YouTube War Crime: Site Takes Down Rifftrax Briefly In A Sort Of Collective Punishment Example

Because of the wonderful world in which we live, we get to learn about certain unhappy terms and practices, one of which is the concept of “collective punishment.” As a matter of war, collective punishment is a war crime. The idea is that a belligerent force cannot punish an entire population or group merely for the actions committed by a member or associate of that group. For a real world example, see: Gaza.

Now, spicy headlines aside, YouTube has not committed an actual war crime. However, it appeared to briefly engage in something similar in the digital realm when it went about shutting down the channel for Rifftrax, a spinoff and independently run channel from some veterans of the classic Mystery Science 3000 cast. It appears that the channel was shut down not because of any activity it engaged in on the channel, but rather because of some questionable copyright strikes levied against the channel of its former parent company.

So, to summarize, Rifftrax’s channel was taken down because of some copyright strikes that may or may not be legitimate, but which were also targeting a channel Rifftrax was previously affiliated with, but which it no longer is. So, the sins of one channel resulted in the takedown of another due to an indirect association. Collective punishment.

As you can see from Rifftrax’s statement, it had resigned itself to simply being off YouTube entirely. I’m sure there had been some back and forth with YouTube’s support, but that didn’t seem to result in any progress. It was only when Rifftrax made its public statement and rallied its very passionate fanbase that YouTube managed to realize its error and reinstate the channel.

It’s great that public backlash resulted in justice being done in this instance, but what if we were talking about a channel with much less of a following than Rifftrax? What would have happened then? Would that channel ever have been reinstated? Without the pressure from the public, would YouTube ever have lifted a finger?

While we can’t answer that question definitively, it certainly is certain that this kind of collateral damage occurs far too often on many internet platforms, YouTube especially. And nobody seems to be willing to do anything about it.