A Youtuber named ‘Etika’ committed suicide in New York, Manhatten. He had over 300,000 followers on Youtube and was a Gamer personality.

He was also mentally ill. He left a suicidal note, a suicidal video. In it, he says, quote: “I’m sorry I made a clown of myself. […] No bitch niggers and shit. […] I pushed too many people away. […] I wasn’t suicidal before. I guess I’m mentally ill.”

Now Etika is dead. And immediately the Youtube thought police came in an terminated his Youtube account and deleted his videos. As of time of recording this, Etika is gone.

Now, regardless of his Youtube channel might be restored again, and regardless of the fact that many of his fans reuploaded some of his videos again, the question for me is:

Does Youtube have the right to just erase you from the platform any time? Youtube put up a deletion notice, alleging the violation of its community guidelines. Why, he wasn’t dead before he filmed all his content.

Apart from the educational value and his legacy, the question of voluntary censorship is serious. After you die, they’ll clean up your internet presence and online activities. Obviously without you consent and explicit consent.

A lot of Youtubers try to bring awareness to the problem of suicide. Are they all now suspect to violating the community guidelines? Would Etika have approved of his life work, which is quite a work of art, being desecrated like this? Van Gogh committed suicide. Should we burn his pictures?