My disabled mom recently was notified her Google account was banned for violating the T&C or something along those lines. She can't watch YouTube and had her YouTube TV subscription canceled. Is there any human that she could appeal to? Her granddaughter uses her account to make YouTube short videos and make comments with her YouTube account, so I'm not sure if she posted something that got her account banned.<p>She's disabled and YouTube TV was the cheapest option for her to watch live TV... She tried using her other gmail account to watch YouTube, but it appears that the ban propagated to her other account (IP ban?).
Sorry to hear. As someone who works for a non-Google Big Tech company, you will get nowhere on this trying to work with Google (or any other Big Tech) support.<p>If you believe your mom (and anyone using her account) definitely did not violate the T&Cs, the only thing that might realistically get a response is either [1] a personal contact who trusts you at Google escalating internally for re-review; or [2] reaching out to your state AG / consumer protection office.<p>That said, there's usually a very high bar for fully disabling accounts like this — either repeated violations or very severe violations (like child sexual abuse or terrorism). Might be good to figure out what the granddaughter has been up to...
Sorry to hear that happened. Can never trust centralized corporations to have your back in times like these.<p>For the time being, have you considered getting her a digital antenna? When I first got mine I was shocked by the amount of channels I was able to pick up; it's not like the old days.
Contact your local member of Parliament or Congress and raise hell.<p>It’s an easy win for everyone.<p>As for _why_ - if someone else is using the account for content creation, it’s probably the source of these problems.
Do some research; other live TV options are roughly comparable--so go ahead and subscribe to the best alternative. For example:<p><a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/top-channels-roundup-youtube-tv-vs-hulu-live-directv-stream-more/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/top-channels...</a><p><a href="https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/best-youtube-tv-alternatives/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/best-youtube-tv-a...</a><p><a href="https://www.firesticktricks.com/youtube-tv-alternatives.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.firesticktricks.com/youtube-tv-alternatives.html</a>
At least they cancelled your subscription. My youtube red/premium account(s) got banned for community violations despite only using them to view videos. When they ban youtube accounts, they block you out of the subscription page so you can't even cancel membership. Multiple (three) accounts one after another that I signed up for premium thinking it would get resolved and refunded, but it never did. I can't even say it's tied to my IP, because other people on my network are fine. Maybe device specific.<p>Regardless, unlikely you'll find a human to talk to, there might be option to appeal which for me was every 4 weeks and got automated rejection. I had a Google One account that boasts in person support, and indeed a person tried to coordinate with youtube team and the TLDR they're not equipped to deal with other Google services like youtube. Anyway, ended up cancelling credit card and Google still owes me $100. Hilariously 2/3 accounts got unblocked after submitting random appeal a year after the fact on whims. But not my primary account. Just utter shit show.
Unfortunately, Google doesn't think paying customers deserve a customer support number so you can at least talk to a human being and find out what they think you did.
No, you cannot talk to a human; Google doesn’t waste much money on that sort of thing. The only recourse you might have is the courts. Talk to a lawyer.
Set her computer up to use a VPN or (more easily) the Tor Browser (at lowest security settings so the least breakage occurs) without signing in (which is the only way I use YouTube lol).<p>The only downside is that she might have to solve captchas (if she's able).
I don't know how to fix the Google-account-banned situation; that really sucks.<p>Another way to watch TV is the Hypnotix program present by default on Linux Mint. Many channels from around the world, including some in English.
“We think you posted bad things, so we’re going to ban you from… paying us to watch things.”<p>I swear to god, without the bias of the zeitgeist around tech companies and the mythology of genius surrounding them, one might suspect they were run by full-on idiots.