Sinatra_Says, a YouTube political commentator and content creator, has been trying to get re-monetized for months after he was removed from the partnership program earlier this year. He has more than 167,000 subscribers and more than 25 million video views, according to SocialBlade. However, he’s stuck in a review limbo where YouTube won’t re-approve his channel. Why? He doesn’t know. They won’t say. He can’t even get a response from them.
Sinatra_Says started his bid to re-monetize his channel back in July, but he had no response from YouTube about the monetization.
Hey @TeamYouTube @YTCreators with your wanting to “commit to open the platform for small creators” can you review my re-monetization application? Its been a month since I applied. You can see that I am not what was claimed when my channel was demonetized. https://t.co/5FjGxjMzDF pic.twitter.com/KiK2DgVJ6U
— Sinatra (@Sinatra_Says) August 28, 2019
I would really love to hear something back @TeamYouTube
— Sinatra (@Sinatra_Says) August 29, 2019
From late August up through September, Sinatra_Says continued to ping the TeamYouTube Twitter account about why the review process was still being held up.
He also shared an image showing that his channel meets all the requirements to be monetized, but YouTube is still denying his channel monetization.
heres the 2 channels, ones been waiting for over 6 months, the main channel has been waiting for over a month, please help @TeamYouTube @YTCreators @YouTube pic.twitter.com/PX1AHb4Iz2
— Sinatra (@Sinatra_Says) September 4, 2019
Sinatra_Says also shared a direct message to the TeamYouTube Twitter account, where he attempted to get a direct response from the creator support account, but his messages went unanswered; his queries untasted by the tongue of YouTube’s interest.
— Sinatra (@Sinatra_Says) September 4, 2019
So why the denial of monetization for his channels? What did he do wrong? Well, just watch one of his videos and maybe you’ll figure it out. Check out the one about ContraPoints and The Young Turks criticizing Dave Chappelle’s Netflix special.
Still not clear enough for you why YouTube likely won’t approve monetization for Sinatra_Says? Maybe something a little more on the nose will help get the point across for you.
Got it now?
Even Liberals knew what was up and pointed out that due to YouTube’s consistent censorship of Conservatives and those who aren’t Left leaning was probably the reason why they refused to re-monetize Sinatra_Says’ channels.
I am a liberal myself, and I do believe in free speech, especially to people on the right, and if YouTube is purposely doing this to silence creators with a different political view, then that’s anti free speech, which YouTube even mentions that they don’t do.
— Tsunamix (@Tsunamix5) September 7, 2019
I think you’re demonetized because of the terms you use to describe liberals, LGBT+ people, etc. I know it’s your style of commentary and all, and it gets not only me to laugh, but other members in your audience to as well, but i believe that’s the issue.
— Tsunamix (@Tsunamix5) September 7, 2019
It might also just be the fact that YouTube is hating on conservative YouTubers, and they are pandering to people on the left.
— Tsunamix (@Tsunamix5) September 7, 2019
Even though YouTube isn’t honoring his request to get monetized, Sinatra_Says is still racking in some funds from loyal patrons over on his Patreon account.
However, this is another vector of YouTube’s battle against free speech. You can exercise some minuscule, curtailed, and truncated form of expression, but if it’s not the kind of expression they want broadcast then they simply won’t allow you to monetize said content. It’s technically not direct censorship, but it does instill a chilling effect to route people away from certain topical matters or from expressing certain views they don’t want on the platform. They’ve done it with Sargon of Akkad, Nerdette’s Newstand, and even certain channels discussing the Vic Mignogna lawsuit. And that’s just scratching the tip of the iceberg.
Given that Sinatra_Says covers topics from a common sense point of view, I’m actually shocked that his channel wasn’t among the 17,000 channels that were recently terminated on YouTube. However, any hope of getting officially monetized through the video giant’s services seems like a long shot at this point, especially since it’s been months and YouTube doesn’t even have the courtesy to reply to his requests.
(Thanks for the news tip Webbster64)
