YouTube Ban

As of February 20th, 2026, my YouTube channel is back, by popular demand!  But all of my albums are still absent from YouTube Music, and with two strikes now, my channel may be deleted again anytime.

I was banned from the world’s biggest platform, where I have been getting more than a million songs streamed every year.  After one month of my YouTube channel being gone, after a successful campaign on X to pressure YouTube to restore the channel, they restored it.  They then immediately gave me my second strike, for another song which hadn’t been one of the ones they used to remove all the time.  So it hangs by a thread, and I can’t actually post to it for 2 weeks due to the second strike, but it’s back up, for now.

To the extent that YouTube ever communicates about what they’re doing, all of my albums still being gone from YouTube Music is related to my alleged support for criminal organizations, by which YouTube seems to mean expressing sympathy for groups or individuals who actively resist genocide or corporate tyranny.

Each time YouTube engaged in a new form of suppression, I wrote about it.  First they sent warnings and took down certain songs.  Then they demonetized my channel.  Then they deleted all of my albums from the world’s second-biggest music streaming platform, YouTube Music.  Then they deleted my YouTube Channel.

It’s an incomplete form of censorship, which I’m sure is entirely intentional.  I could still be found on YouTube here and there after my channel disappeared, if someone else uploaded me singing somewhere.  Although all my solo albums are (still) gone, you can still find me on collaborations with other artists such as Mic Crenshaw.  But my channel and most of my views are gone.

Although it’s basically a simple case of censoring an artist for having a political perspective the censors object to, there are layers of complexity as well.  For those interested in the details, here are things I wrote along the way that explicate.

Demonetizing, Deleting, and Disappearing David

YouTube, aka The Biggest Platform on Earth, Has Deleted All My Albums

Meanwhile on YouTube: Discographies Wiped and Channels Deleted

Partial Victory in Campaign to Restore YouTube Channel

For even further context on my disappearance from the internet, see davidrovics.com/trolls.