 we have been banned these past two weeks. I have been unable to post in the community tab or in video form for the past two weeks. The ban lifted yesterday. However, this is our second channel strike and it's considered a YouTube guidelines violation strike. You get three of them. So far we have two and if I am to get one more this channel will no longer exist. It will be deleted and everything on the channel will also be deleted. So in fresh and fits case they got demonetized. In my case I'll be deleted. And basically what had happened was before I was really doing YouTube seriously I would post videos every now and then of some of my documentary projects or some of the discussions we were having at the schools. And one of the projects I was working on was called End Nigeria. So I posted that probably 2020, 2019, something like that a while ago. And it's pretty graphic. It shows some of the carnage that happened during the Ansar's protests in Nigeria. It showed some dead bodies, some graphic footage. And when I posted it on YouTube it put an 18 and older block in front of it, which made sense. But fast forward randomly it gets deleted. Not only was it deleted but YouTube chose to put a community violation warning on the channel. So now the channel has a community violation warning. And that was way before the Kevin Samuel Sutter this conversation series. So I wasn't a YouTuber. I was just a random person like a lot of us just posting stuff we thought was cool on YouTube. So the first official strike was the Waikai Osiris and Tsukyana video. So to recap basically what happened is the rapper Tsukyana was at a crew league basketball game. I think it's Chris Brown's basketball league whatever. And another singer I believe he is Waikai Osiris came up to her and they were flirting and he kissed her on the lips and they made a bunch of news and a whole nine. So I did a case study about it. Tsukyana's son Waikai Osiris a case study. So this is the video that got me my first channel strike. Now obviously it's up again but I had to change a couple of things. What gave me the strike was me showing a clip that I downloaded from YouTube of what happened. So a clip of him kissing her without her consent. YouTube interpreted that as a depiction of sexual assault. Now mind you the clip is still readily available all over their platform. Before whatever reason the fact that I included it in my case study got me a channel strike and got the initial video removed. This is actually a reposting of that case study and what I had to do was instead of showing the clip I just had to show a still like you've seen some YouTubers do. If you want to see the original I believe I put it up on Twitter during the time that I was banned so it's still up on Twitter it's also up on our Patreon. Please consider becoming a Patreon and I'll explain more about why it's important in a little bit but I had to repost it because besides what happened this was a very important conversation. So if you haven't watched this case study go and watch it because there are a lot of important things that I bring up during this case study. Got that first channel strike I was banned for a week so maybe some of you guys remember but a while back two months ago I could not post for a week. I couldn't post in the community tab I couldn't post the video for a week and it kept the channel strike on my channel. Now again if you like you can go on YouTube and search YKO Cyrus Tsukiana and I guarantee you'll find somebody else with the clip that got my channel banned for a week but that's beside the point. Now this most recent banning and the reason why I haven't been able to post for two weeks because this is my second strike is because I posted a case study on the Alabama Brawl. YouTube called that a depiction of violence but the part that is the most annoying is they called it a depiction of violence so initially they put an 18 or older block on the video. Then they went back to it for whatever reason and they deleted it and they called it you know a channel violation so it was deleted and it became my second strike and I couldn't post. Then I appealed it they approved the appeal and said after further review we found that it does not violate our guidelines so they went back to the 18 or older and then two an hour or so later I get another email after further review we have decided to put a another strike on your channel and delete the video. So it was this you know carrot stick situation that I was stuck in but ultimately I learned a very important lesson and other YouTubers have probably learned this as well you cannot fight YouTube and the reason you cannot fight YouTube or I guess the best analogy is YouTube is a publishing company and they reserve the right to not publish whatever they see fit of not publishing and the guidelines only serve to safeguard them from you know from a PR perspective or validate whatever decision that they make to remove something, delete something, demonetize something but basically it is set up in a way where you can't really do anything and that's part of the reason why despite the fact that I have almost 70,000 subscribers I don't have if unless you guys went to the website and you put in your email or you've signed up for our update group on on Instagram I don't have any of your contacts because basically I work for YouTube at least that's the paradigm this is not a opportunity for you to own your own business and no you're for all intents and purposes your YouTube's bitch and whatever they're done with you they're done with you and there's really nothing you can do about it because I thought about okay what are my options to fight this but the more that I read I was like there is no fighting it because at the end of the day it's a free platform and they reserve the right to have what they like and what they don't like up and the reason why I say this is because very often we talk about shadow banning shadow banning and you know different conspiracies around what YouTube is or is not doing the creators but in these two weeks I'm starting to lean towards the fact or the idea that it's it's bullshit and here's why during the time that I was banned the last case study Clarissa Shields versus Keith Thurmond should not happen it got 122,000 views it is now the second most viewed video on my channel of all time the only video that has more views is uh part of the interview recording Michelle and it only has like 50,000 more views than this and this is this was a year ago versus two weeks ago and I bring it up to say that if there is any time where I should be quote-unquote shadow ban it should be the time where I can't even post where I'm banned for two weeks but the algorithm pushed this and I think the the reason the algorithm pushed this is because it's relevant it's now it's what's happening so from an algorithm perspective they're gonna give the people what they want and it comes back to what I brought up before the people don't want the kind of substance that the people claim to want and I think this is a bottom line that we have to wrestle with you know because you know before the banning I would say people please get in the habit of checking the channel people please get in the habit of clicking that like button to support your favorite creators get in the habit of uh uh you know commenting these little things that we can do to actually support if if you can't give monetarily here are some things you can do but unfortunately what tends to happen is that that attention and those eyeballs tend to go to either car crashes or things that people like to