Hi. I am Raphael.

I am a YouTuber. I've been uploading videos for more than 2 years, and I have 4k subscribers and almost 700k views.

Well, until now.

Let's start from the beginning. In February 2014, I uploaded a short video encouraging my viewers to check out a guide in a forum to improve their gaming experience. The day later, the video was down and I got a Community Guidelines Strike.

I appealed the strike and it was rejected. I couldn't see how my video violated the Community Guidelines, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't get any more strikes during the 6 months it takes for a strike to expire, so I didn't try anything else.

When I came back from my vacations on the 10th May, I saw that I had received a second Community Guidelines Strike, this time for 4 videos. Once more, without explanation. I checked the Guidelines yet again, and no violation of these applied to any of my videos, especially since the concerned videos were amongst the first I’d put up on my channel.

Despite this, my YouTube channel was disabled for 2 weeks.
After consulting with my network's experts, I decided to appeal the Strike. The appeal was rejected. I was really embarrassed about this, and resolved that I’d check all my videos for possible errors once the ability to access my account was to be enabled again.

On the 15th of May, whilst discussing the issue of my Strikes with a friend, I went to check my YouTube channel to see my new comments. But, instead of seeing the usual homepage, I saw a dreadful red banner saying "This account has been terminated due to repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines and/or claims of copyright infringement. "


I was stunned. Really stunned. I checked my emails; I’d received a third Community Guidelines Strike. Again, I couldn't understand why.

I wasn’t given a chance to refrain from further violations and to correct whatever mistakes I might have made, because my account had already been disabled as a result of the second strike when it was terminated.

I wasn’t given a chance to understand why I was punished in this way.

I wasn’t given any chance at all.

This is why I formally request YouTube to either provide a full explanation as to why my account was terminated, and as to why I received a third Strike whilst I was still undergoing the punishments of the second one. If a reasonable explanation is not available, I sincerely ask of them to return my YouTube account, and to remove these perplexing Strikes I have suffered.

There have been similar cases in the past, where Youtubers have received Strikes, seemingly without having committed any violations. Some of these people have been successful in retrieving their channels. I am not alone. And this is why I’m asking you to take the time to sign this petition, and to show your support. I am one of many who make up the vast Youtube community - but without individuals, there will be no community.

Thank you.
~Raphael2