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YouTube Bans Baldur's Gate 3 Jaheira Actor (gamerant.com)
28 points by josephcsible on Dec 26, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 19 comments



I was pleasantly surprised that a news article was willing to have an external link:

> As reported by TheGamer, On December 5, ...

so I click "TheGamer", and it turns out to be the same website with a slightly different logo. https://www.thegamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-jaheira-actor-tracy-...

I spent a few minutes trying to find a link to her actual youtube page (which is presumably banned) but gave up trying to find any kind of link in a news article.

Is there any room for a news organization that doesn't do this "keep the user on our website as long as possible" game? The financial pressure must be immense. I wish it was true that they weren't doing themselves any favors by making users hate them, but in the era of people thinking facebook = internet, this is behavior is sadly on par.

Amusingly, googling "Baldur's Gate 3 Jaheira Actor youtube" doesn't even give the youtube link. It just gives this HN submission, a few down on the list, which is now asking for what her original youtube link was.


> Is there any room for a news organization that doesn't do this "keep the user on our website as long as possible" game?

Depends on what "any room" means. A website like that can certainly exist and potentially even be profitable, but there's always a ton of pressure to not do it. Even if you're profitable now, playing that game will make you even more money. "The meta" here is to spend the smallest amount of effort to produce the most content that's just interesting enough to keep someone reading it, and extract the most viewing time from that little content.

Judging by what the companies are adopting nowadays, it seems that they figured out that being reputable just isn't profitable enough.



Thanks!

Do you happen to know whether that's her new channel, or was she was unbanned?


i think its a link that managed to stay active, the streams are a week old, i think.


Youtube's reply:

>upon careful review, we've confirmed that your channel was suspended for violating Google's Terms of Service. while it didn't violate any YouTube channel monetization policies, it's linked to a Google acct that has an issue we know this wasn't the outcome you were hoping for, but we really appreciate your understanding

https://twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1734020203174850980


It's dystopian in the worst way that an unrelated Google issue can get your entire youtube collection knocked offline permanently. Even if you were abusing gmail, it's still remarkable that it could lead to a youtube account closure.

Does any other company pull this? E.g. would Amazon close your AWS account because you were spamming the book marketplace with some fraudulent orders? Or worse, vice-versa -- your seller account got locked because your AWS account was associated with some spammy behavior.


> E.g. would Amazon close your AWS account because you were spamming the book marketplace with some fraudulent orders?

As far as I know, yes. Though I’m not sure that it’s intentional so much as just emergent behaviour from a complex system or what recourse there may be.

I’ve hear anecdotes of people getting their Amazon account shut down for too many returns or similar issues and losing access to their AWS account. I’ve generally seen it recommended that you have a separate Amazon account for your purchases and AWS usage for this and other reasons.


I'm not entirely sure, but I think Microsoft can also do something like this, but in most cases both Google and MS will only ban the account on one service.

While it's rare, it's very unnerving to think that one day, with no "due process" or recourse, Google can wipe everything you ever touched on their platforms - from everything on Gmail, to all your content on YouTube, your purchases and subscriptions on Google Play, whatever you store on Drive or Photos, your contacts, calendar, notes - everything.


What do you mean “one day”?

They do this type of thing now.


I mean that "one day", that kind of thing could happen to you in particular. I know they've already been doing it to others.


I wonder what kind of linked account issues are deemed egregious enough to warrant YouTube channel closure? It seems unlikely she’s an on-the-side scammer/fraudster/criminal/terrorist. Do they have benign level violations that get your google account shut down? I’m mainly curious not for her channel’s sake, but because my family uses gmail.


Guilty by being associated with “somebody”, but we can’t tell you who or why. Wow!


They're not guilty of being associated with anyone - it's their own Google account that is guilty of the infraction.


Every once in a while a tourist steps on a landmine, caught totally unaware that all the rules they thought they lived under aren't slow moving and consistent, that they werent made to establish a fair and just order, but are in fact subject to change over night if it offers an expedient benefit to the one writing the rules, long term consequences be damned. I hope she gets her channel back, though I think its fairly obvious that her ban is just the collateral damage of youtubes/googles moderation standards.


unspecified 900913 account issue.

[TeamYouTube, the streaming service’s support account on the social media site, replied saying it was looking into the issue, and nearly a week later, came back saying her account was “linked to a Google account that has an issue.” It has since not elaborated any further]


I would presume that YouTube staff know as little about problems with your Google account as any other web service that uses Google SSO does.

Except, unlike other companies, YouTube are required by corporate policy to enforce Google account lock-outs, and can't just offer alternative SSO providers.


Perhaps they could tell the person what that issue is? But of course not...


Misleading title.

Youtube claims [0] it wasn't a Youtube infraction, but something that the user had done on a linked Google account (Gmail, Gdrive, ...)

Yet another reason to diversify your online profile, especially if you post public content.

[0]https://twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1734020203174850980




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