A message highlighted above the thread warned YouTube users that support requests would have “longer-than-usual wait times,” but YouTube continued to ask for “patience” and turned off comments.
YouTube said, “We are very sorry for this mistake.”
Unable to leave a comment, thousands of users hit the support thread button and confirmed they “have the same question.” By Friday morning, 8,000 users were expressing despair, and as of this writing, that number had grown to nearly 11,000.
YouTube does not confirm the number of users removed, so this may be the most accurate estimate of the number of users affected.
On Friday afternoon, YouTube updated the thread to confirm that “all channels that were accidentally removed due to spam and fraudulent activity have been fully reinstated.”
YouTube claims all channels are back online, but says not all videos that were accidentally deleted have been restored. Most of the affected users were reportedly not creators, so the bug likely didn’t disrupt their lives, but at least one commenter said, “The two most viewed “The video has been removed,” the user complained, suggesting that some account holders may have liked the video. Their account is still missing.
“We’re working on restoring some recent videos. Thank you for your help!” the YouTube update read. “We understand the inconvenience and appreciate your patience while we resolve the issue.”
It’s unclear whether paid subscribers will be refunded if they can no longer access the content.
YouTube did not respond to Ars’ request for comment.