Is the Lazarbeam YouTube Ban and the almost immediate reversal of it a symptom of a deeper underlying problem at YouTube? A broken system needing a fix?
Within 11 hours of tweeting out that he faced a strike ban, star Australia Youtuber, Lazarbeam, tweeted out something even more surprising. It was a tweet that claimed that YouTube had lifted the 2nd strike ban on his channel thanks to some “good friends” at YouTube. And, the treatment of the whole affair raises quite a few scary questions about YouTube at present.
Lazarbeam YouTube Ban: A bigger surprise in store.
Before we begin, in case you aren’t aware of the premise of how & why Lazarbeam faced the ban, visit this article to find out. To sum it up in brief, this was Lannan “Lazarbeam” Eacott’s 2nd strike ban in only a few months. On both occasions, YouTube thought the content Lazarbeam uploaded was a violation of their guidelines. And on both occasions, they were funny TikTok vidoes.
Fans immediately got angry in the aftermath of the 2nd ban. That’s because Lazarbeam did not upload anything of the sort that warranted such a response. The videos were just a bunch of simple, funny clips that would seem to be well within the bounds of the community guidelines. Some big names like JackSepticeye & Dan TDM also spoke out against the measure.
What was extremely surprising though, was YouTube listened and revoked the ban. This raises a major question – why, then, did they ban the video in the first place?
Whom to ban? Whom to unban? Lawless Land.
There are only 2 sides to a coin in the legality of things – right and wrong, and we don’t need to tell you that. So, Lazarbeam’s content was either worth a ban, or it wasn’t. In each case, YouTube’s actions are pretty ridiculous. If Lazar was in fact guilty, why did they unban him? And if he wasn’t guilty, why did he face a ban to start with?
There’s no doubt that a majority of the community believes in the second case to be true. And if so, what does that tell us about YouTube’s unreliable content policing? I mean, if big names like Lazarbeam can face unjust strike bans, what of small creators, whose careers could be ruined?
Selective Treatment: What of small streamers?
Lazarbeam, in his tweet, referred to some “good friends” at YouTube that helped him out. We can also safely assume that Lazarbeam gained these “good friends”, whoever they are, due to his station on the platform. Had he not been a huge YouTuber with 17 million+ subs, would any “good friends” have helped him? Will small creators who get strike banned wrongfully, have access to these “good friends”?
This incident further disturbs the already murky waters of YouTube content policing. PewDiePie & Markiplier have already spoken in favour of a more obvious and transparent process with clearer guidelines. But, so far, nothing much has changed.
Fingers crossed, let’s hope YouTube doesn’t take after a certain popular streaming platform and start banning creators with no clear information.
