
Update []:
Rose Tinted Spectrum's YouTube channel has been restored.
"It's back," says the channel's owner on Social media. "Thank you, sincerely, to every single one of you that boosted this. To have to go through 24 hours of absolute stress in order to have this reinstated, and with still no indication what triggered it, is insane. But we're back."
Original Story: Popular retro gaming channel Rose Tinted Spectrum has been scrubbed from YouTube, triggering a flood of concerned posts on social media from fans and followers.
The channel's owner posted a plea to the video-hosting service yesterday, pointing out that the channel had been terminated for a violation of "spam/deceptive practise/abuse" policies.
"I've appealed this, and your automated system has kept it terminated," says the tweet. "Can I have a human look at this, please?"
A YouTube "spokesperson" replied with:
It looks like you’ve already appealed & received an email outlining the final decision. We know it wasn’t the outcome you were hoping for, but there’s nothing more we can do on our end as these decisions are made very carefully, appreciate your understanding.
As you can see, the exchange hasn't resulted in any positive action being taken:

Fans of the channel have been making their thoughts known:
[source x.com]
Comments 38
I would say it is shocking but all they do is give automated generic responses with zero human interaction and with no examples give. Many large platforms now just handle things this way and ban you for no reason and when you question why they can't actually give any reason specifically. Getting through to a real person or someone who doesn't just sit there copying from a list of responses they have is the most difficult part.
This is pretty crap all round isn't it? I don't know of Rose Tinted Spectrums personal circumstances but what if he relies on advertising money to live and support a familly?
At the very least, YouTube has banned a very entertaining channel so I hope that it will return in some form or another soon.
From the number of channels i follow on tubeYou this doesn't surprise me. Everyone eventually seems to get flagged for some non issue at some point. And there seems to be specific business setup to try to rinse people for copywright claims on music etc that is actually fair use. Madness.
Absolute dog mess behaviour from YouTube, but glad to see the situation has been getting attention and traction from both popular creators and press outlets like this one.
RoseTintedSpectrum has been working hard for more than 5 years on some great videos, and has just recently started enjoying some much-deserved breakout mainstream success with his GamesMaster retrospective videos. Here's hoping all the attention his case has gotten will lead to a swift resolution, ideally with YouTube taking a good, long, hard look at the automated nonsense that is the reason this came about in the first place.
I won't hold my breath for that last bit, but I have some faith that his channel will return, at least.
Rosie is one of the nicest guys out there and has put years worth of work into producing quality original content. He's lucky he's managed to get the attention of some bigger channels who can vouch for him and I really hope this leads to a positive conclusion, I'm certainly one of the ones kicking up a stink on his behalf.
This sort of thing gives one great confidence about the future of AI
... and YouTube wants us to pay for premium subscriptions. Why would I do that?
I've watched loads of this channels videos, he does some great spectrum ones. I've never once seen anything even remotely offensive. He never even hints at politics or anything.
Surprised this hasn't happened to Retro Game Corps too.
Unfortunately this has the been the state of YouTube and others for years, who are all too eager to rely heavily on technology to do their jobs and then blatantly lie that people have actually being involved. I've long since lost count with how many times I've seen that copy and pasted response to issues like this or the rampant fake copyright abuse.
I've had a similar issue with Facebook recently which simply won't let me make a new account (my old one long deleted). Every time I try it immediately says I've broken community guidelines and then upon appeal (which they claim a human looks at it, spoiler they don't), my appeal is rejected in an exact amount of time that never changes and it never gives me a reason
It's actually quite simple. Sony, Microsoft, Gearbox, Nintendo, Activision, Bethesda, ALL the big gaming companies pay YouTube for advertising. It's a MASSIVE portion of YouTube's revenue. Rose Tinted Spectrum showed the wonders of the retro games we grew up with and made us all want to go out and get retro games and emulators and relive our childhood instead of buying new games. Every penny we spend on retro games and emulators from private collectors and vendors is a penny these big game companies don't get. Rose Tinted Spectrum interfered with their revenue, so they had YouTube shut it down. For obvious reasons, YouTube will side with the companies that pay them millions of dollars every year over the creators, who don't.
Removed - inappropriate
I've been bingeing his GamesMaster series. Hilarious, wonderful work. Which led to me viewing his back catalogue of videos.
Baffled his entire channel was deleted. Nothing remotely offensive anywhere. Gutted actually. Was looking forward to my next binge.
