Current Events > Google set to delete millions of videos from inactive YouTube accounts.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Starting later this year, if a Google Account has not been used or signed into for at least 2 years, we may delete the account and its contents including content within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar), YouTube and Google Photos.

https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/updating-our-inactive-account-policies/

Kinda bad for preservation. What about channels that did viral, informative or funny videos and didnt update consistently?

So many old photos will be lost

And videos

Imagine if someone uploaded a video a pet that died 10 years ago

LightningAce11 posted...

https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/updating-our-inactive-account-policies/

Kinda bad for preservation. What about channels that did viral, informative or funny videos and didnt update consistently?

Plus those from people who simply died.

More proof that you should download everything you care about.

That sounds bad. I would hope there is some kind of backup for popular YouTube videos.

Time to fire up the Youtube downloader I guess

That's so fucking stupid. I often watch videos from dead channels.

Google saw what happened to PH and wanted to do an even larger scale, more heartbreaking version. A lot of great videos will be lost if this happens.

The portal to happier times is closing.

Eh, they were nice enough to let me keep me email when they yeeted my account.
Probably shitposted so much in Fox News comment sections they thought it was spam.

Well it wasn't. All of my comments were tailor made and unique.

I really hope Matt has been signing into the old Two Best Friends Play channel since the breakup

What about accounts you forward? Are those considered to be signed into?

YouTube is about to get pretty crummy for music huh? If you want to look up music from a band that hasn't released anything in two years you're just out of luck?

What the FUCK! First imgur now youtube

this is dumb, google has more than enough income to keep hosting these videos for an eternity

Cybershell says it best

https://youtu.be/fD7X9SCn0To?t=688

This means every Two Best Friends video is about to be deleted.

LightningAce11 posted...

https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/updating-our-inactive-account-policies/

Kinda bad for preservation. What about channels that did viral, informative or funny videos and didnt update consistently?

so what? They cant keep that shit stored on the servers forever you got to be responsible for your own account content

whoa. this is actually kind of insane.....an entire era will be deleted.

Goddamn are we running low on internet or something?

Gritty posted...

so what? They cant keep that shit stored on the servers forever you got to be responsible for your own account content

They absolutely can store it for effectively forever. You think fucking google is scrounging for server space?

Awesker002 posted...

This means every Two Best Friends video is about to be deleted.

Oh FUCK

A_Good_Boy posted...

Goddamn are we running low on internet or something?

Not enough tubes, or pipes!

Did people actually expect Google to archive everything, forever, for free?

That is absolutely horrible what the fuck? That would delete like 90% of their library. It would erase pretty much every classic video from 2006.-2012 Why are they trying to follow Musk's twitter direction? Even Musk says he's gong to archive old tweets. If it's only the currently active within 2 year channels left it might as well be Tiktok at that point. This would be the best possible time for a competitor to swoop in.
Best I can hope for is maybe they're not going to target accounts with videos or significant content in their accounts.

There's gonna be so many classic videos gone. The youtube creator at the zoo video, old meme videos like my new haircut, all the Super Best Friends videos or Smosh videos or whoever you liked years ago that stopped, all these random game OST channels, all these random music channels, etc.

The more I think about it, the worst it gets

Cloud storage is a fucking scam.

s0nicfan posted...

Did people actually expect Google to archive everything, forever, for free?

Should've listened to the warnings before going beyond the 10 minute limit.

Probably going to be the biggest media loss in modern history. Completely insane

Unbelievably lame

Google was watching da hub and imgur and said "Hold my beer"

Snip-N-Snails posted...

That is absolutely horrible what the fuck? That would delete like 90% of their library. It would erase pretty much every classic video from 2006.-2012 Why are they trying to follow Musk's twitter direction? Even Musk says he's gong to archive old tweets. If it's only the currently active within 2 year channels left it might as well be Tiktok at that point. This would be the best possible time for a competitor to swoop in.
Best I can hope for is maybe they're not going to target accounts with videos or significant content in their accounts.

It says "may." Google isn't going to shoot themselves in the foot and delete videos people are still watching. That's good ad revenue. This is likely for dead accounts with dead videos that nobody watches that have been sitting there for years.

I immediately thought of some old videos I want to archive.

First Imgur. Then Twitter. Now Youtube.

The Great Internet purge is here.

This is very unprofessional. The proper thing to do is just delete and lock all those accounts with no warning whatsoever.

loafy013 posted...

This is very unprofessional. The proper thing to do is just delete and lock all those accounts with no warning whatsoever.

You forgot the part where you complain about how upholding your video storage service is just too hard.

All the monoliths of the internet:
"We're turning link rot into a feature. Also we're going to lawyer-dogpile archive.org all at once."

ViewtifulJoe posted...

The portal to happier times is closing.

That's what I first thought...the music is going to be my biggest issue. I listen to so many channels that are early '00s niche.

All those lost media videos on YT will be lost again. Complete series with no claim on them will be gone then.

ProfessorKukui posted...

a lot of educational pornography is gonna be lost

We have AI now to make up for it

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/1/6/AAZ3HuAAEe6w.png

this is going to kill most of youtube history

Christ. The internet is getting worse every day

Here's a fun one if anyone listens to video game music arranges.

All the "X SONG BUT EVERY 3RD AND 11TH BEAT ARE SWAPPED AND IT ALSO GETS FASTER" spam videos are probably going to stay.
The gems beneath, that you're digging for, are the most likely to vanish.

Tens of millions will go to fucking war with Google if they delete Keyboard Cat.

FUCK Google

s0nicfan posted...

It says "may." Google isn't going to shoot themselves in the foot and delete videos people are still watching. That's good ad revenue. This is likely for dead accounts with dead videos that nobody watches that have been sitting there for years.

That's a bit of a relief. It seems the Datahoarder topic on this are saying the same sentiment and apparently it's already had a similar policy to this.
That said, it seems if you find something you really like you should probably download it as you might never find it again. It's funny how that old saying of "anything you upload online will be there forever" is now completely outdated since many uploaded things are now just gone forever once enough time has passed and people dedicated to preserving it even for former big names either lose interest or are lost themselves.

If they limit it to videos with like 100 views or less, that'd be fine compared to the alternative, but fuck them if they delete a bunch of old popular shit because they don't know how to properly do a project like that.

Don't support this.

I'm sure there's a lot of inactive accounts that still have watched content to this day.

Imagine all these instructional videos of obscure things like fixing the stove or laundry machine gone.

I hope somebody saves the super best friend stuff