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[EDIT, May 18: Today, Google added a sentence at the end of the policy announcement, clarifying that "at the moment" they plan not to delete inactive accounts if they have videos posted on YouTube.]
#Google just announced that going forward, any account not logged into for two years gets deleted.
This means huge amounts of rare or unique #video is about to disappear from #YouTube as accounts get flagged as inactive, such as when the user dies. Families' #HomeMovies (often posted by an older relative for their family's benefit), historical footage, rare #television clips, etc. What an incalculable loss to human #history and culture!
If there are videos important to you on someone else's video channel, find a way to download them. And if you have rare #media of historical importance, consider leaving it to institutional #archives or lending it to archives for digital preservation.
Also consider uploading your rare media to the not-for-profit Internet Archive (archive.org).
@StevenCapsuto Google has said that they are not applying this account deletion to accounts that have YouTube videos (at least for the time being).
@StevenCapsuto lol they absolutely missed the youtube aspect at google, this is going to be a clusterfuck
@StevenCapsuto https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/05/googles-new-inactive-account-policy-wont-delete-years-of-youtube-videos/
Haha they also realized this now
@StevenCapsuto hmm guess I need to start downloading my old YouTube videos from accounts I don't use anymore. I guess Google finally decided they don't want to pay for all that storage?
@douglasvb @StevenCapsuto
Per Google, they're not touching accounts with YouTube uploads
@Eli_Santana @douglasvb Per Google, they are and they aren´t, depending who at Google you listen to.
@StevenCapsuto if you're looking for a tool for downloading youtube videos for archival purposes or otherwise, websearch "yt-dlp"
@schratze @StevenCapsuto jdownloader will also do the trick
@schratze @StevenCapsuto I've recently found #Cobalt (https://co.wukko.me), also works for other social media sites.
@StevenCapsuto this sucks, always thought at least when I die YouTube will have evidence of my existence (even if it is just moslty gameplay) so I guess that's gone.
Maybe the internet isn't forever anymore afterall.
@KontributeGaming @StevenCapsuto
I don't think the internet was ever "forever"; I think it's inconveniently chaotic in what it preserves: what you want preserved vanishes, and what you are embarrassed by sticks around on a site which refuses to take it down.
@StevenCapsuto citation: https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/updating-our-inactive-account-policies/
Starting later this year, if a Google Account has not been used or signed into for at least 2 years, we may delete the account and its contents – including content within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar), YouTube and Google Photos.
The policy only applies to personal Google Accounts, and will not affect accounts for organizations like schools or businesses.
@StevenCapsuto I use some email addresses purely to log into Wordpress accounts, so that means I have to go to these gmail-addresses and open them once in a while... or else my wp-accounts won't work anymore.
Mail addresses just used for logins is a twist I hadn't thought of. .
If I had multiple addresses, I could add them all to an email app to make them easier to access in one place. The Gmail app, for example, will let me do that.
So long as you check those accounts annually, you should be fine. 
@srfirehorseart @StevenCapsuto yes, that is true! I'll try out the gmail app
@asep @StevenCapsuto and probably tie them to your phone too
@StevenCapsuto Even if it's not as dire as it initially seems, this seems like a good reminder not to use free online services as our only archive of important stuff. Thanks for the heads-up!
Excuse me now while I look for GDrive backup solutions. 
@TimPhon I am a big fan of physical media and physical-media backups that my family controls... some of it stored offsite. 
@StevenCapsuto I use Firefox with a licensed copy (no watermarks) of Video Download Helper to download videos, then I use Handbrake to convert them. I would suggest that folks make sure they have the highest quality selected with whatever video you want to download.
There is no central, universal MEMORY PROJECT where people can just dump data to be saved. What amounts to The Internet Archive now should be formalized to an international institution that does that - for posterity.
