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Big YouTube channels are being banned. YouTubers are blaming AI.

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YouTuber Enderman ran a tech YouTube channel with more than 350,000 subscribers, and he knew his channel was about to be terminated before it happened.

Why? Because one of his smaller channels was banned by YouTube just days before. On YouTube, creators can’t just create an alternate channel to get around a ban. YouTube will know what other accounts a user has and ban that channel, too.

What is bizarre, however, is the reason Enderman’s channels were terminated in the first place. According to Enderman, YouTube sent him a notification when his first channel was terminated. YouTube claimed Enderman’s channel had connections to a non-English language YouTube channel that had previously been terminated itself for receiving three or more copyright strikes.

Again, that makes sense, knowing what we know about how YouTube enforces its policies on terminated channels. But Enderman says he has nothing to do with that non-English channel and knew nothing of it before this whole issue came up. The Japanese-language channel in Enderman’s screenshot, 椛のスターレイル遊び, translates roughly as “Momiji plays Honkai: Star Rail Adventures,” a reference to a Japanese role-playing game.

And, it appears Enderman isn’t the only one.

Over the past few days, numerous YouTube creators with large channels and hundreds of thousands of subscribers have shared that their accounts have been mysteriously terminated by YouTube. Mashable has come across at least half a dozen large channels that have received a similar notification, all of which tie their ban back to the same non-Honkai: Star Rail Adventures YouTube channel.

Scratchit Gaming, with more than 402,000 subscribers, shared on social media that their YouTube channel was banned due to an alleged connection to the Japanese channel. Another channel, known as 4096, with around half a million subscribers, also says it was terminated for the same reason.

However, over the past few weeks, it appears even more large channels have also been terminated, with YouTube stating it was due to “spam, deceptive practices, and scam policy.”

While these YouTubers have yet to get an answer from YouTube, Enderman is blaming YouTube’s new reliance on AI for moderation and policy adherence. In a video posted to his channel before it was banned, Enderman questioned why YouTube was allowing such “drastic measures like channel termination” to be decided by AI without a human reviewing the process first.

Other YouTubers are also blaming AI and the platform’s appeals process, which they believe is also powered by AI.

Earlier this year, YouTube shared information about its new AI-powered moderation for video ads on its platform. 

“While human reviewers are still used for some videos, YouTube has invested heavily in automated systems using LLM technology to review ad content,” Mashable’s Timothy Beck Werth reported at the time. And according to a YouTube policy page, the company uses a combination of automated and human review for non-advertising content.

“When our systems have a high degree of confidence that content is violative, they may make an automated decision. However, in the majority of cases, our automated systems will simply flag content to a trained human reviewer for evaluation before any action is taken.”

Mashable has reached out to YouTube for more information and will update this piece when we hear back.