Dear YouTube,

We are Axis, an independent UK arts charity. On 14 April 2025 our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/weareaxis) was removed without warning, taking with it more than  14 years of popular, educational artist-led, content promoting understanding of contemporary art to a wider audience.

Since sharing our experience publicly, the response has been clear. Artists, arts organisations, educators, and audiences care deeply about access to contemporary art, and about the role platforms like YouTube play in either supporting or silencing cultural spaces.

Our appeal received an automated response within one minute, suggesting no human review took place. We have had no direct communication from YouTube in spite of repeated requests for dialogue. If artists and organisations can only engage with automated systems, what hope is there for fair or nuanced treatment?

We respect the need for community standards. We recognise the challenges of moderation at scale. But removing an entire channel built around education and artistic discourse, without proper review, conversation, or accountability is disproportionate and damaging.

We ask:

• That our channel be reinstated, or at minimum, our archive returned to us.
• That YouTube recognise the difference between artistic, educational content and material meant for exploitation or harm.
• That a clear, fair process is instituted for artists and organisations to seek review, appeal decisions, and protect their work from unjust removal.

Art challenges and. Art questions. Its role is to engage with the complexity of the world we live in, across ideas, forms, and experiences. That has always been its role.

What has happened here is bigger than one channel. It is about the kind of internet we are creating, and who gets to be part of it. And if getting cancelled can happen to us, it can happen to anyone. It will happen again.

We invite YouTube to engage with us, and with the wider arts community, before more vital cultural work is lost.

Yours sincerely,
The Axis Team