Spent 5 months fighting a YouTube takedown for a climate protest video

I uploaded a video of a peaceful climate protest from last September, just raw footage of people holding signs and chanting. YouTube flagged it for 'harassment and bullying' within 2 hours. My appeal got denied automatically, no human ever looked at it. I had to go through a whole process with a legal aid group just to get a second review. That took 5 months from the first upload to finally getting the video reinstated last week. Has anyone else had a legit protest video get hit with the harassment flag?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_elizabeth1mo ago

My last appeal to YouTube took so long I'm pretty sure the person reviewing it had to dust off a computer from 2010 just to open my case. I mean, I get that they probably see a hundred "the algorithm got me" videos a day but a climate protest getting flagged for harassment is a special kind of stupid. Like, did my footage of someone holding a "Save the Polar Bears" sign actually bully a YouTube employee into feeling bad about their carbon footprint? Idk, maybe the system is just that sensitive now.

grant.jason1mo ago

Yeah I had a similar thing where my video about building a bookshelf got flagged for "violent extremism." I think the algorithm just sees a guy holding a hammer and assumes the worst. Took three months to get it back up.