A copyright strike nearly sank a famous YouTuber's channel. Here's how he used X to save it.

• Famous YouTuber’s video was mistakenly flagged for copyright claims, prompting him to seek help on X.

• The responsible company quickly apologized, retracted the claim, and restored the content.

• They publicly admitted the error, outlined steps to prevent future mistakes and turned a PR flop into a trust win.

In a wild twist of events, popular math YouTuber Grant Sanderson (a.k.a. 3Blue1Brown) found one of his own Bitcoin explainer video nuked by YouTube — even though the video was 100% his original content. Turns out, a company called ChainPatrol which uses some "advanced AI" for Web3 brand protection, flagged the video. Cue the dreaded YouTube copyright strike.

For anyone who’s ever sweated over building an audience on YouTube, you know: two more strikes and you’re out. Your channel is gone. The stakes were high. That’s why Grant took to X for help.

It looked like a PR nightmare for ChainPatrol, but they turned the tables. Within half an hour, ChainPatrol’s official account came forward, admitted fault, and posted a public apology to Grant. They said they’d started retracting the takedown, promising this wouldn’t happen again.

By the next day, ChainPatrol doubled down with even more transparency. Grant’s video was reinstated, and they clarified that this “false positive” was actually due to plain old human error, not some rogue AI. In short, someone copied the wrong link while reporting a malicious video, leading to Grant’s sudden strike. For data nerds out there, ChainPatrol revealed their false positive rate is 0.053%. They also explained the steps they’re taking so no one else ends up in YouTube purgatory by mistake.

The masterclass in crisis response

1. Own your mistakes, fast
   ChainPatrol didn’t wait for the drama to spiral. They hopped on social media almost immediately, fessed up, and got the fix in motion. That kind of transparency can actually boost a brand in the long run.

2. Explain in plain english
   No corporate jargon or fancy talk. They told us exactly what went wrong and how they want to fix it.

3. Show the data
   ChainPatrol didn’t hide their false positive numbers. Showing your flaws, shows confidence and builds trust (Pratfall Effect).

4. Promise future improvements
   They’re retraining staff, setting up round-the-clock alerts, and adding extra checkpoints so a simple copy-paste error never leads to a content takedown again.

Final thought

Sometimes, screwing up publicly can be the best growth hack — if you respond the right way. ChainPatrol’s rapid apology and transparent follow-up turned a potential PR meltdown into a marketing win. That’s a masterclass for every indie hacker out there: When you inevitably drop the ball, own it, fix it, and use the moment to show your true colors.

Have a story, tip, or trend worth covering? Tell us at [email protected].