Both @GuidedHacking and CheatTheGame's channels are gone since yesterday, and more getting banned today!

Recently, you must have heard on the 'net by now about Rockstar cracking down on people making GTA V Game mods/cheats, going as far as raiding their homes with police and dragging them into court, but now it seems YouTube has decided to start cracking down on any channel that has videos 'showing' people how to use programs like x64dg to make 'game cheats' or 'mods' and flat out terminating all their videos, channel itself, and does not look like YT is going to backdown on this latest enforcement actions, refusing so far to listen to the growing backlash on social media over their Dalek-like actions!

We'd like to inform you that we've received a Circumvention of Technologies complaint regarding your YouTube account. Upon review, we've determined that activity in your account violates YouTube's Terms of Service. As a result, we've terminated your account. If you would like to appeal the suspension, please submit this form.

When we say circumvention of technological measures, we’re referring to tools that allow users to evade a software’s licensing protocol. This can mean serial numbers, keygens, passwords, and other methods to hack software or games.

A CTM claim is appropriate when the infringed material isn’t present in the video (or directly linked to), but the video offers a way for users to access it illegitimately.

You can see more reports on the growing 'reddit' thread linked below, but what are your thoughts on the whole new 'enforcement' action by YT over 'modding/hacking/cheats' videos on their platform?

Source #1: Reddit
Source #2: MaxConsole

 

[ZeroT21]

YT is panicking over another adpocalypse, always bout the moneyz as ussual

 

[chartube12]

This is what it took to get Nintendo to agree to let YouTube be a switch app. Congrats YouTube addicts, you have single handily destroyed YouTube.

 

[Justinde75]

It's not enforced yet and there are no general rules yet. It still needs to go through one more voting before it can really be enforced plus there are no guidlines set just yet. Let's wait with the pitchforks till guidlines are set because now it can go all ways and we just don't know yet so no need to instantly use the worst case scenario as a base. What you just set is a presumption because we just don't know yet what the guidlines are going to be.

I never said its enforced yet. They've been talking about this for a while now.

 

[DCG]

You know what would be a valid tactic?
Flagg medium/larger sized youtubers like Jacksepticeye (I found the gta5 hook trough him at the time).
It will have them running to their larger sized friends, who'll contact youtube staff to reinstate their videos/channel.
That hypocrisy we can use as a attack vector for other folks.

And with the censorship of Alex jones I keep reading "muh private company", google is a monolith which you basically can't avoid if you want to do stuff like video hosting (with a large world wide user base) and discoverability of a website.
So there should be rules in place that they don't fuck over a population that they just don't like.
I bet you could find a bunch of other/left wing conspiracy theorists in a matter of minutes which are still online.

 

[Bladexdsl]

my wii hacking vids are still up...for now

 

[PypeBros]

Peertube to the rescue ?

 

[grey72]

Despite video making and ROM hacking being things I enjoy and have some skill in I never found a way to make compelling hacking contents, or indeed contents all that useful compared to a text and video guide. Some things get easier to demonstrate (watch OAM update in real time next to the resulting video screen -- so much more obvious than static shots) but as a general rule I am not sure. That is more for console/game hacking. I have seen some good stuff for PC, though it will typically be less worked examples of olldbg and more long form talks given at hacker conferences.

Yeah, launching payloads and button prompts are nuch better to understand by watching a video. And I want to keep a few of those vids around, and probably some mod Tut's for Terraria and stuff. Anyone know good channels? The quality of a single channel seems consistent across videos

 

[eriol33]

oh my gosh, this is so horrible. I really love looking at those graphic mods.

 

[RattletraPM]

This is what it took to get Nintendo to agree to let YouTube be a switch app. Congrats YouTube addicts, you have single handily destroyed YouTube.

Nah, YouTube has been going downhill way before that. This is just the last in a list of shitstains.

