“Sophie Brooks” complains about his bit part in my video

22.01.25

Late this morning, I checked my emails for the first time since yesterday afternoon and found this one – sent just after 10 pm last night – from YouTube, telling me that there had been a complaint over a violation of privacy in one of my videos, reassuring me that no action had been taken but asking me to review and amend or explain why I thought the complaint wasn’t justified.

I clicked on the link and watched the short section that had been complained about. It was one showing and naming a young man who goes by the name of “Sophie Brooks” (sometimes referred to as “Tarquin”), who frequently attends public events organised by gender-critical groups, apparently to try to cause a nuisance. The video that upset him was one I’d made the day after attending the LGB Alliance conference back in October 2024. It had been topical at the time of upload but was no longer particularly relevant and, as I considered Sophie Brooks to be far less interesting than the sackfuls of insects – whose appearance at the LGB Alliance conference had inspired the creation of my video in the first place – I had no objection to editing that section out, even though it only showed footage of him in public locations. I clicked on the ‘edit’ link to do so. During the process of editing, the video suddenly disappeared and was replaced by this notice.

Dissatisfied by the short time frame they’d allowed me to comply with their request – a mere 13 hours, which included the overnight period during which I sleep – I emailed YouTube to complain, saying that I was prepared to make the edit if they would restore video or that I was happy to re-upload the video afresh, suitably amended. They responded briefly just saying they wouldn’t restore the video, so I guess it’s up to me to do it. As the video is way past its ‘sell-by’ date, I’m in no hurry and I’ll leave it to others to speculate why Sophie Brooks waited so long to complain about a video he’s known about since October. In the meantime, the entire transcript can be viewed here and here is the section of the video that he complained about.

Published 22.01.25

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