Update 12/22/2021: Ethan Klein announced that the strike that brought his Christmas episode crumbling to the ground has been removed from the account. He said it is too late to do the episode at this point, but had a positive outlook at the removal of strike nonetheless.

Original Article: H3H3 Productions has been banned from posting to YouTube for a week, after receiving another strike on their channel due to videos being flagged. As a result, all Christmas content for H3H3 has been canceled.

Ethan Klein, co-owner of H3H3, reported that the strike was due to a video that they reacted to "over a year ago" that was deemed "too dangerous to watch" by YouTube. They received the strike in spite of the fact that, according to Klein, the content they were struck for watching is still up on YouTube in age-restricted form with over 100,000 views. While Klein appealed to YouTube, they rejected his appeal, leaving a ban in place and preventing Klein from posting his Christmas H3 content.

"Our final Christmas podcasts that we've been planning for a month will not be happening," Klein said on Monday. "We just randomly got a strike because a video we reacted to over a year ago was deemed "too dangerous to watch". . . Can't upload for a week. . . Ironically, the videos we watched can all still be found on YouTube as age-restricted, so I don't understand why the heavy hand for us? Please reconsider your decision, it has a tremendous negative effect on our business and community during an important time."

Klein also alleged that his content has been receiving mass flagging for every video they make lately, putting their content and business which is built on YouTube at risk.

He stated, "and finally, a congratulations to all the trolls that have been mass flagging every video we've ever made, with any luck you'll have our channel erased by Christmas."

In a follow-up Tweet, Klein vented, saying, "what's absolutely stupid is that if I made a video complaining about it and made it to the front page of Reddit they would 100% reverse the decision, why do they put me in that situation? I just don't have the energy right now, just a horrible f*cking week."

The alleged mass flagging is taking place as H3H3 is in a legal conflict with producer and co-owner of Triller Ryan Kavanaugh, who is suing the Kleins for defamation and alleging that Ethan Klein is personally responsible for sending hate his way in the midst of a separate $100 million Triller lawsuit against the Kleins, H3H3, and Teddy Fresh. 

Kavanaugh has been on a warpath over the past month, even encouraging people to report the H3H3 podcast to the FBI for inciting violence this week, linking to a video of Trisha, a former co-host of the H3 show Frenemies going on an emotional diatribe about the Kleins. Trisha has been feuding with the Kleins for months, following her abrupt departure from Frenemies. She has a complicated relationship with the couple because she is engaged to Hila Klein's brother.

This latest strike follows a similar seven-day suspension that H3H3 served in August, which was triggered by YouTuber Keemstar reportedly flagging multiple videos and accusing H3H3 of online bullying. Soon after, Keemstar ironically said he was retiring from YouTube because of cancel culture, after seeking to deplatform H3H3 with his video flagging.

H3H3's struggle over the past year to remain on YouTube speaks the growing pressure for creators, who face the threat of being de-platformed for receiving strikes, with very little recourse if they fall foul of YouTube's preferences.  While some flags and strikes are necessary and important, many YouTubers have reported abuse of YouTube's systems, including most recently a YouTuber reporting that Amazon hit his channel with a strike after he made a video reporting on a bug in New World.

Massive internet personality Andrea Russet expressed these very fears, incredulously stating, "what the fuck is this @TeamYouTube!? feels super unjustified and makes me nervous to continue uploading my own content on youtube. How am I supposed to build a career when at any moment you can just holt it all with not much of any explanation or communication."

Given that YouTube manually reviewed the new strike and found it credible, a reversal seems unlikely. H3H3 fans won't be seeing them for Christmas.