@StevenCapsuto " Starting later this year, if a Google Account has not been used or signed into for at least 2 years, we may delete the account and its contents – including content within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar), YouTube and Google Photos."
https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/updating-our-inactive-account-policies/
@StevenCapsuto I guess it's time to start sucking up all of YouTube (if it isn't being done already). Paging @textfiles ;)
@StevenCapsuto How does one download videos from youtube? I've tried, and it seems to just add them to a 'downloaded videos' section of my youtube account, rather than actually, you know, downloading them.
@DrTCombs There are a number of tools
(both websites and local apps) that can do direct downloads or, for videos with a lot of music in them (which YouTube locks down tighter), by screenscraping. Search online for "YouTube downloader."
@StevenCapsuto @DrTCombs caveat emptor, this is a very shady space of the web
@DrTCombs @StevenCapsuto yeah, they've shut down a lot of the roving ones, but Yout.com is my current favorite.
@jake4480 @StevenCapsuto ooooh, thank you for that rec
@StevenCapsuto PeerTube also allows YouTube import so maybe a good way to preserve and directly share in the Fedi!
Not sure about copyrights though..
@StevenCapsuto Is this real?? Is there an official source anywhere?
@StevenCapsuto@techhub.social guess it's about time I download this treasure... the little boy with brown hair was me when I was 7 years old!
@kainoa@calckey.social @StevenCapsuto@techhub.social Didn't know we had famous actors around here. 
@StevenCapsuto@techhub.social One solution is YouTube Prime. It allows you to download YouTube videos. Option 2 is clipgrab. I am not encouraging piracy. I am encouraging the preservation of audiovisual history.
https://clipgrab.org/faqs/howto-download-youtube-video
@richardazia @StevenCapsuto@techhub.social there's also Seal for Android and https://co.wukko.me for web
@richardazia@calckey.social @StevenCapsuto@techhub.social yt-dlp is your friend for archival purposes.
@StevenCapsuto @briankrebs According to a company spokesperson, Google, at the moment, is not planning to delete accounts with YouTube videos https://9to5google.com/2023/05/16/google-account-delete/
@StevenCapsuto ytvideodownloader and 9convert work well as online solution
@StevenCapsuto 
When will this be effective?
You can easily download videos from YT on AndroidOS through NewPipe app. Just one possibility.
@amarok Deletion of old Google accounts starts December 2023 at earliest. Now they're saying that for now, YouTube content is not included, even though the written policy they released said that YouTube content *is* included.
@StevenCapsuto
Thanks. I don't trust them, so better to be prepared than too late. Gonna download a couple of videos until December.
@StevenCapsuto
Not sure how long this stays true but here’s the “creator liaison” saying no deletion of accounts with YT videos. #digipres https://twitter.com/YouTubeLiaison/status/1658829489466384387
@Sie Well then, it's mixed signals, since the written policy they posted yesterday says YouTube content will be included in the purges.
@StevenCapsuto Not that backing up these videos isn't a good idea anyway, but Google did say that
"At this time, we do not plan to delete accounts with YouTube videos."
So for now, they're safe. But they may not be in the future. yt-dlp is your friend!
@Toad64
"At this time" are the operative words.
@StevenCapsuto
For people previously using youtube-dl for archive purposes, that has now been effectively replaced by a better maintained fork called yt-dlp:
@FediThing @StevenCapsuto That doesn't seem right. The latest commit to youtube-dl is just a week ago. Maybe you meant youtube-dlc which was a fork of youtube-dl itself?
@StevenCapsuto I wonder why they are doing this. I can't imagine accounts that are never logged into consume many resources.
@j The written policy says clearly they do plan to delete YT content. So these are mixed signals at best... and that's assuming this screenshot is legit and assuming the person behind the post is actually in a position to speak authoritatively about the company's medium-term plans.
@StevenCapsuto @j Their spokespeople have been explicitly confirming it won't involve accounts with videos to multiple mainstream news outlets and directly on Twitter. Why would they go to so much effort to spread lies about their own policy?