DC Trawler

YouTube doesn’t want you to see Adam Smith harassing Rachel the Chick-fil-A clerk

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A couple of weeks ago, I told you about the guy who filmed himself haranguing a very nice lady at a Chick-fil-A drivethrough window. It ended up not turning out very well for the guy, although the lady has forgiven him.

How about a follow-up? Here’s an e-mail I just got:

YouTube Service noreply@youtube.com
12:01 PM

to me

Regarding your account: JTintheDC

The YouTube Community has flagged one or more of your videos as inappropriate. Once a video is flagged, it is reviewed by the YouTube Team against our Community Guidelines. Upon review, we have determined that the following video(s) contain content in violation of these guidelines, and have been disabled:

Looks like Amsmith77Amsmith accidentally deleted his great Chick-fil-A video

For more information on YouTube’s Community Guidelines and how they are enforced, please visit the help center http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=92486.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Team

And sure enough, if you go to the URL for that video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thNqs9fPcgM), which was posted 12 days ago and had over 1 million views, here’s what you see:

And how did it do that, exactly? They haven’t said. It’s not a copyright claim, presumably, or they would’ve said so. They say it “violates community guidelines,” but I’m not sure how. It can hardly be a privacy issue, because I only reposted a clip that Adam Smith put up himself. How can somebody claim a privacy violation over something he posted himself? And I very specifically avoided giving out any of his personal information. I only mentioned the YouTube handle he used to post it.

Plus, there’s no “strike” on my YouTube account, which is what they say they do when somebody infringes copyright:

Since I don’t have a “strike,” apparently I can’t appeal the decision. It all seems kind of weird to me.

Well, I don’t know how many other copies there are on YouTube right now, but here’s one of them. Watch it while you still can.