You’re not alone in wanting to discover how to remove or delete a negative YouTube video that was published by someone else. In reality, this problem is becoming increasingly widespread, and just one negative YouTube video can do you serious personal and professional harm.
Why is a negative YouTube video such a problem from a branding and reputation management standpoint?
YouTube is a massive website that enjoys growth that is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon, despite the fact that the site itself is almost twenty years old. Not only that, but it’s also the world’s second most popular and heavily utilized search engine (and you thought it was just a video platform).
This all means you’ll have to worry not only about the video appearing in Google search results, but also in the YouTube search results as well. Having to handle and deal with both complicates the problem, which is why knowing how to remove a YouTube video that isn’t yours but damages your personal and/or business brand in some way is critical.
While YouTube attracts a large number of creators and users who get tremendous benefit from it, the platform has a major flaw:
Enforcing any of the rules is quite tough. This brings us to your problem. It’s not easy to get a video of you taken down if it’s posted by someone else, and it damages your reputation. It’s actually rather time-consuming and quite a pain in the you know what.
That is, however, why we have created this guide. Understanding your options is critical, so you can put your best foot forward and solve this situation.
Is this a major annoyance? Yes, of course.
Are you powerless here? Certainly not.
Learning how to remove a YouTube video that isn’t yours isn’t as difficult as it may appear. Let’s take it one step at a time.
Accessing the Situation First
If you want to get a negative video deleted from YouTube, you must first understand your situation and the options you have.
Unfortunately, the majority of people skip this step. They do everything they think would help in a random order – often in a state of panic – and end up exactly back where they started, or worse, in a deeper hole.
There are several things to consider if you want to properly comprehend the position you’re in:
The Nature of Offending Video Itself
This is significant since it will determine the approach you follow when attempting to remove the YouTube video. Remove all emotion – yes, you are probably mad – from the situation and classify it as best you can.
Is this a case of defamation? Is it copyright infringement? Does it contain any personal information about you?
This will aid you in taking the proper steps when requesting that the video be deleted later. While it may appear that misclassifying your reasoning for requesting video removal on YouTube is a minor oversight, it is not. That’s a nasty video, and it makes me look bad/upsets me is not one of the options you’ll be offered. You are going to need to be far more specific when requesting that another YouTuber’s content be removed.
Investigate the Uploader
Maybe you know exactly who uploaded the video, and perhaps even have an idea why. In many cases however, that’s not the case, and you’ll need to do a little sleuthing.
So, how can you discover out who put the video nasty up on YouTube?
Unfortunately, there is no exact science to it, and the difficulty level to get it removed can vary. However, if you want to remove a YouTube video that isn’t yours, you’ll need a good plan.
For example, if someone posts the video using a real personal account linked to their own name or brand, most of your detective work is already done. All you would have to do is double-check that the name on the account is correct – and real- and you’d be good to go.
When things aren’t that easy, you’ll have to work backwards and piece everything together. The obvious place to begin is with the circumstance the video details and who was present when you were filmed.
You may not be able to precisely identify the individual who filmed or posted the video in certain cases (if it was a bystander who just happened to be there, for example), but you will still have some useful information going forward. This also means you’re not likely to be dealing with a defamation case and will have to look into other options for video removal.
The most difficult to determine case is when a dummy account uploads a custom-made video about you (slides that share personal information, for example). This means there’s no way to contact the person, and the footagein the video isn’t of a real-life occurrence from which to work backward.
You usually won’t be able to identify the uploader in these cases, but you still have options for getting the video taken down from YouTube.
This is most likely a direct attack (through defamation or sensitive personal information disclosure), which is treated a little more seriously by the moderators when it comes to removing a YouTube video that isn’t yours.
Obviously, if someone you know and have a good relationship with accidentally posts something that harms your reputation, you can simply contact them and ask them to remove or change it.
Whatever the circumstance, don’t skip taking the time to figure out who posted or created the video and what their intention was. It will direct your actions in the future.
How To Get A Negative Video Removed From YouTube
You now have some useful knowledge that will help you in removing a YouTube video that isn’t yours but harms your reputation. It’s time to look into your options for removing that annoying video.