YouTube today actually deleted one of the vids on my channel (non-game related). Been up for years. No problems.
Besides RTS, two other channels I follow got hit with demonetisation this past month.
The algorithm has def changed recently.
We need digital bill right so big company (like apple, google, and microsoft) can't just delete your channel without (human) reason, at least it should be looked by human, I heard the next usa president will be looking into that. Which is good btw, imagine if your google or apple id account suddenly banned with all your contact data missing, yeah that isn't good at all lol.
Look, this is the inevitable result of the raise of AI. It's a black box for the most part. YouTube probably really doesn't know why the AI decided it needed to be removed. You have to specifically design the system to determine a value and then the next system perform the action, not have the AI do both steps. I encountered this while talking to someone who worked with credit bureaus. They cannot have a fully automated system determine something about your credit w/o being able to state the why. Similarly here, the AI should be designed to generate the decisions and justification, record it, but then a second system perform the action. This way there is a log of what the decision was and why.
But, that is a more expensive solution than allowing the AI to do the whole process in one shot. It's also less accountable. The solution is to push for legislation for to require any/all automated decision systems to be required to record both the decision and the reasoning. It's a harder problem to solve for with AI, but not impossible. "Why did you give the famous person 6 fingers and only half a palm?" AI: "IDK, because yo' momma?" Then the world would see we're really not ready for AI to run so much of what we're allowing it to do.
I'm not familiar with this channel, but it sounds like an unfortunate situation. It also sounds needless. One thing I've noticed for some time, most of this year and perhaps even much of last year, is that Youtube has been broken in a lot of ways. I've run into many problems and have heard of more from others. Meanwhile, they can't be bothered to add some very basic featured to the mobile app. So I can't say I'm surprised that whatever is wrong at Youtube would manifest in this way, an automated channel deletion. I hope there is some possibility for a real resolution to this.
@wiiware If you think the next president in the US plans on doing anything beneficial for consumers, instead of the corporations then you haven't been paying attention...I also have a bridge that I'm selling, are you interested?
Dude monetizes copyrighted TV programs, uploads the same stuff over and over, sells merchandise of said copyrighted material and posts a note on youtube 24 hours earlier about how he's gaming youtube. Clearly youtube is to blame.
@Sketcz He must have been pretty young when he created GamesMaster.
If this was his (Confused him for another rose) source of Income, Sue for wrongful termination.
@GlamorousAlpaca I'm going to be charitable and assume that you're simply not familiar with the following:
He provides commentary over edited excerpts of TV shows, not full episodes, making his work clearly transformative and thus covered under YouTube's fair use provisions.
He has collected older work from multiple videos into single compilations that people can "binge". This is standard practice for moderately sized channels, because YouTube doesn't push old videos to new subscribers. YouTube doesn't allow you to upload identical videos, it detects that at the upload stage.
He does not sell any merch, and monetises entirely through YouTube and Patreon. Again, standard practice.
He has never claimed to have "created GamesMaster".
Any other accusations you want to make up, or are you done?
@PopetheRev28 independent contractors cannot sue for wrongful termination.
@wiiware there's no planned policies to help people in this position. It'll probably get worse as the incoming FCC chair, Brendan Carr, has historically opposed all regulations around these sorts of relationships. He wrote the entire chapter on the FCC in the Project 2025 book if you're curious to learn more about his positions.
@ThisIsPete Vomiting Up Old Videos Works, Regurgitated Old Flob are you for real? He posts a guide on how to game youtube via posting the same old crap over and over 24 hours before this happens.
As usual, more YouTube lies. AI takedown, AI communication, no human contact. "We've done all that we can do on our end" yeah, everything except have anything with even a hint of sapience review the facts before automatically rendering a "final" decision.
A couple weeks ago, 4amLaundry (a retro games and IRL streamer in Japan) had his stream shut down and streaming privileges revoked an hour into day one of a multi-day game hunting trip to Kumamoto he'd been planning and saving for for a month.
Why? In the course of shopping for retro games, he picked up a PlayStation lightgun. Now, admittedly, it was a realistic replica Beretta so you really can't fault the AI for flagging the stream... (Even though before and throughout handling it he kept assuring 'YouTube' that "This is not a real firearm, this is a PlayStation controller" it came out of a PlayStation box, and he was IN JAPAN.) The problem is that instead of having it manually reviewed and cleared up immediately, the AI YouTube reps jerked him around with a combination of nonsense and outright lies for the rest of the trip.
