17/06/2026
On June 16, 2026, we were notified of the permanent deletion of the OBJECT:PARADISE YouTube channel. In a single, automated sweep, our archive of the Prague underground's history, poetics, and experimental film was erased. Furthermore, we have been explicitly prohibited from creating any future channels.
Under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), platforms of this scale are legally required to provide transparent moderation, clear justifications, and access to actual human review when a digital livelihood or archive is destroyed. We are currently working with the European Digital Acts service to petition YouTube's decision on our behalf.
But as frustrating as this news is, it shouldn't surprise us.
In fact, it is the exact reason we formed the OBJECT:PARADISE collective in the first place—to curate and create collective agency in the celebration of public art. Today's platforms steal this agency from us through their algorithmic biases and automated content control, which directly conflicts with our Manifesto.
Yet, because they have monopolized the context in which we communicate our Manifesto, we are forced to play their exploitative games. If no one is in the woods to hear when a poem is read, was a poem ever read? If an 300+ hour archive of Prague underground footage can't be shared, did those actions ever happen?
Our channel was removed due to "gratifying" nud*ty and s*xual content, which is even more surprising as our channel primarily concerns poetry readings. Regardless, our channel serves as an original archival documentation of live actions, performances, and happenings in our community. All content strictly qualifies for YouTube's Educational, Documentary, Scientific, and Artistic (EDSA) exception. YouTube's published policy on EDSA content clearly exempts "brief nudity that's part of a theatrical performance, in which the nudity is shown in the context of a longer storyline." The artistic context of our content is fully self-contained and inherently obvious within the visual recordings of these live theatrical performances—or is it? And according to whom? We were never notified of which video trigged the automated deletion of our archive.
The issue is that YouTube's algorithms define and draw the boundary between what is art and what is not art. An algorithm has no context—and certainly does not understand the nuances between Vinohrady and Žižkov. So when a humanless, contextless corporate entity draws these boundaries and limits our reach, we can only be reminded of the importance of our Manifesto.
We apologize to all the universities, institutes, collectives, NGOs, and artists which had linked to our content on YouTube. All content is currently being backed up on www.Archive.org.
Moving forward, we are currently working with community members to rebuild a completely sovereign, algorithm-free digital vault where our archive will remain accessible, uncensored, and entirely in our hands.
If you believe in our Manifesto and want to help us with the back-end coding of this new infrastructure, get in touch with us at [email protected].
www.objectparadise.com
