Comedian Flaqo Speaks After Losing YouTube Channel With 100K Fans

Comedian Flaqo dressed up as one of his characters Mama Otis
Comedian Flaqo dressed up as one of his characters Mama Otis
File

Popular comedian Flaqo whose real name is Erastus Ayieko Otieno had his YouTube Channel terminated by the video platform. 

Speaking to Kenyans.co.ke on Saturday, October 17, he stated that the account had been flagged for copyright violations. 

However, he explained that his account had been erroneously linked to other channels which were uploading content in his name. 

Comedia Flaqo showing off his YouTube Silver Button Award
Comedia Flaqo showing off his YouTube Silver Button Award
File

"People create a lot of channels using my name and I think Youtube thought some of them were mine," an emotional Flaqo revealed. 

The comedian has appealed to Kenyans to help get YouTube's attention to give the account back to him. 

"It is unfair when fake accounts strike original content creators, am challenging aggregators to protect us more on copyright issues since personally am under aggregators," Flaqo tweeted.

He stated that he had contacted his content aggregator Ngomma VAS which was following up with YouTube. 

The company also handles online content for musicians Diamond Platnumz and Akothee. 

Flaqo has suffered a huge setback since the account had just crossed the 100K subscribers mark days before, earning him the Silver Button Award from the video platform. 

"I was about to launch a new show that is different from the skits I have been doing but now I have to wait until the issue is fixed. I expect a response on Monday," he stated. 

The comedian had gained popularity due to his hilarious content in which he dresses up and acts as different characters.

Consumption of YouTube content in the country has been on a steady rise with  the penetration of smartphones, affordability of data and the entrance of celebrities.

The video platform has given content creators freedom to develop their careers and earn money without the limitation of the traditional forms of entertainment such as TV, Radio and events. 

The video platform gives the audience the power to choose what content while studying patterns to recommend similar videos. 

With millions of videos being uploaded daily, YouTube takes copyright violations very seriously.

According to digital content expert Brian Muuo, the platform has two ways of tracking copyright violations. One is when the copyright holder notices that their video was used without permission. The offended creator sends YouTube a complaint and if it is legitimate, the video is taken down. 

It also has a content ID is a system YouTube which matches upload content against millions of videos. Copyright owners have to upload reference files  or original versions of their work that prove they own the rights. 

Every new video uploaded to YouTube is checked against this huge library of reference files, and if there is a match, YouTube automatically files a copyright claim for the owner of the work. 

An account is terminated if it gets up to three copyright warnings. 

Comedian Flaqo poses for a photo
Comedian Flaqo poses for a photo
File