YouTube is a lot of things, but one thing it hasn’t been known for recently is its timely and earnest replies to users with concerns and criticisms.
That’s where Shaun, a YouTube essayist whose Twitter handle is shaun_jen, came in.
Shaun, like many people, was bothered by YouTube’s lack of response to Steven Crowder’s harassment of Vox journalist Carlos Maza (which we cover in detail here).
So, over the past couple of weeks, Shaun has relentlessly forced YouTube to pay attention to his complaints – by pretending to ask for customer support!
Youtube TV not working, strange error message? @TeamYouTube
— Shaun (shaunvids on bsky) (@shaun_vids) May 31, 2019
Although he’d previously failed to get their attention by addressing his criticism directly, Shaun finally got a response from @TeamYouTube:
We'd like to help. Mind sharing more details on the error message you see on YouTube TV? Screenshots of it could help us understand the issue better. Keep us posted.
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) May 31, 2019
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And the creator wasted no time, putting his real point on full blast:
okay hello yes my issue isn't actually with Youtube TV, apologies. it is with repeated targeted homophobic bullying on your platform as evidenced below. why do you allow this harassment on your platform?https://t.co/npiS3RX88H
— Shaun (shaunvids on bsky) (@shaun_vids) May 31, 2019
YouTube never replied, but thousands of people now knew for a fact that they saw Shaun’s complaint, which is probably all the guy wanted to accomplish.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Just a few days ago, Shaun pulled the same trick again.Â
hey @TeamYouTube, sorry to be a bother – i'm currently trying to pay money to youtube, for a service, but i'm getting a confusing error message?
— Shaun (shaunvids on bsky) (@shaun_vids) June 7, 2019
And Team YouTube fell for the ruse a second time:
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thanks, it's fixed now. however, i have a new issue: in your response to carlos maza, you said that though the homophobic abuse directed at him did not violate your policies, it was "clearly hurtful." this contradicts your cyberbullying policy against hurtful content: (1/2) pic.twitter.com/RuWs6vEyCe
— Shaun (shaunvids on bsky) (@shaun_vids) June 7, 2019
Once again, YouTube seemed strangely unable to see this latest reply, just minutes later.
Shaun’s fans absolutely love the stunt, and clearly want to see how many times he can get away with it before YouTube stops responding to him entirely.
i can’t believe this worked AGAIN
— Bigitte (ACAB) (@void_femme) June 7, 2019
There's no way this is going to work a second ti—-
OMG pic.twitter.com/sCja5JqqkR
— aran (@arancaytar) June 7, 2019
Some followers pointed out the absurdity of how far some people have had to go to come close to getting their criticisms addressed:
https://twitter.com/itme_Coyote/status/1137032266008485889
Shaun, for his part, said this wasn’t intended to be a stunt; he honestly, genuinely had run out of ideas for getting through to the YouTube administrators.
this is not me joking around i literally have no idea if it's even possible to talk to someone at youtube about harassment, let alone how i'd go about doing that. this was genuinely my best idea pic.twitter.com/vRajM6XI4g
— Shaun (shaunvids on bsky) (@shaun_vids) May 31, 2019
Shaun’s YouTube channel has less than 300k subscribers, which makes sense when you know he’s a dedicated political channel, putting out long and thoughtful video essays every other month or so.
Despite being firmly in his niche, though, Shaun has a lot of supporters across the more liberal parts of Twitter and YouTube. You can see more of his posts here.
What do you think of Shaun’s methods? Is he doing any good by baiting YouTube this way, or will it backfire?
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