Anyways, their statement is so vague that if they decide to actually enforce it they'd be shooting themselves in the foot, hard. Way too many popular gaming channels have made several videos about mods/hacks and big topics like speedrunning and TAS will either be severely crippled or outright banned, along with many other smaller ones like glitch hunting, cut/beta content, emulation and game preservation. Hell, even non-gaming topics might not be safe: ethical hacking and penetration testing, DIY repair (as you'd sometimes have to tamper with hardware or software with propietary products) and even chiptune artists could be affected if they interface with real consoles (as they'd have to either use flashcarts or unlicensed/modded/DIY carts, like LSDJ on a gameboy)... and the list goes on.

 

[supersonicwaffle]

AMAZING

Does this also mean that google will no longer publish papers on how to circumvent technology in order to force software manufacturers to patch security holes?
I mean that's the new standard, right?
I can't be that this is only to appease an industry that's, to my knowledge, the only one that gets away with consistenly shipping broken and insecure software, right?

I see why google dropped their slogan.

I wonder how computer science and engineering channels react to this.

 

[SonyUSA]

Piracy related content I can understand but cheats? How is digging in RAM Circumvention of Technologies?

The supreme court ruled that it wasn't (see Galoob v Nintendo I think) in like the late 80s/early 90s so not sure what YouTubes problem is...

 

[bipi]

Hope they've got a backup of all their videos, i learned A LOT from them.

 

[Polazriz]

YouTube to much censorship ,

 

[Soulsilve2010]

In recent years Youtube has become an absolute cesspool and very biased against the things they don't like,so this is par for the course for them.

 

[chartube12]

Nah, YouTube has been going downhill way before that.

I know sarcasm doesn’t translate to text!

 

[Deleted member 373223]

What about videos that show modded content but don't actually show in them how to do it? For example, a Mario Kart mod but you don't see all the tools, just what has been changed in game.

 

[CHEMI6DER]

YT is just getting worse and worse over time. Apparently the stupid "ContentID" thing wasn't enough for them to screw with all gaming-related content creators...and now they're banning hacking videos...WHICH RIGHTS DO THEY HAVE TO DO THAT!?!? Seriously, if following the logic if " videos with things that are illegal\prohibited should be banned from YT" then a lot of other non-gaming-related videos should get banned too(like one of Tom Scott's videos where he tries to break as many laws as possible). It's a sure thing people will start abandoning YT soon. Even returning to the ContentID thing, they never actually made it any good. One of my SMG1 videos got a contentid claim saying that there was a music from SM3DW, where it basically confused the remix with the original. I mean, seriously!? If you make a sting that identifies music atleast make it distinguish between the original and a remix. And my Pokemon Black video just got banned because "audio-visual content" without me being able to see what content it actually was.(And here you saw a person who does stupid LP videos in his native language on Nintendo stuff which literally nobody watches complain about how YT's contentid system is stupid) GREAT JOB, GOOGLE! LET'S RUIN A PLATFORM THAT WAS ONCE HEAVEN FOR ANYONE WANTING TO SHARE BASICALLY ANY VIDEO FOOTAGE BY JUST BANNING ALL OF THE VIDEOS. And I already have a suspicion that the same people from Google are gonna support the new european copyright law thing, so that the entire world turns into copyright hell.

 

[Redhorse]

Somehow I saw this coming when YT hit the [N] Switch... but I can't help thinking... what ever happened to freedom of speech?

 

[Tee_]

They'll soon come running back when the greedy bastards realise they're losing too much of an audience. Gaming is a huge industry and is one of YouTube's biggest communities, by getting rid of us they're digging their own grave. And if they don't? Well they'll just have to make do with not having the huge amount of money and watch time we give to them. Creators will soon realise and find a better place to post their content where they're appreciated and not treated like just another number in a system.

 

[BullyWiiPlaza]

That's bullshit... there is a distinction between piracy related hacking of games to play paid games for free and modding. The latter one is done for educational purposes and to have fun with the games you bought. Yet, it looks like YouTube is confusing the two. It's a sad day to see channels like GuidedHacking deleted now, I watched some of his videos and even talked to him for a bit. I hope the affected people appeal this false suspension and get their channels back soon. YouTube is literally breaking fair use which they advertise themselves as a means to protect content creators.