YouTube Permanently Bans Fantasy Author John A. Douglas Without Giving Any Substantive Reason

YouTube has been causing problems for more and more creators. There’s been a recent wave of bannings which seem to be driven by mass reporting and false flagging, where YouTube’s new AI algorithm hits a channel and denies an appeal without any human actually ever reviewing it. Fantasy author and book reviewer John A. Douglas got hit with one of these bans yesterday, losing years of videos and subscribers without warning.

As far as content creators go, few are more innocuous than John A. Douglas. Most of his content is dedicated to showing off books and doing book reviews of fantasy novels and comics and supporting Eric July and the Rippaverse. He’s widely known across the indie author community as a genial guy who makes friends with everyone.

He’s an author, with his work The Black Crown being a favorite among fans of indie fantasy who have discovered him through his videos. He sometimes goes viral because of his commentary on bookstores not carrying any products for men, especially in the fantasy section, where in recent years companies have been stocking “romantasy” as a genre more than anything else, leaving regular book readers perplexed.

While nothing he does can be considered a violation of YouTube’s terms of service, he is counter-narrative enough and likeable enough to be considered a threat from the establishment already.

Yesterday, Douglas discovered that he had been banned with an email form YouTube saying he’s repeatedly violated community guidelines. He posted this to X, saying, “What a coincidence! A few days after I embarrassed the known trolls of @EricDJuly, my YouTube channel is mass reported and TAKEN DOWN! I’m sure it’s just an amazing happenstance. I am appealing this @YouTube. Not going down like this. I’d appreciate anyone’s help sharing this”

Upon speaking with Douglas, Fandom Pulse learned he had never once had a strike on his channel, never once gotten any notice of violating community guidelines or Terms of Service, so having an email say “repeated” made no sense, especially since he did not receive any notification that any of his videos were problematic to YouTube.

He followed up with a screenshot later of his appeal to YouTube, which was declined within moments, signaling that no human actually reviewed his comment but that it was done by an AI algorithm. He posted with the screenshot, saying, “This is absolute garbage @YouTube@YouTubeCreators After years on this platform with not a single violation, not only did you take down the channel, you rejected the appeal within FIVE MINUTES! Your automated system needs to be thrown into the sun.”

This is clearly YouTube acting in bad faith, and John A. Douglas received support from larger YouTubers in the space tagging the company like Eric July, Yellowflash 2, Drunk 3PO and even Nerdrotic trying to help him with his situation. YouTube did reply 15 hours ago for Douglas to DM them, but his attempts there have been fruitless so far.

Douglas tells Fandom Pulse he was the target of a mass reporting campaign that false flagged his channel because of his pro-Eric July content. He believes these people coordinated, and YouTube acted without actually looking at the content.

Fandom Pulse could not find verification of this reporting, though we have seen it happening with recent channels across YouTube, where groups flag a channel and attack it to take it down within moments. It’s happened to several people since the beginning of May, and John A. Douglas seems to be the latest with a problem in YouTube’s ecosystem.

You can follow John A. Douglas on X and support his book, The Black Crown, here.

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