Back in 2021, one of my YouTube channels was terminated after my Google account was hacked. I’m pretty sure the channel was relatively new at the time, and I had only posted some gameplay highlights before eventually forgetting about it. One day I checked and found that the channel had been terminated and my entire Google account had been disabled.
The hacker uploaded scam “FPS boost” content, and I know it wasn’t me because **multiple people I knew messaged me telling me my channel had been hacked**, and other people were commenting under the scam video saying it wasn’t me. I was also getting emails because of the comments/activity on the video.
The important thing is that **all of my original channels, both before and after that termination, have never been hit with circumvention.** I’ve continued operating my current channel for years without receiving a circumvention termination or warning.
My concern is that I was only 14 at the time and didn’t understand YouTube’s circumvention policy or account security very well. I genuinely didn’t even know I had a previously terminated channel until I found out what happened.
It seems like this could happen to other creators too. Someone could have an old, inactive Google account get hacked years ago, have a channel terminated because of what the hacker uploaded, and then unknowingly get punished for circumvention years later. **That might honestly be why you see creators saying “but I’ve never been terminated” when they get hit with circumvention—they may not even know they had an old channel that was terminated years ago.**
Obviously people say “it’s not fair, I got terminated” all the time, but in this situation it genuinely feels different. It’s honestly sad that I could potentially be punished for something I didn’t do simply because I was careless about securing my account when I was 14.
So the question is why haven’t I been terminated since the hack?
