Removing YouTube Videos is Hard
Folks, in situations like these, knowledge is power.
You need to separate what
feels good or obvious from
what actually works. That latter is what you need to strive for. Contrary to what your mom told you, you aren't special. If you try something the way many others before you have tried, and if the others before you failed, you will also fail. That's why it's so hilarious when Chrissy promotes Martingale betting systems, as if they're revolutionary. People were trying Martingale and going broke with it, long before Chrissy was even born.
The YouTube "report" button is OBVIOUS. And it feels damn good to click when a video pisses you off.
Clicking "report" often on videos you think are harmful is OBVIOUS. And it feels damn good to do that, as well. After all, the more reports, the better, right?
Getting your friends or followers to click "report" often is OBVIOUS. And it feels damn good to know that a lot of people will be doing exactly what you're doing, and you presume YouTube will take the video or channel down.
But will they? Usually not.
Take the case of
Steven Crowder versus Carlos Maza in 2019. Crowder is an extremely popular right-wing Youtuber. Carlos Maza is a left-wing, openly gay content creator for left-wing giant Vox. In 2019, Maza openly raised issue with a number of gay slurs on Crowder's show against him. Maza, however, had his own history of controversial and provocative content on Vox. Despite Maza using his large platform to put intense pressure on YouTube to ban Crowder, and despite Maza finding actual violations Crowder had committed, he ultimately failed. Millions of people reported Crowder's videos, Maza himself made a huge stink which was very public, but Crowder's channel remains active today. He got a small win in that Crowder was demonetized, but Crowder had just two videos banned, and his channel remained intact and basically the same.
That's because YouTube, like Crowder himself, is a strange animal.
YouTube, which is owned by Google, is motivated primarily by one thing: Money.
Their decision-making process is not dictated by protecting people, bettering the world, or doing what's right. Even though YouTube is run by those on the political left, its dedication to the pursuit of the almighty dollar even supersedes its own politics. Almost all of their decisions are made from a practical standpoint regarding profit -- both present and future.
YouTube is a tricky platform to run. If they censor it too much, people will start to become upset, and will go elsewhere to find their content, destroying YouTube's near-monopoly on user-created video content. If they censor too little, they open themselves up to both legal liabilty and (more importantly) bad press and potential government regulation.
YouTube is looking for that "sweet spot" -- where they censor the least amount possible, while also projecting the air of responsibilty.
To understand YouTube, you need to first understand that not all channels are created equal. Since YouTube operates from a profit motive, they assign value to channels based upon popularity. The more popular the channel, the more difficult it is to take action against it. There are varioius reasons I will cite for this, which I'll get to later.
If you want to kill a large channel like Steven Crowder's -- with 5.5 milion subscribers and nearly a million views per new video -- good luck. Even Carlos Maza, with his huge platform and influence, was unable to accomplish that.
If you want to kill a medium-sized channel -- such as one with 100k (real) subscribers and 80,000 views per new video -- again, it's difficult. Someone like Carlos Maza could probably accomplish it if he made enough of a stink about it to the point where YouTube had to address it, but for the average person, it's again very difficult to remove such a channel.
But what about small channels? Chrissy supposedly has 24k subscribers, but it's likely most of those are fake, as are the 2500-4000 views we see he's getting per new video. In reality, he has a small channel, and you can see that from the amount of actual engagement with it. Small channels causing actual harm and breaking actual rules can be shut down, but it has to be done the right way, or otherwise it's nearly impossible.
But what do i mean by "the right way"? Read on...