YouTube has apologized for accidentally banning ChilledCow, an account that runs popular 24/7 music live stream. The site has been trying to grow the popularity of its live streams, having paid a rumored $160 million for exclusive rights to Overwatch League, but fans feel that the ChilledCow ban is a huge step backwards for the site.
Many YouTube viewers were alarmed over the weekend when ChilledCow's "lofi hip hop radio - beats to study/relax to" was suddenly unavailable. The stream, which had been running for more than 500 days before YouTube took it down, provided an easy listening soundtrack for those who like to read, write, or play games with something playing the background.
On Twitter, ChilledCow tweeted two official YouTube accounts to ask for an explanation, also sharing a screenshot of an email from YouTube that said ChilledCow had violated the site's terms of service. YouTube's terms of services are long and have included controversial policies such as minors being unable to stream without adult supervision and it was unclear how ChilledCow had broken the rules.
YouTube's Twitter response to ChilledCow confirmed that the channel was banned accidentally and said that the issue had been fixed, allowing ChilledCow to bring back the 24/7 stream and "lofi girl" as the character in the streams has been called. YouTube also said that it is "sorry this happened" and that "we've shared feedback with our review team to prevent similar errors from happening in the future." Sites like Twitch have been criticized for accidental bans like this and it wasn't surprising to see ChilledCow's fans response negatively to YouTube's tweets.
In a tweet, one fan asked YouTube for more information on why ChilledCow was banned and what the site will be doing to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again. Several others just asked that YouTube team to do a "better" job. While some may say that users' criticism of YouTube for its YouTube Rewind 201 9 video was extreme, few can say that fans are in the wrong here as not much information about the ban has been given.
The issue may make users feel that they cannot trust YouTube to protect their favorite streams. If channels as popular as ChilledCow can get banned, what's stopping YouTube for banning much smaller gaming YouTube streamers? It could be a problem for the site if this feeling spreads as it has been trying to take down Twitch and other growing streaming sites such as Facebook Gaming and Mixer. However, becoming the best streaming site is difficult when you ban one of your most popular streamers.