http://www.youngtubers.com/ It's an outrage! Google purchased YouTube and now they're canceling all of the accounts belonging to the parents of young artists.
YouTube at first refused to explain their actions, not even informing the account holders on why they were canceled. After massive outrage at the best and brightest young participants getting slapped in the face, YouTube started issueing a form letter response.
http://www.youngtubers.com/ Here is email that I sent to YouTube and their response. I was polite and professional, I would like to think. The YTASK channel remains available, incidentally, despite some fairly convincing suspicions that there's something wrong with the channel's coordinator. There is some irony in this and I wonder if the two are related.
-- On 7/8/07, Fredric wrote:
Greetings, YouTube/Google.
From what I've been reading, you guys don't listen to emails that get sent about this. Understandably the YouTube services that your corporation provides are free -- I understand that and I appreciate all of it. YouTube is _extremly_ valuable and I love it.
When I found that Galipoka's channel was suspended, I started looking around YouTube and what I found made me VERY ANGRY. The channels created by parents for some of the top talented kids across YouTube are being canceled without explanation, and along with these missing channels is disappearing a treasure of videos from these talented kids.
Sweet god in Heaven, what are you people thinking?!
These are the very kids who aren't snorting dope and all the other crap that so many youths unfortunately get in to out of boredom and poor parenting -- these kids are TALENTED, bright, happy, valuable kids, and their creative endeavors are loved literally by millions of YouTubers around the world.
Reinstate these people PLEASE. I can't imagine that YouTube/Google has good reasons for canceling the best and
brightest from their free services. There can be no legitimate liability issues, not considering some of the really raunchy, disgusting stuff that's routinely posted to YouTube (and, thankfully, usually quickly enough removed.)
I can't imagine anyone over there in that dark hole is actually reading this, but for all that's good, tossing these kids out is an inexplicable slap in their faces. Considering what I've seen, I doubt that any of them will be bitter about it for very long, but if any of them adopted a "f-- it all" attitude because of what your company did, that would be one hell of a shame.
Here is the reply I received:
-- On 04:45 7/8/07 +1000, Damien Estreich wrote:
Hey there Fredric,
Thanks for your email! We understand that you are upset over the suspension of this account. It is normally not our policy to discuss specific cases of Terms of Use enforcement with third parties.
All users must agree to and abide by our Terms of Use and
Community Guidelines when they register for a YouTube account.
This includes providing accurate registration info and being over the age of 13. If a user makes any indication that he or she is under the age of 13, regardless of the age they have entered on their channel page, we are obligated to take action in order to ensure the safety and integrity of the YouTube community.
I hope this provides an answer for your concerns, sorry we can't be of more help.
Damien Estreich
The YouTube Team
-- Here is my response:
You didn't even read my email.
Good grief, you people bring tears to my eyes.
--- And their response
Fredric,
I read and understand your frustrations, unfortunately we're required to take steps to ensure a safe environment for our users, this isn't judged in conjunction with a users popularity or the quality of their content. We've taken the appropriate action for the specific Terms of Service violation. Again I apologize that you're upset. Wish I could be of more assistance.
Damien
-- And my response
Okay, thank you. I'm angry and I hope I was at least polite and professional in expressing my anger. I don't agree with the supposition that there's any danger to kids posting their videos -- I suspect that Google's lawyers make such decisions to try to be on the safe side.
It's just so bloody unfair!
Any way, thanks. I appreciate the response, honestly I do.