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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.