Unfortunately, removing a video from YouTube isn’t always a walk in the park (no matter how much information you have). To stand the best chance of success, you must do things correctly and have a backup plan in place.
To begin, familiarize yourself with the video flagging options available under the video in question. To get started, simply click the small flag beneath the video, which will bring up a choice of options for you to choose from.
Before going on to your other options, start with this feature. This is also where the classifying you did earlier in the process will come in handy. Check out the YouTube community standards and policies if you’re still not sure what category your video removal request belongs in.
After you’ve flagged the video, you can go on to the other available alternatives on YouTube.
The first is the safety and abuse reporting option, which takes you through a more formal and extensive submission process. If this seems applicable in your case, we strongly advise you to go through this procedure. You’ll discover options like harassment, cyberbullying, impersonation, and more in this section.
This is the URL you should use instead if you need to go the legal route. Privacy (someone releasing personal information or utilizing your image), copyright, and defamation are some of the common topics covered.
If you have an open and shut case, the proper use of these alternatives will often result in the desired outcome, but this is not always the case. Remember that YouTube receives a large number of requests to remove videos on a frequent basis (as in every hour) This means they simply do not have the resources to investigate each and every case thoroughly.
If your case is ambiguous or unclear, you will most likely be denied. This happens to a lot of people who assumed their position in making a removal request was solid, and why you may need to consider some other options to remove a negative YouTube video.
You could also try contacting the individual who originally uploaded the video. But be cautious; this strategy frequently backfires. It may be worth a shot if you believe the uploader did not intend to harm your reputation. Simply explain your circumstance and ask if they would mind removing the video (or editing it).
We don’t advocate this technique if you’re not positive whether the video upload was malicious or not. Far too many victims attempt to contact the uploader directly and wind up exacerbating the problem by becoming emotional or agitating the uploader.
You’re better off moving on to the next option unless you’re very certain the odds are in your favor.
The Push Down Alternative
You need another form of protection regardless of whether YouTube accepts your request to remove a video that isn’t yours. This entails repairing your online reputation and concentrating on your video results.
What do we mean and how is that done?
Without getting into every little detail here – as there’ a lot – you should concentrate on providing better content that will outrank the unfavorable video.
Because you’re attempting to remove a YouTube video that isn’t yours, you’ll need to be conscious of how you appear on both YouTube and Google. Google scrapes videos for their search results on a daily basis, so you’re fighting a battle on two fronts.
Fortunately, it’s fairly simple, and all you’ll need is some time and experience to pull it off.
You can fairly easily reduce the negative video’s impact on your Google search results by developing and optimizing some powerful social media profiles and creating and posting some solid postive content. Then, for YouTube, you can make useful videos and tweak your own YouTube profile page to suppress or replace the unfavorable video with something you want people to see about you.
There are also a variety of high-tech engagement strategies you can employ to help limit the likelihood that the YouTube video you’re concerned about will be viewed by others. That’s all a little more complicated, and it takes a lot of work to do it right, so if you’re interested, check out our reputation management services.
It’s all about being realistic and having different plans of attack when it comes to removing a YouTube video that isn’t yours. It would be ideal if you could simply flag the video you don’t like and it would vanish, but you don’t have that luxury available to you, no one does.
Too often, we hear from folks in similar situations who just tried YouTube’s removal techniques and gave up when they didn’t work. They lived with the fallout from the negatve video for months before deciding on another course of action.
Make sure that doesn’t happen to you.
What is the next step?
Now that you’ve learned a lot more about your options and how the process works, it’s time to get started. Begin with the obvious actions we’ve already mentioned (flagging and more formal requests direct to YouTube)
If contacting the uploader isn’t an option, you’ll need go through the procedure of cleaning up your online image via reputation management. The latter is a service we offer on a regular basis, so please contact us if you need our help.
Last but not least, keep in mind that this process will take time regardless of which strategy you use. The most important thing is to be consistent and on top of things at all times so that you can quickly either get that negative YouTube video taken down or minimize its impact (while doing some cool brand building in the process.)
