UPDATE 5/25/2019: Secureteam10’s monetization has been restored. From their official Twitter feed:
Monetization has been fully restored, and I’m just speechless.. This goes to show once again, the powerful force that you guys are when we come together behind a common cause. We get eachother’s backs, and we make noise when wronged. YOUR voices did this. Cheers. #InsomniaArmy
— Secureteam (@SecureTeam10) May 25, 2019
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Secureteam10, the popular UFO YouTube channel known for it’s dubious videos of obvious hoaxes or sensationalist takes on the mundane, has been demonitized for “misleading thumbnails and tags” which could certainly be pointed to as a legitimate reason. However, I’ve personally found the content there to be so outlandishly unbelievable that I can’t imagine anyone taking it seriously, but instead only watching it purely for the entertainment value, as I do on occasion, and would assume YouTube ought to let them slide. But as the P.T. Barnum quote goes, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” and a quick scan of Secureteam10’s comments section on any given video certainly proves that there are at least enough suckers born to perhaps give YouTube a bit of pause.
My own criticisms aside, I can’t say I necessarily agree with the demonetization even if there are hundreds or thousands of people who buy into the videos. I don’t think Secureteam10’s channel runs the risk of causing any serious political or social damange to the framework of society, or to the YouTube community at large. Surely, a case can be made that the channel doesn’t lend a lot of (or any) credibility to UFOlogy in general, but there are certainly much more succesful and lucrative offenders we can take to task for this outside the realm of YouTube. Ultimately, I see this being the only real damage to be expected – making UFOlogy look even more goofy than it currently does in some folks’ eyes – and shouldn’t really be a serious concern for YouTube. The guy obviousy puts in a lot of work on his channel and I don’t see any reason why shouldn’t be allowed to profit from if he can.
At any rate, what’s done is done. From the Secureteam Facebook Page:
Guys, this could be the end and I need your help… Youtube has just demonetized my ENTIRE channel for no reason, leaving me with no way to support myself, my family and keep the channel going. The nonsense reasoning they gave was due to “misleading thumbnails and tags” in my videos, but refuse to point to an exact video that has done it. This makes no sense, as every thumbnail and tag I use, relates directly to content in the video. Obviously I like to keep some mystery, but every channel does this. So here’s how you can help.. If you have a Twitter account, I would ask that you PLEASE send a tweet to @TeamYoutube and @Youtube, asking them why they have done this to your friend @SecureTeam10. It would mean the world to me, otherwise I have no other option. Let’s make a fuss and show Youtube that censorship isn’t cool!
