YouTuber and musician Justin Whang is asking Twitter to “do something” about an attempt to use false DMCA copyright strikes to take out his account.
The incident seems to involve a complex trolling effort affecting several Twitter users, including an attempt to impersonate Whang and get Twitter to ban his account in that way.
Whang has nearly 600K subscribers on YouTube and is not a controversial YouTube personality, making it difficult to understand why he is being made a target here.
It all started when Twitter sent an email to Whang informing him about a copyright takedown request made against one of his own videos, originally posted on TikTok. Not only that – but the notice seemed to come from Whang himself.
Trying to deal with this fairly bizarre attempt of gaming the copyright system, Whang reposted the video with a link to TikTok. The goal was to prove his identity – that is, that the person sending out DMCA requests in his name, against his own content, was an impostor.
(The video jokingly plays on the current fears and prejudices around the coronavirus outbreak, showing Whang instructing his viewers on “how to get a seat on the New York subway.”)
But Twitter doesn’t seem to have any system in place that would recognize obviously fraudulent copyright flagging, and Whang’s account got temporarily locked.
Whang, meanwhile received another copyright strike – for another one of his own videos, once again, apparently coming from himself. He then accounted in a tweet that his account was now being locked by Twitter “every few seconds.”
Then came the tweet tagging Twitter Support and asking for assistance. It included a screenshot of Whang’s DMs conversation with his impostor, whose Twitter handle is @HoundPresident.
According to the exchange, many have said the real target on Twitter is user @MrBTFO, a full time streamer. But because podcaster Dick Masterson (@LABased Comedian) refused to block @MrBTFO on Twitter, and since Whang and Masterson are friends and collaborators – pressure was now being put on Whang to persuade Masterson to meet @HhoundPresident’s demands.
However this saga may end, for now it’s apparent that Twitter isn’t taking any action other than dutifully locking Whang’s account each time it receives a false copyright strike.
