To spare everyone the confusion, the author was extorted, not blackmailed.
"Any YouTuber" isn't vulnerable to blackmail unless the bad actor has specific compromising information about the YouTuber to threaten with.
"Any YouTuber" isn't vulnerable to blackmail unless the bad actor has specific compromising information about the YouTuber to threaten with.
This is not a new thing. It's been going on for at least 4-5 years if not more.
Blackmail is also a thing. "take down video x or I'll strike your account" and such.
That's still not blackmail. Blackmail is when you threaten to divulge information about someone unless they pay you.
Blackmail is when someone threatens to release your nudes unless you pay them.
Extortion is when someone threatens to get you banned on YouTube unless you pay them.
Maybe that's because of trolling, because they don't like your content, or simply because they can get paid.
"Extortion is a form of theft that occurs when an offender obtains money, property, or services from another person through coercion. A form of extortion could include the threat of physical injury, destruction of property, or improper government action."
"Blackmail, in contrast to extortion, is when the offender threatens to reveal information about a victim or his family members that is potentially embarrassing, socially damaging, or incriminating unless a demand for money, property, or services is met."
If I threaten to tell your partner that you are cheating even if you don't, that is blackmail.
If I threaten to tell your google that you are circumventing technological measures even if you don't, that is blackmail.
Neither is physical injury, destruction of property, or an improper government action.
Threatening to call a SWAT team to someone's house if they don't pay you is extortion, not blackmail, even though you're providing 'information' to the police, it is to cause a physical threat, not to damage reputation.
The result here is destruction of income, not damage to reputation. It's extortion.
But if I tell your threaten you to tell your employer you are stealing from him it's blackmail. If you get fired it's destruction of income but still blackmail.
Or an example of former times. I threaten to tell your boss you are gay, you get fired if I do, also destruction of income.
It's not the result but the type of threat. Extortion requires some sort of physical force blackmail is verbal
Spurious copyright strikes are just an attack on income, no different from a DDOS, ransomware, or running up a bunch of spurious purchases, in anything but the mechanism (in this case providing fraudulent information). That's extortion.
Not: "I will take down X video of yours unless you do Y". That's just extortion.