, under the name of Bellion, later changed to where I was aware he had a Twitch account & was able to pinpoint the individual responsible for the griefing situation, later finding out about the slanderous attacks he was organizing against my Twitch channel through his own) was published on Twitch (later falling victim to a bug that caused the video to expire when the past broadcast it was highlighted from also did, this wasn't the only video to get hit by this bug) & a report was filed against his channel using his own past broadcasts as evidence of the organization of these attacks in that video (I have re-recorded this portion of that video as evidence of the organized attacks & have a backup copy, this is also where I realized he had found my YouTube channel & started making false reports against my own, the video shows him filing a report for child abuse on the video of him griefing, followed by another from the friend he was talking to over VOIP during that stream...I don’t know how many other reports were filed from that stream alone, but I expect there has been a constant stream of reports being filed against my channels & this violation is the result of it), leading to a temporary ban of his account.

I will also note that a police report has already been filed against Twitch user iBreezyy/YouTube user BreezeGaming69 regarding DDoS attacks, that police report is under case #[censored], filed with Officer [censored] (badge #[censored]) with the Unified Police Dept. of [censored]. Furthermore I am building a lawsuit against him for slander, using the organized attacks through his Twitch channel to attack mine (the reason for collecting the evidence, this violation only proves to be an additional detail in that lawsuit).

After filing the appeal, I went to my status page to see what had been disabled, apparently not as severe as the original attack from Namco/Bandai (longer videos hasn't been disabled), but you'll note that Live Streaming has been disabled.  Live Streaming being disabled really isn't a problem, I haven't done a stream to YouTube (at least not a public gaming one, there has been some privately embedded ones before on non-profit, activist streams fighting for non-smoker's rights however) since the second attack from Namco/Bandai, all streaming has been done on Twitch & I could just as easily create an account on DailyMotion to get around having to do non-gaming streams on a service that continues to prove they are more trouble than they are worth when it comes to public sharing of videos or live videos (note that even unlisted videos have been hit before, like the one by Fox Broadcasting, which actually was one of the non-profit, activist videos for non-smokers rights).

The last thing I checked was the status of the video itself in my Video Manager, which showed as you can see here:

I don't expect the appeal will do anything, the term may not have been used in the form of discrimination of sexuality, but it was used as an anger-driven insult, so the video probably won't be reinstated, but it's been re-uploaded regardless.  As with previous attacks on the channel, additional videos will not be uploaded to my channel until after the 3 month strike period has expired (that's not to say I won't still be processing them for when the period is over, or simply uploading them to another site while I'm waiting), unless the appeal is accepted (which is unlikely, given I had to write the appeal to Google Docs, they may not even bother looking at the external link provided), at which point videos will start being uploaded again as normal.  I further decided that I also won't be accepting any new comments on my channel (unless the user has already been whitelisted), so people can be waiting up to 3 months (possibly longer if I get hit with another strike on older videos, this one was from 2014, flagged 4 years after it's publication) to have their comments go public due to the individual that chose to file a report to hide the truth & YouTube choosing to accept it without checking to see if there was any facts to what the video already had proof of.

UPDATE: On 8/27/2018, I received a response to to the appeal & they did in fact reverse the decision to delete the video (technically speaking, it was only set to private, only I could see it):

Interestingly enough, they stated that it needed to be age-restricted & they changed this for me; the irony in this is that it was already age-restricted to begin with, since the day it was uploaded due to the description & I almost always put this at the bottom of the description when it's determined that restriction needs to be there (this has been the case since this video was uploaded in 2014).

So what did this attack actually succeed in doing?  Well let's back this up for one second & look at the specific detail that was decided in the decision of the appeal:

They stated that the video needed to be age restricted, which it already was, so essentially all this did that they had control of was put a temporary restriction on my account for 4 days that wouldn't allow me to do any live videos on YouTube (the last time I even did a stream on YouTube was back on 3/29/2016, which was a non-profit activist stream for non-smokers rights, only viewable from a blog that was detailing indoor, secondhand pollution at a specific location in Utah & showing the health problems they were causing in the stream itself, which is currently used as a log of that problem & apparently is going to be used in a lawsuit against the Management/HOA for people who still live there, I moved from there specifically because of the indoor smoking, drug use & aggressive disability discrimination).

So what happened that I had control over?  Most of this is already in the Discussion tab of my channel, but I'll go over them again here:

• Any video that was force monetized on my channel (through copyright claims & not deleted/restricted, I don't monetize my channel myself), got set to private; this was to cut off ad revenue going to YouTube from views on those videos, even if that meant one of my most popular gaming videos getting set to private.

