Sunday, April 7, 2024

Another attack against YouTube channel through abuse of the report function

On April 7th, I got an email about a removal of content from my YouTube channel, which was a recording of multiple people teabagging other players in Destiny (for PlayStation 3) recorded back in 2015 (it took me a while, but I was eventually able to locate my backup of the video, which was an exportation from Twitch, so the original better quality version is likely still on Twitch), which came through while I was trying to get some last minute tasks done in Warframe (which unfortunately I was unable to complete before the weekly reset).  It was these particular attacks why I made it a point to back up each & every video on YouTube/Twitch & link everything over to Steam to preserve the descriptions of each video, the latter I would suspect is what lead to it getting hit with the mass of Steam trolls apparently still looking for ways to penalize me over my online content (ousting people for who they are based on their actions in games or on various sites).

Note that this isn't the first time one of these videos have been hit with a takedown in the past (the first one being back in 2015), however there was never a publication about it to WonderGamer.net because it was successfully appealed & the removal reversed.  Of course I've been keeping backups for this particular reason, specifically so it could be re-uploaded if necessary (to another site if necessary, although it should still be on Twitch regardless).

If the appeal does fail, I do intend on re-uploading the video, however it will have a different title & description if I do (at least on YouTube if it gets re-uploaded there).

As with any other case, I document everything that happens & keep logs of it to not only publicize these injustices, but also to keep track of when it happens for myself.  On the latter point, this resets the 2-year monitoring date of the thread where these attacks started on Steam, now potentially ending on April 7th, 2026, including more IP bans are likely to be placed on my personal site (after I get a chance to go through raw access logs again & see if there has been any excessive access of the site, which I haven't been doing for a while, but knew I would ultimately have to when I saw certain names popping up in my IRC logs for my Twitch channel, those logs still being kept track of here).  As I stated, this is a potential ending date, which is likely only to be extended because the attacks clearly haven't ended yet & probably won't until arrests are made.

This will likely result in a restriction on YouTube for uploading larger videos (over 10 minutes) for 90 days as it has in the past, any new videos will be held onto & uploaded at a later date if necessary, making it a point that their publications were postponed due to the attacks that lead to the publication of this new channel update in each of those videos' descriptions.

This also puts a longer hold on the lockups that are affecting public joining of my Discord channel & the increased chat restrictions on my Twitch channel back to the new 2-year date previously mentioned in this article.  This means that new Discord members on my server will need to be issued a private invite link to join (and they'll only get that if I already trust them) & the chat restriction for Twitch accounts that don't have a verified phone number on their accounts will either have to be at least 6 months old or have followed for 3 or more months (previously at 1 week & 10 minutes prior to the mass attacks coming from Steam).

Needless to say, the restrictions in place on YouTube (non-visible channel ratings, blocked comments & my personal refusal to stream to YouTube due to easy-to-manipulate standards) will be a PERMANENT restriction, given YouTube is 1 of 2 sites where trolls have managed to manipulate the report functions in their favor (the other being Steam after the attack that succeeded on January 14th, 2024, which is now detailed on my Steam profile & WonderGamer.net).  This also gives further reason why even though I've been on a waiting list for Google Fiber in my neighborhood for over 8 years (since moving to where I'm living now, there were a few years prior to that at the previous residence as well), I will be unlikely to switch to them when it does become available because I don't know that I can trust them with my payment information (probably the only exception I was going to make for paying for anything through them, but if the appeal fails, I will be looking at other options for my ISP when fiber does become available in my neighborhood)...

Regarding streaming

The lack of decent internet has been the primary reason why streaming has ended (or at least postponed indefinitely) on my Twitch channel, after switching from Xfinity back to CenturyLink (only to find they had the same problems that caused me to switch from them 4 years prior when I came back) & finding they do not offer a high enough upload rate to be effective in streaming online multiplayer games (Xfinity offering 10 mbps where I live now with the Boost plan, CenturyLink only offering 3 mbps at a higher cost), but perhaps somewhat effective for offline games.  Within a year of moving to my current residence (in 2016), CenturyLink (previously Qwest) were going door to door to tell people they were going to be putting in fiber, of course I was with Xfinity at the time & had some choice words for them when they came by to tell people; 8 years later, CenturyLink STILL has not followed through with their claim of putting in fiber in the neighborhood.

My father told me some time last year that there was a low income credit that was being offered through Xfinity, something that had me considering going back to them, but only if they weren't going to try & seek the early termination fees I had to file an FCC complaint against (their own staff telling me there wasn't a current active contract, only finding out after I had already had CenturyLink installed that they were hitting me for almost $200 in early termination fees); these fees were dropped through the FCC complaint, but Xfinity still refused to admit the actual reason for dropping them, giving another reason for it to try & save face (these details were published to WonderGamer.net in a review detailing the FCC complaint against them).  However I am finding that this credit may be a part of a federal affordability plan that may be getting killed this year, so this may kill any plans I have on going back to Xfinity if that is the case...

Unfortunately I just don't have access to a decent upload rate in my area that doesn't cost a fortune, I have to deal with what I have & this meant I was limited to uploads to YouTube for online games, which unsurprisingly is being attacked yet again (with a possible new publication regarding the attack to my personal site if it doesn't get reversed, making sure to take screenshots of each screen for it's publication if needed).

I believe it's time I contact Scripps news & ask them why gaming sites such as Steam (as well as PSN, I'll get into details about this at a later date) have not been getting the attention it should be regarding dangerous online environments for children (if it's this bad for me, you can only expect how detrimental this would be for a child).  This was previously stated in the ticket I filed with staff on Steam (apparently the only way anything that would get them to step in on it, using the report functions on Steam was getting very little done, if anything) & they were already aware of my intentions if the attacks didn't stop; while they may have been limited on Steam, it hasn't ended there, so it's time to make this a matter for the news to cover & hopefully start extending laws against social platforms to gaming platforms that also have these issues.

Pre-publication update

Before I managed to get this update published, I received an email from YouTube giving a decision on the appeal & this was that they were not going to reverse the decision against the video they decided to remove.  After spending roughly 2 hours typing all the information above, I wasn't simply going to remove it, so it's going to stay.  I will attempt to reupload the video with a different title & description.  If that fails, I will link over the video from Twitch to the Steam description since the video is still there & find another site to upload the backup to (probably adding another link to my YouTube channel to another media platform for videos that were moved after YouTube chose to allow the manipulation of their system).  There will also be another publication to WonderGamer.net regarding the allow manipulation of the report function by YouTube staff (aka Google staff).

EDIT:  Perhaps I should consider bringing up YouTube to Scripps also in regards to dangerous social platforms (they've already been mentioned on this particular point a number of times, I can still provide additional backup content regarding the matter however)...