YouTube has added more factors to its policy and stated that “instructional hacking and phishing” videos violate its policy regarding dangerous content.
The policy outlines that videos that show “users how to bypass secure computer systems or steal user credentials and personal data,” will fall under this category.
Although these changes were put in place earlier this year, users began to notice it recently as videos under the Null Byte channel were flagged and removed. Kody Kinzie, the co-founder of the channel, says his channel aims to teach users about security and computer science.
We made a video about launching fireworks over Wi-Fi for the 4th of July only to find out @YouTube gave us a strike because we teach about hacking, so we can’t upload it.
YouTube now bans: “Instructional hacking and phishing: Showing users how to bypass secure computer systems”
— Kody (@KodyKinzie) July 2, 2019
Kinzie outlined on Twitter that this ban would be bad news for those trying to learn about computer security. YouTube confirmed to The Verge that the videos were taken down in error, and have been reinstated.
YouTube found that only one video on the account violated policies. The policy outlined that videos that have an educational or scientific purpose are exempt from the policy, which is possibly why the other videos were reinstated.
It is unclear when YouTube started taking down hacking videos, but the policy has reportedly been in place since April 5th of this year, as outlined by The Verge.
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