Here, it seems YouTube simply experienced a glitch in its machines and lost several channels – unbeknownst to the owners or creators – as it identified the channels as having "Spam & Deceptive Practices." The company has since apologized for the issue and says it is working to rectify it, but was mum on why the bans occurred to raise even more questions over whether it may have some blame in the company's automaton.

Hey Creators – We are aware of a bug that incorrectly identifies some channels as Spam, and we've lost them. Our teams are currently investigating this and restoring the channels as fast as possible – thank you so much for your patience.
More details: https://t.co/xQ9AFg0woc
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) October 3, 2024
On X, YouTube said Thursday night it was aware of a problem "causing some channels to be incorrectly flagged for spam and removed." The company said that it is investigating the problem and attempting to reinstate any affected channels. It updated again later in the evening to say that it is still working on reinstating and that further content, such as playlists, may still be delayed.

The company hasn't said anything else on its official Facebook account as of Friday morning, which implies the situation was not yet completely fixed at this writing.

Update: our teams are continuing work to restore the channels and subscriptions that were incorrectly removed – sorry about the hassle! Some stuff, like playlists, might be a little slow in coming back, but it's all returning. Thanks again for hanging tight while we work on this! https://t.co/YH9idZFuai

— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) October 4, 2024
But YouTube said the X issue was resolved Friday afternoon.
 Here is the complete update: ". all channels and most of your videos that were mistakenly removed, will now be restored. We are also restoring subscriptions, just a bit more work yet to do, so bear with us a bit longer!! We know this has caused quite a disruption, and we're so, so grateful for your patience with this #ThanksForTheHugs https://t.co/8HbjnhJC4T
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) October 4, 2024
Missing in YouTube's posts is any explanation as to how something like this could occur or an acknowledgement of the scale of the problem, though the last post suggests that YouTube itself knows the issue.

Social media reports from creators had indicated the problem was fairly serious and widespread. For instance, in hundreds of responses to YouTube's X posts, there were creators and their fans discussing the channels they wanted to see restored. Other creators complained about missing files or that they tried to change settings or support but received no assistance. Hundreds of responses also await YouTube's updates on its Help site, but no further explanation is to be had.
It's where the controversy has been more pressing on the side of the creators, given channel removals deprive them of their primary source of income; although there have been reports that some YouTube Premium users complained that they lost access too, if they don't upload videos or haven't uploaded them in ages. In other words, not being allowed to use their Premium subscription and thus were cut off from streaming on YouTube Music.

A classic problem of companies that tightly couple multiple services under one roof--publishing on YouTube, subscribing to Premium, and streaming via YouTube Music and YouTube TV--comes the problem of a false takedown about spam. Thus, people suffered loss of access not only to their channels, perhaps never using them but also to paid subscriptions.

YouTube announced on its Help site that it was working on restoring access to subscriptions as well as the removed channels, adding, "We are very sorry for this error on our part and we'll follow up here when it's done."

TechCrunch reached out to YouTube for comment on the situation, including the scale and the cause. As of Friday afternoon, the company only pointed us to its official X posts.