It has been roughly 23 days since YouTube’s decision to demonetize most of the active first amendment auditors on its platform and one day since multiple unconfirmed reports surfaced that the majority of the auditors impacted by the demonetization received payouts for August.
If true, the payouts would likely prevent a number of threatened lawsuits by various big names in the auditing world and would also give some breathing room for those auditors to establish themselves on new platforms.
The call to file lawsuits came as YouTube cut off most of the impacted auditors from monetization on August 30, 2026. This was technically the end of the month for YouTube and came as those creators had amassed their usual tallies for the month, bringing in revenue for the platform as well as themselves.
It also solves the headache of super chats for the social media giant. Contrary to popular belief, in many cases, donations made by fans of a creator can make up the bulk of revenue for a creator each month.
Jose “Chille” DeCastro for example, while not demonetized, has positioned his content squarely in the shorts category. He has focused on vertical streams for his anti-police informercial content, which brings in revenue at a lower rate than a horizontal stream.
The diminutive YouTuber has made his money back via super chats from his fans, bringing in over $14,000.00 for August and, according to Playboard, has made $10,518.00 for the month in super chats, averaging $584.00 per day in donations for September.
DeCastro’s recent problems with YouTube suspensions has effectively shadow banned his account, making placement in the shorts stream much lower than he had in August. His recent stopping and starting of streams to improve his placement also shows how dependent he’s been on those donations.
Simply put, he has to make $584.00 in super chats a day to maintain his average and keep his revenue coming in. If a livestream is not bringing in super chats at a rate to make his goal, he apparently feels that stopping and restarting the stream for better placement and a larger audience makes sense to him, though it infuriates those who prefer a continuous stream.
With that in mind, DeCastro, as of press time, has had roughly 1,652 super chats for the month. Should he be demonetized in the future, those super chats would have to be returned to those people who made them. It is currently against YouTube’s policy to keep said donations, making it a headache to return thousands of donations when applied to all of those it recently demonetized.
Of those who have been demonetized, SeanPaul “Long Island Audit” Reyes seems to be the single bright spot and survivor. Before demonetization, Reyes’ estimated monthly intake from YouTube averaged between $22,000 and $30,000.00 before super chat donations.
After his demonetization, while his 1,000,000 YouTube subscribers did not translate over into Patreon members, he has still managed to convert 1,100 of his 1,800 Patreon members into paid membership.
That membership, priced between $5.00 and $1,000.00 a month, is guaranteed to bring in at least $5,500.00 in revenue. With that in his pocket, Reyes’ stands above all other YouTubers turning to Patreon for revenue.
Even with the revenue coming in, his views on both his Rumble channel and his Patreon fall far below his average views from his YouTube channel. Reyes’ recent video “Police LT. Commits Perjury in Explosive Grand Jury Audio – This Is A Set Up!” video provides an example of this, drawing 178,000 views on YouTube, to 1,310 views on Rumble and an “extended cut” receiving 112 likes on Patreon.
Reyes has resorted to using his YouTube platform as an advertising arm of his smaller Patreon channel in order to increase revenue from that channel. For example, his recent allegations that that President of the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association Lou Civello that were announced on YouTube with “exclusive information” released behind the paywalled Patreon.
That promotion resulted in a little over 200 new memberships on Patreon while the video itself saw under 200 likes. While $1,000.00 from new memberships is nothing in comparison to what he would have previously made off of his YouTube video, it’s the best anyone can do in the post YouTube monetization era.
The inspiration for YouTube’s mass creator demonetization is still in dispute. DeCastro has promoted the idea that United States President Donald J. Trump ordered the crackdown as part of a larger crackdown on free speech within the country to little to no traction.
Reyes’s theory that President of the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association Lou Civello used his connections to United States Attorney General Todd Blanche has more legs to stand on, though no definitive proof presented by the YouTuber.
Quietly, another incent has emerged as a possible reason for YouTube’s decision.
In January of 2026, YouTuber Ian “Welcome to This World Media” Pfister and two other first amendment auditors filmed Pfister’s attack on Richard Hobig, the owner of Zimmerman’s Meat Market in Marine City, Michigan.
While the trio was filming outside of the market, Hobig and his wife objected to the three filming from outside of the shop through the open windows. After his wife attempted to put up butcher paper to block the trio, Hobig left the shop to talk to a police officer who was located down the street when he was attacked by Pfister.
Pfister claimed self defense as Hobig was approaching him menacingly, however, Hobig never made contact with Pfister before Pfister attacked the man with pepper spray. After the attack, Pfister and his friends mocked Hobig and stated that Pfister had the right to defend himself.
This story was not accepted by a jury, who convicted Pfister of aggravated assault and the improper use of a self-defense spray in June of 2026.
Pfister’s use of the video from the incident became a catalyst for other first amendment auditors to produce their own videos where they claimed self defense from subject they provoked into assaults on their camera equipment.
The trend became a staple of such channels as those run by Zachary “Liberty Troll” Kueker and John “First Amendment Protection Agency” Medaglia as they capitalized on CNN’s coverage of the Pfister’s trial.
For those who take Pfister’s attack on Hobig as a catalyst for the demonetization decision, the bad publicity from the growing number of attacks and the fact that YouTube was financially backing the attacks through monetization may have been enough for the social media company to pull the plug on the category.
A similar fate befell the “Passport Bro” and sex travel category after the arrest of sometime first amendment auditor and passport bro Floyd Wallace in December of 2025. Wallace was arrested in Brazil after it is alleged that he was involved in soliciting sexual acts from minors.
Following his arrest, the Passport Bro category was removed from promotion from YouTube with many channels facing demonetization and outright bans following his arrest. As of September of 2026, there are only a handful of channels left in the category with little interest due to the association of the category with Wallace’s activities.
At least two of the former first amendment auditing channels have turned to crowd sourcing campaigns to help with expenses after demonetization. Kueker and Reyes have both opened up dedicated GoFundMe campaigns to varying degrees of success.
Our own Ongoing Expenses fund won Monday with $200.00 in new donations. It was followed by Aidan “Turtleboy” Kearney’s GiveSendGo account, which brought in $130.00.
Reyes’ Support The Fight Against Tyranny & Corruption! Fund placed third with $55.00 in new donations.
For Tuesday, Roy Tripoloni’s fund for James “James Freeman” Springer won the day with $54.00 in new donations. He was followed by Lane Myers’ GiveSendGo, which took in $20.00 for the day.
No other campaigns that we follow saw donations for either day, including both of the campaigns devoted to raising money for demonetized YouTubers.
