Would you like to come behind the scenes with me for a moment to see what it looks like when YouTube suddenly demonetizes hundreds of your videos?
Before you say, “YouTube is a private company and can do whatever it wants to do,” let me remind you of this. YouTube provides users with community guidelines, explaining which videos are acceptable for advertisers and which are not. When YouTube acts inconsistently and unfairly, in violation of its own guidelines, we have a right to protest. (At the end of this article I’ll let you know how you can help us push back.)
Let me give you some examples.
No sooner did we discover that YouTube had suddenly demonetized (not removed) the vast majority of our 900+ videos, but we immediately spotted this: The moment a video was posted, on our channel, even privately, for our team’s personal review, it was marked “Not suitable for all advertisers.”
That’s right. The very moment it was posted, it was flagged.
This had nothing to do with content, since it had not yet been reviewed by YouTube. It was simply because the video was posted on the AskDrBrown channel. We were judged guilty before the trial began and before a single piece of evidence was presented.
Is this ethical or fair?
Many of the videos were completely benign, including a number of two-minute, Hebrew word studies. (Oh, how divisive and intolerant and bigoted of us!) And the temporary titles we used for these videos, which again, weren’t even released to the public, simply transcribed the Hebrew word being discussed.
Will YouTube kindly tell me how a Hebrew teaching video entitled “Gee-bor” is “Not suitable for all advertisers”? Or will YouTube kindly explain to me what is unsuitable about a video entitled, “Will There Be a Third Temple?” or about another one called, “Rebuilding the Altar”? (Two of these were not released to the public; they were flagged the moment they were posted.) And what guidelines did we violate with this beautiful story of Jesus healing a severely burned Muslim woman?
Then there is the utter lack of consistency on YouTube’s part.
For example, we posted two identical videos to our channel, one private and one public, with almost the identical title and content. (One added video enhancements; that was it.) The private video was marked, “Not suitable for all advertisers”; the public…
