The Google-announced policy update to remove accounts that have been inactive for two years has already caused unrest in the online community, which fears for the safety of content. Inactive accounts hold millions of videos uploaded to YouTube by deceased or retired content creators. According to some reports, video hosting will still refrain from removing such materials.
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In a recent post on the Google blog, it was explicitly stated that if an account has not been used for two or more years, the account may be deleted, including including materials from Google Workspace (documents, mail, calendar data, etc.). .), data from YouTube and Google Photos. In other words, in theory, many of the first videos uploaded to the hosting, materials from the official accounts of former heads of state and other content created and published by people who are now dead or retired from YouTube may well be deleted.
However, other information has emerged. According to Rene Ritchie, YouTube’s official contact with content creators, Google “has no plans to remove accounts from YouTube videos.” In addition, the 9to5Google portal confirms the information with reference to one of the Google representatives.
Image Source: Rene Ritchie
While the news is good for both creators and consumers of retro content, the information contradicts the official statement on the Google blog. Whether people will be able to keep a Google account forever by uploading a single video to it has not yet been officially commented on. It is possible that the company itself has not yet made a final decision.
One way or another, the company is really not interested in removing old content from YouTube, which includes millions of cult videos parsed into quotes and memes, not to mention the fact that advertising in many popular videos still brings money to both YouTube and the authors of the materials. And this is not counting reputational and other costs for the company.
As you know, the new policy does not come into force until December 2023, so Google still has enough time to make the necessary changes.
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