YouTuber loses channel to AI error, wins legal battle, but YouTube still ignores him

YouTube’s unfair bans and suspensions have been a real problem for a long time now. Endermanch, who had 350K subs, lost his channel because YouTube’s AI wrongly connected him to another account with copyright strikes. And now IANROCKS (nearly 2 million subs) got his main channel demonetized over what he says was another system error. And if you think dealing with YouTube’s moderation is already a nightmare, one creator even won a legal battle against the platform, and his channel is still gone.

Legal victory? Not enough to beat YouTube’s AI moderation

Oleksandr, the creator of the “Chase Car” YouTube channel, shared what happened to him. First, YouTube’s AI system wrongly demonetized him in 2024 for “reused content,” but a human reviewer checked everything and restored his monetization, saying his videos were original and followed all rules.

Then a few months later, in November 2024, YouTube suddenly terminated his whole channel for “spam and deceptive practices,” even though nothing about his content had changed. His appeal got auto-rejected instantly, so he took the case to the EU dispute body ADROIT. In July 2025, they ruled in his favor: YouTube was wrong, they couldn’t point to any actual violation – this means the channel should be reinstated.

But even with a legal win, his channel is still gone. He says YouTube has paid no attention to months of messages and only sends bot replies. To him, it shows the system is stacked against creators – even if you follow all the rules, get cleared by a human, and legally win your case. As he puts it: “if they can ignore a legal ruling, no creator is safe.”

He is now filing a complaint with the Irish regulator and calling on the public to pressure YouTube to comply with the legal verdict.

In a previous post, Oleksandr pointed out that in the first half of 2025, YouTube’s AI wiped out over 5 million channels, mostly for “spam, deceptive practices & scams,” a category handled almost entirely by bots.

Since July 2025, YouTube has been cracking down on “AI slop” – repetitive or low-effort videos. The goal is to target creators who rely heavily on AI-generated content, but the company says it’s not a new rule, just stricter enforcement of existing YouTube Partner Program policies. But if AI is still in charge of moderation, mistakes are bound to happen, and more creator like Oleksandr could see their channels wrongly suspended or terminated.

• YouTube
• scandals and controversies
• AI / Artificial Intelligence