Ours is not to reason why? Zero warnings: Longtime YouTuber rails against unexplained channel removal Developer calls for human review to end YouTubes automated channel removals. Ashley Belanger Feb 3, 2025 4:33 pm | 27 Credit: Talaj | iStock / Getty Images Plus Credit: Talaj | iStock / Getty Images Plus Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreArtemiy Pavlov, the founder of a small but mighty music software brand called Sinesvibes, spent more than 15 years building a YouTube channel with all original content to promote his business' products. Over all those years, he never had any issues with YouTube's automated content removal systemuntil Monday, when YouTube, without issuing a single warning, abruptly deleted his entire channel."What a 'nice' way to start a week!" Pavlov posted on Bluesky. "Our channel on YouTube has been deleted due to 'spam and deceptive policies.' Which is the biggest WTF moment in our brand's history on social platforms. We have only posted demos of our own original products, never anything else...."Officially, YouTube told Pavlov that his channel violated YouTube's "spam, deceptive practices, and scam policy," but Pavlov could think of no videos that might be labeled as violative."We have nothing to hide," Pavlov told Ars, calling YouTube's decision to delete the channel with "zero warnings" a "terrible, terrible day for an independent, honest software brand.""We have never been involved with anything remotely shady," Pavlov said. "We have never taken a single dollar dishonestly from anyone. And we have thousands of customers that stand by our brand."Ars saw Pavolov's post and reached out to YouTube to find out why the channel was targeted for takedown. About three hours later, the channel was suddenly restored. That's remarkably fast, as YouTube can sometimes take days or weeks to review an appeal. A YouTube spokesperson later confirmed that the Sinesvibes channel was reinstated due to the regular appeals process, indicating perhaps that YouTube could see that Sinesvibes' removal was an obvious mistake.Developer calls for more human reviewFor small brands like Sinesvibes, even spending half a day in limbo was a cause for crisis. Immediately, the brand worried about 50 broken product pages for one of its distributors, as well as "hundreds if not thousands of news articles posted about our software on dozens of different websites." Unsure if the channel would ever be restored, Sinesvibes spent most of Monday surveying the damage.Now that the channel is restored, Pavlov is stuck confronting how much of the Sinesvibes brand depends on the YouTube channel remaining online while still grappling with uncertainty since the reason behind the ban remains unknown. He told Ars that's why, for small brands, simply having a channel reinstated doesn't resolve all their concerns."I have read their policies that they linked," Pavlov told Ars. "We are not even remotely breaking any of those rules they have. We dont spam (we post 5-10 videos per month max, 40-50 comments a month max), our content is all original, our thumbnails are made by YouTube itself from our videos (nothing misleading/deceptive there)." Sinesvibes has also "never had a copyright claim on what we do" or "received any warnings, flags, or negative reports," Pavlov said.In the email sent to Pavlov notifying him of his channel ban, YouTube admits that it sometimes makes mistakes, while apologizing for the "very upsetting news." Similarly, in the email confirming his channel had been reinstated, YouTube would only explain that in trying to make YouTube a safe space, "sometimes we make mistakes trying to get it right. We're sorry for any frustration our mistake caused you."YouTube's spokesperson, Boot Bullwinkle, did not respond when Ars asked if it was possible to know what content triggered the mistaken channel ban or confirm that Sinesvibes had no strikes on record prior to the ban. Bullwinkle would only confirm that YouTube considered this case resolved, then stopped responding.Pavlov's story isn't new, of course, as YouTubers have been railing against automated content removals for years. But Sinesvibes' longstanding good reputation on YouTube should have counted for something, Pavlov vented on Bluesky, and more human review could help YouTube detect false red flags before channels are removed and avoid alienating longtime users who obviously aren't violating community rules. CDM, a news service for digital music creators following the Sinesvibes drama, also called for more human oversight of automated content bans as "the better solution for everyone" to "reduce false positives.""How they are willing to insanely shut down a 15-year-old channel with not a single issue on record, without any warning or question, is beyond crazy," Pavlov posted on Bluesky.To Pavlov, who also uses Vimeo but otherwise has few alternatives to YouTube, all he wants to move forward promoting his business on YouTube with confidence is a little more information about what generated the false red flag."Just the fact that they take down almost two decades of unique, original work is hard to process," Pavlov told Ars.Ashley BelangerSenior Policy ReporterAshley BelangerSenior Policy Reporter Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience. 27 Comments