YouTube banned my useless website.

There seems to be a rule for large companies to mistreat their customers in the race for 'efficiency' and higher profit margins. YouTube is no different. As moderation becomes increasingly automated, false alarms continue to rise.

Recently, my YouTube channel was removed from the platform, alongside all of my other channels under the same account. I've never knowingly uploaded content that violates YouTube's community guidelines, so I was surprised to find a 'zero warning,' seemingly permanent ban in place.

A channel I recently created for my web experiment, isthisawebsite.com, was banned for allegedly violating YouTube's "spam, deceptive practices and scams policy."

The channel had two videos: a camcorder recording of my simple web experiment, and a YouTube Shorts edit of the same video. The goal was to drive traffic and get the URL out into the world. Surprisingly, it worked.

But just yesterday, I received an e-mail informing me the channel had been removed. And then another three e-mails informing me that all my other channels had been removed for so-called "circumvention," falling like dominoes.

While I have appealed, I'm not expecting much. Many people have gone that route, only to reach a dead end. With all that said, there is a certain poetic irony in something as simple as 'Is this a website?' getting flagged as 'deceptive.'

Many others have supposedly had success contacting the 'human' moderators on Twitter/X, but surely they registered YouTube.com so they don't have to use other platforms? I suppose there is an upside: For every YouTube account falsely banned, Elon Musk gets paid for showing ads as you browse Twitter to find human support.

Let it be known: YouTube has struck again.