• Any new videos that would have gone onto my channel were on hold.  One did get uploaded, but remained private until after the strike had been reversed.

• All comment moderation was put on hold, this means that any user attempting to make a comment on my channel would not have had it accepted until after the strike had been reversed unless they had already been whitelisted.

• Obviously, there was this page published to show that YouTube once again is showing benefits of abuse of the report function.

• As already stated, there was a new update made to the Discussion tab of the channel, brining light to the situation & what the current status was of it, giving a link to this page.  This was later updated with a comment to that post giving each individual step that would be taken until the strike was reversed (which ironically seems to be one of the points that tends to push YouTube on getting the appeals taken care of, goes to show that negative publicity has it's way of getting things done).  The original comment also directed people who had seen it to go to my Twitch channel, all gaming videos would still be getting highlighted there.

• I disabled the YouTube app on my Samsung Galaxy, seeing as I can't block ads on their own app, I wasn't going to run a program that was going to give them more ad revenue.  This app never did get re-enabled, seeing as mid-video ads was the plague that made me determine that the YouTube app was no longer worth using, so it remains disabled even today (the same could be said for Facebook videos, however I at least have the option of avoiding videos on Facebook, I don't have to fully disable the app to entirely avoid the videos).

• The PlayStation 3 app was ignored until the strike was reversed.  I probably would have used it a couple days ago when I had to charge my wireless headset for the TV itself (having 2 wireless headsets for the PS3 & only YouTube because Twitch has chosen to leave the PS3 app in the dust, so YouTube was the alternative until this happened; because other apps like the IGN app also link videos off of YouTube, I also avoided firing that one up, went through the PSN store while I was eating instead), but much like the Google Play app, I wasn't going to run an app that was going to give them ad revenue while the strike was still in effect.  If it were not for a problem that I had become aware of regarding the PS3 YouTube app not properly updating from a new installation, I would have just removed it entirely & not reinstalled it until after the strike was gone...

• All shared links on my Facebook wall & in Discord going to YouTube videos got removed (with the exception of a few of my own that weren't monetized).  Again this was to cut off ad revenue going to YouTube while the strike was in effect.  This was one of the things that would not be restored when the strike had gotten reversed or had expired.

• Featured channels were disabled on my channel.  This was not only to lower YouTube's ad revenue from those that were going to those channels from my own, but also to show that the individual who caused this strike to happen accomplished a lot more than they were actually shooting for & this was going to get a lot of people cross at them for doing it.

• Playlists on my channel that included videos from other channels were set to private; again, the reason for this is the same as the last point.

• I also found the linked video on my Steam account & put a statement in the comments there linking to this page, so those who were looking to view the video would still have access to the re-upload of it.

• One other thing when I copied the description over from the Steam video, I originally stated that I would give PSN user OhNoMyEyes a chance to explain himself to get his name removed from the description on the video, this was removed from the copy & paste of that description when I copied it from the link on my Steam account & pasted here to replace the missing description from the YouTube video (the one that was inaccessible due to the strike).  That was still in the description on the YouTube video when it was reinstated, but I have since decided to remove that option, it could have been him that reported the video, so that option is no longer available, it will stay in the description indefinitely.

• I ended up linking any gaming video on my YouTube channel that was supposed to be public (that wasn't already) to my Steam account, this was to preserve descriptions on those videos just in case another video were to get attacks in the same manner, this essentially added 44 Fortnite videos to my Steam account (with more to be added, there was one video that got uploaded while the strike was active, there will be more beyond that point, griefers & AFKers are pretty common in Fortnite, as is the case with literally any online game available...).  I may do this with the private & unlisted videos also, Steam at least has privacy options to restrict others from being able to see them (or who can see them), so it wouldn't be a huge issue if I do this provided they are still video game related.

• Search terms relevant to the video that was attacked have been added to this page to make the video a bit easier to find through search engines from this page (provided they don't find/fake some reason to have it de-indexed, pages getting de-indexed on this site is an an ongoing issue that has been happening for years...).

An additional point is as was stated in the reason given when I appealed the strike was that it was expected an individual on both Twitch & YouTube (who has been attacking any profile of mine he can find since the publication of his griefing on 2/19/2018) is that this serves as another point when I sue the little bastard for slander & damages caused by it (which because he is not old enough to be considered an adult, his parents will be responsible for paying for his actions when they receive the notice they are due in court).

One other change I am making since the reversal of the strike, is I will be replacing the re-uploaded video above with an embedded version from YouTube (the one that was originally restricted while the strike was in effect).  I probably won't be leaving the backup on the site itself, but I haven't determined to delete it just yet (this will likely be done later, but I expect sooner than later rather than letting it sit there forever).