complain about and we turn around as a community or as a people and we say where is all the substantive thought leaders where are all the substantive musicians where all the substantive artists where all the substantive leaders but we don't help these people and and that's kind of the bottom line that I want to wrestle with during this stream and I'm super appreciative of the people who actually put their money and their attention and their effort where their mouth is but the masses if we're being honest don't do that in the case of fresh and fit youtube has decided to you know cut ties with them from a monetary standpoint their channel isn't isn't banned they just can no longer make money off of super chats basically or ads but I think it's reasonable for us to take a moment and consider the part that their audience played in creating them right like when I saw the Myron's antics with the KKK hoodie and the monkey noises and calling them black women night riders um that is the behavior that made their channel lucrative the stuff that they do about male empowerment barely and they've talked about this openly it barely gets any views because it's not as entertaining but when they have 16 bimbo sitting around this tattoo table proving the point of how idiotic only fans models are that's where the views come from so like I said before if you're somebody who isn't clear on your purpose if you're somebody who lacks integrity and more more more important than anything if you're somebody who needs this it is very easy to get corrupted and I think my main message is like we have to instead of just complaining about the fresh and fits or the the the women who are pandering whatever the case may be we have to have to ask ourselves the question how are we enabling and empowering what we want to see more of and how are we enabling and empowering what we claim to not like so with the Clarissa Shields um and Keith Thurman uh video what it taught me is that whatever audience as far as like big numbers whatever audience that I thought I had isn't as isn't where my time or my main priority needs to go my time in my main priority needs to go into getting uh a growing my audience so it's not about nurturing your community or maintaining your community that's not how you sustain a YouTube channel it's about relevance right and my seeking relevance is what now has the channel on the brink of termination because if I had it my way I would have gone on doing documentary style interviews because that's what I want to do but at some point those things plateaued people didn't care anymore people didn't want the deep and nuanced conversations I was having they wanted me to cuss women out at some point so those numbers went away and it was impossible to sustain so now I have to figure out how to remain relevant which is making videos quote-unquote case studies about what Lizzo is calling her dancers fat and dumb shit like that and that's where the views are coming from and it's frustrating as a creator it's frustrating because although that's where the views are coming from that's what could also terminate this channel because again their enforcement of these quote-unquote rules are arbitrary and they enforce it based on you know the ways that they see fit like I said you can still go on youtube and find footage of the fight that got my channel the second uh band and the kiss that got my channel the first band but for whatever reason on this channel you know it's it violates there whatever so kind of like I've been saying the last few streams the only way this stuff works is to support what we care to see more of I have 70 000 subscribers on this channel but the second channel which I had to create during this this banning just crossed 200 yesterday you know there are a lot of people who didn't weren't curious enough to figure out why the hell isn't Alan posting like let's go see what's going on on instagram because I've talked about it on instagram thankfully the instagram's growing we're at 20 000 subscribers I mean followers now I have a inner circle of subscribers on instagram who are supporting that way so if you're interested in doing that head over to instagram but that's a way that if another thing happens I can still maintain communication because again if another thing happens I do not have access to 70 000 people so this just ends up being a vanity metric and I could just tell my kids yeah at some point I had 70 000 subscribers but the backup channel sitting at 200 so if you guys haven't already go subscribe to the second channel go tell a friend to tell a friend to subscribe to the second channel and consider shooting us a cash app to support the the mission consider don't don't even super chat because they garnish those so please support on cash app if you can we need to demystify this whole algorithm thing it's all the algorithm is doing is recycling what people care about so it starts with auditing what people care about and and letting the algorithm know that you care about this thing with your effort with clicking the like button with commenting and on the side with if you can monetarily supporting um creators that you care about because the other frustrating thing about these case studies that I do is that the case studies are the easiest thing for me to do they they're cheap I don't have to turn on a camera I don't have to go anywhere I just sit down on my mic and I try to put my thoughts together in a cohesive way as it relates to whatever happened recently but the interviews are tough the interviews require cameras lighting mics getting people traveling set up and break down in the whole nine and those are the worst performing stuff so as as the person who's taking on those costs it's frustrating because you start feeling like you're casting you know pearls to swine and it takes you not being willing to compromise your integrity or or compromise your your initial mission to like look past the bs I don't know if you guys know this but the first attempt on dr king's life was a black woman she stabbed him in the heart what's what's difficult about doing something that is quote on quote righteous or good it's like oftentimes it's the very people that you are attempting to help that pose the largest threat at least the largest immediate threat and it only we can only counteract that with again little things I'm not even talking about sending me money I'm talking about clicking a like button I'm talking about from time to time I know we need to talk usually post two times a week let me go to the channel real quick and navigate to the video tab and see what's up that's it but the reality is and I and I know some of us still think that the algorithm is going to show us the content that we're subscribed to it doesn't do that it has moved all the content you're subscribed to to your subscription feed what it shows you on the home page it will show you some of the stuff you're subscribed to but what it wants you to do is find new things that are consistent with your habits or consistent with so youtube doesn't care about nurturing an audience as much as it cares about growing one so youtube wants you to find another we need to talk and I don't think that's necessarily bad but you you also if you care about what we're doing here there is some effort on your your end to go to that subscription tag or just type in WNT to talk on instagram or on youtube to see what's what's recent because unfortunately the algorithm does not work the way that we think it does and it takes the community that we're building and that we're nurturing to also reinvest in us