YouTube’s non-existent customer service.

Did you know that the largest video hosting service on the internet, does not have any customer service!?! That’s right, I could not believe it either.

On YouTube they rely on the “community” to monitor the contents of the videos on YouTube. They have a function known as “Flagging” a video that you feel violates one of the “community guidelines” or that you feel is in some way inappropriate. If you and enough other people (or someone with multiple accounts) wants a video taken off YouTube, its easy enough to do, you flag it enough times it comes down. They say it is supposed to be reviewed by a YouTube staffer first, but we know that is bull, as we have experimented with this feature.

I have a “Reporter” channel on YouTube called “3rdID8487”. I have been posting pro-military video newscast for over a year now. In that short time though I have posted almost 1000 videos and had over 4,000,000 videos viewed on my channel! The videos I post are from the Department of Defense and are news stories or video clips that are released for news use. I have NEVER posted a single video that violated any kind of supposed rule or “community guideline” on YouTube. I did have one removed about a year ago, but that was not one of the news stories like I am talking about here.

Then just about a week ago I suddenly get two e-mails informing me that two of my videos are being removed and my account suspended for two weeks for violating the “community guidelines” with these two videos. Well of course needless to say I was a little shocked, well no not really, I was floored. I have never posted anything remotely offensive. My videos are all news stories or shorts on military subjects. So I was stunned to get these e-mails. So I decided to try and see if I could find out what “community Guideline” I was supposedly violating with these two videos. Well the e-mail does not tell you, so I sent an e-mail to the supposed support@youtube.com address, and of course got no response. I in fact sent a request for clarification every 2 days for a week. Still nothing. I surely would not want to violate the rules again, but I don’t know what rule I was supposed to have violated, so I may inadvertently do so, since I don’t know what I violated.

Here is the e-mail they sent me:

The following video(s) from your account have been disabled for violation of the YouTube Community Guidelines:

• Terrorist and building hit by Hellfire Missile - (3rdID8487)

This is the second Community Guidelines warning strike your account has received within six months. Accordingly, the ability to post new content to YouTube from this account has been disabled and will not return until two weeks after you acknowledge this message. Please review the YouTube Community Guidelines and refrain from further violations, which may result in the termination of your account(s).

For your reference, a copy of this message has also been emailed to the address associated with this account.

Now the video in question had no blood, gore, bodies or even anything that remotely could be considered offensive. All it showed was a building blowing up. That’s all, from the vantage point of the aircraft that fired the missile, from several thousand yards away.

Now I thought if that violates the “community guidelines” then what about all the footage of the twin towers being hit and falling down? What about all the other explosions on YouTube showing a building being blown up? What about the ones showing Soldiers being killed in explosions? Yes those are there also, yet they remain?  My video is very bland compared to those, yet they are OK? Hmmmm.

So I went on a mission. I decided to talk to someone and appeal this account suspension and find out what my videos supposedly were violating. I e-mailed, no response. SO I looked up the telephone number for YouTube and called it. I spoke to a very nice young man who basically told me that YouTube does not have any customer service department. So I asked him if I could speak to someone in the legal department, he told me I had to have a name of someone I wanted to speak too. LOL. So I told him if I knew the name of who I wanted to speak too I would have told him that. I asked him if there was anyone, anyone at all that I could talk too about my account, he politely informed me no, and that the numbers and names of the people at YouTube were “closely guarded”, another chuckle.

SO I basically thanked him for being absolutely no use to anyone, and hung up. So that is when I discovered that YouTube has absolutely no customer service department, they do not answer e-mails, and they refuse to let you speak to anyone in person.

So then I began to think, if someone was opposed to the US Military, and or the Iraq/ Afghanistan war, they could simply open a few accounts or get some friends and flag my videos and they would be taken down. Well guess what, that’s what happened. If the videos are supposedly screened by a YouTube person, then how in the world did these get taken down? The person would have to have been very anti-war or military for that to happen.

So I have come to the conclusion that YouTube sucks as far as customer service goes, since they don’t have any. The person you talk to when you call the headquarters (1 650-253-0000) is basically a useless bag of flesh, with no people skills what-so-ever. And that basically there is an anti-military faction at YouTube, and without any oversight, they are able to do pretty much as they please.

I will continue to post my news stories, and I will continue to wonder why in the world the largest video hosting site on the internet, has not one single customer service person on its staff, and how they allow anti-military, anti-American, anti-soldier videos to remain on the site, yet non-offensive pro-military videos are taken down.

Oh well.. that’s why I keep up the good fight, to show people the real stories, the positive stories, not those you see that are only negative and anti-military, like most of the regular news and rest of YouTube.

Be well all… and stop by YouTube sometime and see my videos that violate “community guidelines” before they are flagged also.. LOL Like this one “Troop Medical Clinic Saving Children” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNUcexuYR2I