TLDR:

On the 8th July 2025, YouTube have banned our channel without just cause and are refusing to reinstate it.

1.      There was a large data breach of 16b passwords

2.      A channel linked as a backup account was affected by the breach

3.      Due to YT policy, you may own no other channels if one is removed

4.      The affected account was reinstated after review

5.      YT refuse to unban the account which had no breach of community guidelines

Please sign the petition and help us recover our channel.

 

July 8th, 2025

Hello everyone, we are I See Orange, a Mexican led originals alt rock band from the UK and our YouTube channel has been unfairly terminated, we need YOUR help to get it back.

Google had a large data breach of 16b passwords as a result one of our band members personal Gmail accounts was compromised.

the YouTube channel linked to that Gmail was hijacked, and live streamed crypto scams and was subsequently removed from the platform.

 

We had built an amazing engaging community that love our music. The content we posted consist of our live performances and music videos for our original songs which we own the copyrights of. The channel was doing very well with natural growth generating us hundreds of thousands of views on our videos. We were even part of the YouTube partner program due to the success of the channel.

This channel was opening opportunities for us as a band. We were able to begin making a profit to help us grow and produce more music and content for our fans and followers.

We have never done anything to break YouTube community guidelines, no copyright strikes, and no breaches of any guidelines, we have remained innocent.

 

 

After completing the appeal process for the hacked personal channel, it is now back up and the violations have been removed. However, our band channel is still unreachable.

This is because the band channel was linked by name and recovery association.
YouTubes policy states that any channel that is removed may not own or create any other channels. Both channels were terminated and removed from YouTube.com very shortly after being hijacked

It took a few days of emailing between YouTube support, but they restored the personal channel and had hope that the other account would soon follow. Perhaps this would only be a small setback that would cause no permanent damage… wrong.

 

YouTube tells us that our band channel, I SEE ORANGE will not be restored, even after a human re-evaluation, that would mean two things:

We would not be able to sign into our personal channel because of the termination of the account attached to our Gmail account.
We would not be allowed to return to the YouTube platform in any way.

Any attempts to appeal the ban are supposed to be done through the YouTube Studio, which is impossible to use after one appeal has already been denied.

After the YouTube team restored our hacked personal account and removed the violations, they told us to make a new case under the other channels access email.

This is where things take a turn for the worst. With all the information given about what has happened, supplying email case numbers for reference of actions taken by YouTube in the restoration of the hacked channel. Supplying all the screen shots of the conversations from their own team and full details of the history of accounts.

They turn around and say that we have violations on our channel and there is nothing to be done.

A YouTube Team Manager also admitted to knowing after weeks of emails that the channel was only shut down because of another linked channel. "We've found that your channel is related to another channel that is terminated for violating our Harmful or dangerous content policy. "

however, they fail to see that account has been reinstated, and violations removed which you would then think means any channels terminated as a result should be reinstated to?

No. this is their response - "Please know that the decision is already final and there's nothing else that we can do to overturn your channel termination. Any future re-appeal won't be entertained. "

The team have ignored everything we have said regarding the violations being removed from the linked channel and it’s reinstated status, they prefer to have the channel that makes them money, is partnered and has done nothing wrong terminated, We believe we are victims of a weak automated review system whose human handlers simply believe it is correct without any actual review or thought taking place.

Please explain to us, why we, who have done absolutely nothing to violate any guidelines, needs to be removed from the YouTube platform because of an account that had been unfortunately hacked and was unfortunately linked by name. Then to have that hacked account recovered and told the channel that has done nothing wrong remain terminated??

So, what does this say about YouTube?

Does it mean that YouTube doesn’t value their creators and their communities?

Do they think that ordinary people are culpable of tech giants like Googles security breaches?

Unfortunately, our situation isn’t unique, thousands of channels, many in the partner program have been affected by the Google data breach and have been seeking YT support and have been ignored. responses by the YouTube team (if you can find a way to contact them) are clearly automated responses.

They need to implement a system that informs when related channels have been cleared and reinstate related channels to that account.

 

 

How can you help?

Petitions have worked for creators in similar situations already, please help us by signing this petition and sharing it.

Tag the @TeamYouTube and @YouTube pages on X.com (formerly Twitter) linking this petition to them and using the hashtag #JusticeforISEEORANGE.

Make some noise about it on all social media make sure you tag the appropriate YouTube pages.

Leaving a like, comment on any post related to these issues helps a lot.

 

We are hopeful that with the help of our community and our fans we will be able to reclaim our channel, and we are able to bring you more of the content that you love from us in the future.

This experience has been traumatic and devastating. Causing so much stress and worry. Impacting our professional career and making us feel like all is lost.

Don’t let our hard work, effort and dreams be stomped out because of a giant corporation’s incompetence and dishonesty.

Thank you for all your support and we hope to be bringing you more music videos soon.

Muchas gracias,

I See Orange