I've been having problems with YouTube.
I was hit with a community warning. It was not a strike but a warning, but they removed a video.
What's the problem? There are several problems, actually.
For one, I didn't violate any policy.
Secondly, YouTube won't share any details - I've no idea what policy was violated, but they pointed me to their firearms policy (I own firearms and much of my content is related to firearms advocacy). I'm familiar with their firearms policy. I looked over it when this first occurred - I went down the policy line by line, reviewing the banned video footage. I saw nothing that I violated. The video was also age-limited. I wasn't selling or manufacturing (I don't sell or manufacture firearms or firearms parts).
Third, they said I could appeal but IMMEDIATELY denied the appeal when I submitted it.
Fourth, they said that I "have the option to take a quick, seven-question training to have" the communitiy warning "expire in 90 days."
What's concerning is that I initially refused to take the training, mainly because: I. Did. Not. Violate. YouTube's. Firearms. Policy. The fact that I keep receiving notifications that I have the option to take the training makes it seem as if it's not an option.
The main problem I have at this point in time is that YouTube wants me to incriminate myself. Taking that training could be conscruted by them as admitting that I was in violation of their policy. It feels as if I'm being forced to take the training.
They also stated that if I get another warning while this current warning is still in my queue, I'll actually get a channel strike, UNLESS I take the training.
So, I'm now in the process of downloading every single video I've ever uploaded to YouTube, just in case they shut down the channel. I've 397 videos.
I used Google's AI (yeah, there's irony there - Google owns YouTube) to assist with this.
I had the AI create a script that would download each video.
It is a python script, and it is below:
import os
import sys
from yt_dlp import YoutubeDL
def download_XXX_channel():
"""
Downloads all videos from the XXX YouTube channel.
Includes English subtitles and auto-generated captions embedded into the MP4s.
"""
channel_url = "https://www.youtube.com/@XXX"
output_folder = "youtube_archive"
# Create the destination folder if it doesn't exist
if not os.path.exists(output_folder):
os.makedirs(output_folder)
print(f"Created directory: {output_folder}")
# Configuration options for yt-dlp
ydl_opts = {
# Formats: pulls the absolute highest quality video and audio available
'format': 'bestvideo+bestaudio/best',
# Path and naming template for downloaded files
'outtmpl': os.path.join(output_folder, '%(upload_date)s_%(title)s.%(ext)s'),
# History log: prevents downloading the same video twice if restarted
'download_archive': os.path.join(output_folder, 'downloaded_history.txt'),
# Resumes interrupted downloads
'continue_dl': True,
# Keeps running even if a specific video throws an error
'ignoreerrors': True,
# Merges video + audio tracks into an MP4 container
'merge_output_format': 'mp4',
# --- SUBTITLE CONFIGURATION ---
# Attempts to download the official creator-uploaded English subtitles
'writesubtitles': True,
# Falls back to YouTube's auto-generated English captions if manual ones don't exist
'writeautomaticsub': True,
# Limits the download strictly to English subtitles
'subtitleslangs': ['en'],
# Embeds the subtitles directly inside the video container file
# (This allows you to turn them on or off inside players like VLC or QuickTime)
'embedsubtitles': True,
}
print(f"Starting archival for: {channel_url}")
print(f"Videos and subtitles will save to: {os.path.abspath(output_folder)}\n")
try:
with YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
ydl.download([channel_url])
print("\nProcess finished! Check your output directory.")
except Exception as e:
print(f"An unexpected error occurred: {e}", file=sys.stderr)
if __name__ == "__main__":
download_XXX_channel()
I basically just asked the AI to help me download all my videos on my channel.
The script is currently running and has captured 44 videos thus far (it's been running maybe an hour). It is slow going but I'll leave it running overnight.
My plan is to upload these videos to Rumble. I'll keep the YT channel up but I've the feeling they're going to keep messing with me and eventually ban my channel. Why? Because they hate firearms. Note that they're doing this to many, many other folks, as well. You can see folks on Reddit and X.com complaining about this all the time, and plenty of those folks don't even run firearms-related channels.
Maybe I'm being paranoid with YouTube but I just don't like how a commercial company is trying to force me to accept that I did something wrong, without showing me what I actually did wrong, and then attempting to make me take training to make things right - when I didn't do anything wrong. I no longer trust them. They could do all of the again 6 weeks/months from now without providing proof and I'd have no way to fight it at all. There's no transparency with them and there's not discourse. That's a shitty way to conduct business, in my opinion.
