Our recent video of Home Brew Day with the Masholes was just removed from YouTube because of “Inappropriate Content” (see the image). Seems it depicts the horrible act of drinking? Or should I say – it depicts “bad stuff”. Specifically the issue that is reported on this video was:
Don’t post videos showing bad stuff like animal abuse, drug abuse, under-age drinking and smoking, or bomb making.
Seriously? Does home brewing fit into the same category as animal abuse and bomb making? I tried contacting YouTube about it, but there is apparently no recourse to their “community flagging” system. I have been given a warning by the “community” which will be removed in 6 months… However in the interim, I suppose I am out of the contest (sponsored by the American Homebrew Association none the less, with many more videos depicting the same content as ours…). It’s a shame, we had intentionally posted it only to YouTube for the contest and had over 7,000 views there before they blocked it.
We have had some YouTube problems in the past, which is why we don’t embed them anymore and have switched to Blip.tv. As a matter of fact, I am going to upload the video to blip.tv right now so that I can still share it on the site, but it’s a shame that the folks at the AHA won’t get to see it for the contest. I was really proud of what we had pulled together for this episode.
If anyone has any connections with the AHA we would love to be able to connect with someone there about this debacle and still have our video considered.
Thanks to everyone who watched the video before it got canned… You can watch the Blip.tv version now on the original post. But be careful if you do watch it – it aparently depicts some pretty bad stuff.
UPDATE: the latest (and more believable) rationale from YouTube is that the video contains “dangerous or illegal acts”. I know that homebrewing is legal here, but it seems that there are a lot of people who don’t think that it is. Perhaps that is the problem?
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Hey guys,
I wrote to the American Homebrewer Association to let them know since this may affect their entire contest and I gave them the link to your bliptv version. Thanks for that! I hope youtube will reconsider the verdict.
-Gerry (mashole)
Thanks Gerry – it’s unfortunate that someone “flagged” this video as inappropriate – considering the other content on YouTube it’s really funny in a way… Hopefully the AHA will understand and give us a shot. Either way, it was a great time and YouTube can’t delete THAT!
Everything is inappropriate to someone. A nice video of a pig roast would surely get some vegan complaints. So youtube can’t please everyone all of the time.
Funny how your warning specified animal abuse (did someone do something bad to the dog?), drug abuse (did I miss something?), under-age drinking (maybe you all needed to flash IDs at the beginning of the video?), smoking (was anyone? I don’t remember), or bomb making (I must have missed this too).
What a joke their community policing policy must be…
I took a screen shot of 7400 views prior to it being removed for being inappropriate, if that helps. I believe that this will mess up the AHA contest. This is just a shame overall as there doesn’t appear to be anything against the TOS. It was a great day of brewing, and no matter what, I had a blast even if I got a bit more sun than intended
Some of us wish we were still young enough to be considered underage. Watch the video and judge for yourself!
It’s a head scratcher… I cross posted the video around the web just a bit ago, so at least it’s still out there, but I wonder if there is anyone else caught up in the mess with YouTube… Kind of makes us want to do a really inappropriate video… :P
I emailed YouTube support about the generic notice I got and just for posterity – here is the very useful email response from YouTube:
Hi wearehereforthebeer,
Thanks for your email. The video you posted was in violation of YouTube’s
Community Guidelines as reported by users and verified by the YouTube
Team.
YouTube staff review flagged videos 24 hours a day, seven days a week to
determine whether they violate our Community Guidelines. When a video or
account is brought to our attention we investigate and take action if
necessary.
We are unable to provide specific detail regarding your account suspension
or your video’s removal. For more information on our what we consider
inappropriate content or conduct while using YouTube, please visit our
Community Guidelines and Tips at http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines and our Help Center article at http://help.youtube.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=92486.
Regards,
The YouTube Team
Hey Interwebs – we could use your support – Digg it!:
http://digg.com/food_drink/Banned_by_YouTube_because_homebrewing_is_inappropriate
and or Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/8j1tn/banned_by_youtube_because_homebrewing_is/
Thanks!
Not that it’ll do any good but I just emailed Youtube to let them know that because of this incident they’ve completely lost me as a user. Every little bit, as they say.
And let me just say, after reading the “violation notice” I’m disappointed in you. Instead of a debauchery & drug fueled animal beatdown you stick us with this high production value information fest? :-) Great video guys.
Maybe it’s because you are making ALCOHOL? Isn’t that illegal?
Hey Mike – Home brewing is not illegal here, where the video was made. I am not sure if the legality nationwide – but I would imagine that if the national association for brewing (Brewers Association, who the American Homebrewers Association is part of) is sponsoring a contest, that it is probably legal.
We got a few comments (some had to be removed unfortunately for the… umm colorful language…) about brewing being illegal. Perhaps that is a common misconception?
It probably is a common misconception but, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least, there’s probably not a small amount of neoprohibitionist sentiment in their “it’s illegal” comments. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it wasn’t one of those deleted commenters that got you pulled.
I’m glad that such dangerous activities were banned from YouTube! My kids watch stuff on YouTube. I’d much rather have them see skantily clad adolescents shaking their ass on camera, or other more educational topics – such as how to make a potato gun than your psuedo “beer making” (aka Meth making).
(Seriously – nice video. I hope you win)
Nice! Here’s the response we got from the AHA Governing Committee Chairman:
I think with the information that you provided that we will have no problems viewing your video amongst ourselves over the next ten days or so. And I don’t know if you saw my comment earlier this week that I left on your YouTube video site, but I had searched and watched a few on my own and had left your club a nice compliment – good production, well done. So no worries, we will certainly add yours to those to be reviewed.
I guess we are at the whims of the public internet services, or, to put it another way, we are getting what we pay for. Whether it was a “competitive” viewer trying to increase their chances of winning, a John Q. Public who has a hard-on for anything alcohol related, or a 7 year old that was just fooling around, I guess we will never know.
I will leave it to the AHA staff to determine if they want to try to contact someone at YouTube to see what their policy is, but based on what you spelled out below, the Masholes (hmmm, wait a minute – Houston, I think I might have found the offensive problem ;-) video was absolutely in the spirit we are seeking.
Again, we now have a link to make sure to include your club’s effort and will review it with the others that we find on YouTube. Perhaps you should try posting it again with some different information and see if it slips through the peculiar “filter” that it went through again.
Cheers!
Crispy Frey
AHA Governing Committee Chairman
It was for underage drinking I think. Klatsky is underage.
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