He now no longer streams on YouTube, and that's a significant loss of income for him. Despite that he's under a lot less stress these days... He doesn't have to worry about turning the corner in Hard-Off and accidentally showing an aisle full of airsoft guns on stream. (The other day while he was in a Hard-Off, we could hear someone test firing an AEG elsewhere in the store...on YouTube, if he'd encountered that scene on his way to the register it'd have been all over for him!)
Content creators need to unionize or something so they can have someone lobby for them and protect their interests. These companies have built up content creation as a career path...for some people the only one available to them right now...and use these people and their content as a product, without which they'd have nothing. And they've manipulated things to the point that the only way to be a viable content creator is to do it full time, and yet at any instant it can all be snatched away on the whim of a capricious mad god of an AI with zero human intervention or oversight. This is unacceptable.
@GlamorousAlpaca
He condensed 10 episodes of GM (5 hours worth) into 90s minutes, with analysis, summaries, insight, and jokes.
I have zero interest in sitting through the original series, but he put the work into producing something analytical and entertaining. This is not a breach of copyright. It's transformative as someone said.
I fail to see the problem here.
It's as easy as finding words that aren't child friendly and reporting someone you hate. It is too simple to take down any channel without the editor working as a censor.
I do not know why it's like this and I don't care. It needs to stop. With all the money at stake I'm seeing YouTubers that bring in ads get free passes while smaller YouTubers die from a single report. The fact that there is a monetary threshold to cross in order for humans to look at it is off-putting. All reviews sent in should be handled by human staff.
In the meantime Logan Paul can take you on a graphic tour of the Japanese suicide forrest but a retro gamer mentions, say, the big N and find their channel gone. This needs to change.
What happened with the YouTube channel is what happens when you don't have a team of anti trust lawyers. YouTube is a great platform, but it has become a monopoly. It needs to be broken up like standard oil.
Maybe someone jealous attacked the channel?
Removed - flaming/arguing
Pleased to report that our lad has got his channel back. Thanks to everyone who supported him and helped get the word out, including Damien.
If you don't already follow RTS, pop him a subscribe, I'm sure it'll make his day after a miserable 24 hours. https://www.youtube.com/@RoseTintedSpectrum
Ditch YouTube and move to Odysee. YouTube does not care about creators.
@avcrypt I'm not from usa so I only know this from youtube, the future president itself that said this so as long as he didn't lie maybe we'll trully get this. I hope so since I don't want my (mostly from usa company) account to get banned because some tos that I didn't know.
@A7Xlopez I'm just being hopeful, maybe sometimes politician don't lie, lol.
But seriously, it really suck if some company like sony can suddenly said "you're ps id is banned" and you lost all of your ps games that you bought with hard-earned money. It's the same as some books company send people to your house to take all of your books because you break that company tos. Digital (buying digital things) become so important now that its right has to be defined by law.
@Sketcz It's a really good show. Well worth watching the entire thing.
Once again YT's automated system strikes again. No channel is safe unless it's a big channel with a lot of support from other YouTubers and fans. Customer service is pointless as well, they just read out a script and have no idea how YouTube actually works. I really think that guy should demand a reason for his ban. Happened to me once and they never gave me a response.
@slider1983
Oh I know! I watched most of them back in the day. But given lack of time, and the fact I know the original gags, RTS' condensed commentaries on provide nostalgia, fill in episodes I missed, and provide insight, all in less time than it would take to rewatch the originals.
@Sketcz What a great show! 😊
@FurdTurgidson They don't need all that money,apparently it's all run by bots.
I subscribed to this channel and had no clue it got terminated then reinstated. YouTube suspended it without reason, their policies have changed a lot over the years with all these spam bots that never used to be a thing & constant deleting of comments plus removal of the dislike 👎🏻 button counter on videos, bare in mind idk if they ever showed the dislike counter on comments
I remember when YouTube had the inbox feature wher YouTubeaccounts could message each other& the response videofeature that some YouTubers would use either for internet beef or to leech off the popularity of more popular channels.
I remember a absolutely hilarious YouTube response videofromthe early 2010s that some account spammed everywhere& it was just a 4 second video of Borat in a bikini saying"you like ? 😏" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 & before you could pause the video it was over & racked up millions of views lmao@Steel76
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