YouTube have issued an apology to popular YouTube channel ‘ChilledCow’ for accidentally shutting down their 24/7 LoFi Hip-Hop stream.
YouTube has a storied past of receiving backlash for its demonetization algorithm, which has led to plenty of creators facing financial difficulty when creating and posting videos is their primary source of income.
The Google-owned platform has also been subjected to plenty of criticism for wrongfully terminating channels — some of which boasted millions of subscribers.
Users were greeted with this message when trying to find their favorite creator.
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And the story remains much the same for ChilledCow, a popular music channel which has amassed over 4.3 million subscribers.
After streaming ‘lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to’ for almost 549 days straight, YouTube cut the famous Study Girl’s antics short by shutting down the broadcast abruptly.
With thousands watching at any given moment, ChilledCow alerted YouTube almost immediately.
Over 24 hours later, the social media team responded stating: “Thanks for flagging this to us! Our teams confirmed that this was a mistake on our side and your channel has now been reinstated.”
Thanks for flagging this to us! Our teams confirmed that this was a mistake on our side and your channel has now been reinstated. We’re sorry this happened! We’ve shared feedback with our review team to prevent similar errors from happening in the future.
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) February 23, 2020
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In response to YouTube’s Tweet, one user even raised the question of whether YouTube could “outline what exactly those steps are going to be” to ensure a similar event doesn’t occur in the future.
Ultimately, this would require YouTube to be transparent with how ChilledCow’s video was deemed to have breached their Terms of Service… Information which probably won’t see the light of day, as YouTubers have faced algorithm issues for years now.
A more pressing matter, however, was raised by their second question of: “What recourse do smaller channels without as much help and outcry if they’re caught in your “mistakes?”
Having received a flood of likes, the Twitter user’s questions appear to be reflective of ChilledCow’s community.
Can you please clearly communicate how this issue happened in the first place, and outline what exactly those steps are going to be to prevent this from happening?
What recourse do smaller channels without as much help and outcry if they’re caught in your “mistakes?”
— Jason™ (@yuusharo) February 23, 2020
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In light of the events that transpired, ChilledCow reached out to their community to thank them for the stream of endless support.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the tremendous support,” the message began. “I’m grateful to have such an amazing community.”
My account has been unbanned, thank you from the bottom of my heart for the tremendous support, I’m grateful to have such an amazing community?I will launch the stream again as soon as possible pic.twitter.com/hcAKB5wXWb
— ChilledCow (@ChilledCow) February 22, 2020
At the time of writing, YouTube is yet to release an official statement in response to how and why the stream was terminated.
Nonetheless, Study Girl is back up and running on ChilledCow’s YouTube channel for those wanting to listen to some LoFi beats.