YouTube’s AI Fired the Wrong People

Something strange happened on YouTube recently, and for once, it wasn’t a new feature or a random layout experiment nobody asked for.

Several creators woke up to find their channels completely wiped from the platform. No warnings, no strikes, just gone.

The reason? YouTube’s AI moderation system decided these channels were linked to a banned account from Japan and hit the nuke button. The issue is, they weren’t linked at all. Not even close.

So, in true YouTube fashion, the system built to protect creators from bad actors ended up turning on them instead.

One of the first to speak up was Enderman, a tech creator who suddenly found both of his channels terminated for “association” with that mystery account. His appeals went nowhere until he took the problem to Twitter. A few hours later, once a real person looked into it, everything was restored.

Which kind of says it all.

The AI can delete your channel instantly, but it takes a viral tweet to get a human to fix it.

And it wasn’t an isolated case. Dozens of creators, mostly in tech, reported similar bans. Some were flagged for “scams and deceptive practices” while actual scam ads and fake AI tools still run freely on YouTube every day.

It’s almost poetic in a chaotic way.

The system designed to fight deceptive content ends up being the most deceptive thing on the platform.

What this whole mess shows isn’t just a moderation glitch, it’s a growing imbalance. YouTube’s AI now acts faster than its humans, and the appeal process moves slower than a buffering 240p video.

Most of the affected channels have since been reinstated, but the bigger issue remains. When an algorithm with no context has the power to decide who gets to exist online, it’s not a question of if it happens again, but when.

Maybe the machines aren’t taking over yet, but on YouTube, they’re definitely running HR.

And yes, AI helped us write this. Hopefully it doesn’t ban us next.