Yeah that line really threw me off. My earliest memories of google were ~1999 and it was JUST a search engine. At the time altavista was still superior anyway. Dont know what the hell the author is talking about there.
It is unacceptable that accounts are locked or deleted by huge tech cos with no recourse. Sometimes there actually is a political agenda, more often it is just some random, unfortunate AI screw up.
This example sounds a lot more like the latter but the author (a professional victim) is trying very hard to convince us it is the former.
The lesson here is not about AI, it's about how correctly managing your videos is a lot easier than whining on substack about how oppressed you are.