Friday, October 2, 2026, was a day that will live in infamy for nearly everyone involved in the first amendment auditing community as Jose “Chille” DeCastro, self-proclaimed future governor of an unnamed state, failed power ranger, inventor of the jock sock and all-around swell guy had his main YouTube channel demonetized.
DeCastro confirmed the demonetization in a post to his YouTube community page on Friday:
Screwtube demonetized the channel. Help me keep going. Please, be a member on my website for $5 a month. Tons of perks. You get the Downloadable trifold the first month. New Perks every month. Thank You so much for your support.
Many in the community cheered as DeCastro was demonetized after the diminutive YouTuber avoided the initial wave of demonetizations that impacted almost every active first amendment auditing related channel on the service in late August.
According to Playboard, DeCastro earned approximately $14,000.00 in revenue from super chat donations in September alone. He is listed as earning $826.00 in super chats on Thursday, October 1, 2026, with no super chat revenue since then.
If true to form from previous demonetizations, DeCastro will get at least a payout for his September earnings on October 21, 2026. It is unclear what will happen with his October payout, though he may receive it in November as he did earn the money before the decision to demonetize his channel was made.
DeCastro would later provide a hopeful update, posting as a comment on his community page to a comment asking what demonetizing means:
That means they removed all my members that paid a monthly membership. That means that you cannot send me any super chats through YouTube. That means any video that I post doesn’t earn any ad sense revenue from advertisers. It is a way to try to end somebody’s YouTube career. We have figured out a workaround. I’ll be streaming live tonight.
The failed Power Ranger likely means that he may try using a super chat alternative such as StreamElements in order to simulate YouTube super chat donations. StreamElements is a bot based service that allows for tipping of a YouTube creator and is used by many YouTube creators who are not yet monetized.
A drawback of StreamElements comes as a user must sign up with StreamElements in order to process a payment. From our own experience with the bot, it isn’t as simple as a YouTube super chat donation and is unlikely to bring in drive by super chats as the payment process is not handled through YouTube.
There are also alternatives to super chats such as putting up links to a personal or company website where donations can be made directly to the YouTuber. YouTuber Aidan “Turtleboy” Kearney, for example, has a pinned post in his side chat directing users to his company’s website where they can make direct donations.
It is unclear if either would be a viable option for DeCastro, since he has recently relied on overnight vertical streams to pull in mass audiences. The audiences contain random viewers who are thrown into a vertical stream as a YouTube suggestion and are unlikely to subscribe to his channel, let alone use an external payment option to make a donation.
In the past, DeCastro has complained bitterly about his lack of sales of his products on his livestreams. Instead, he has found that his audience would rather super chat the cost of one of his trifolds, for example, to fund a trifold giveaway of that product. Super chatting the donation, especially when the audience member already has a trifold, seems to be the easiest and most secure way to make a donation to DeCastro directly.
There are also questions as to what DeCastro may do now that he’s demonetized. While he’s already indicated that he plans to stay on YouTube with an “alternative,” that may not be by choice.
Long time followers of DeCastro’s YouTube career may remember a period in 2024 before he was hacked by John “Irish Demon” O’Dea and briefly lost his channel, when DeCastro attempted to move his operations to Patreon, to Twitter and then to a private paid community on his DeleteLawz.com plat form. All three attempts failed and DeCastro was soon back to livestreaming on YouTube.
While DeCastro has active Facebook and Instagram channels, he is constantly battling Facebook suspension, and neither can be counted on to bring in the sort of revenue to match what he lost with YouTube.
Starting anew on YouTube is also problematic. His previous attempts to create sister channels for his main channel have failed to gain traction in the past and creating another channel on a different YouTube AdSense account is prohibited by YouTube.
DeCastro has also had a spotty relationship with crowd sourcing. Over the past year, four of his GoFundMe campaigns failed to meet their goals. Most famously, in June, when he was running a GoFundMe for a patent attorney for his YouVeGotBail.AI product, DeCastro needed to take a personal loan from a relative to meet his fundraising efforts.
As of press time, DeCastro has not opened a new crowd sourcing campaign dedicated to helping with his demonetization.
His previous campaign, devoted to Heather Chandler, saw no new donations for Thursday or Friday.
Thursday saw the crowd sourcing title result in a tie between Roy “Pigs Under Pressure” Tripoloni’s campaign for James “James Freeman” Springer and SeanPaul “Long Island Audit” Reyes.
Both Tripoloni’s GoFundMe and Reyes’s Detained for MY Rights – Continuing the Fight for OUR Rights fund took the top slot with $100.00 in new donations for the day.
Friday saw another tie for the top slot as our own On-Going Expenses campaign, John “First Amendment Protection Agency” Medaglia’s ILLEGAL ARREST DEFENSE FUND!!! and Reyes’ Support The Fight Against Tyranny & Corruption campaign pulled in $50.00 to take the top slot.
Aidan “Turtleboy” Kearney’s GiveSendGo campaign placed second with $20.00 in new donations.
The news was not all bad for DeCastro on Friday as attorney Michael Mee’s one last request for an extension due to loss of air conditioning in DeCastro’s appeal of his loss to the Las Vegas Metro Police Department was granted.
The court stated:
The motion (Docket Entry No. 12) for an extension of time to file the opening brief is granted.
The opening brief is due November 27, 2026. The answering brief is due December 28, 2026. The optional reply brief is due 21 days after the answering brief is served.
Due to the length of prior extensions, no further motions for an extension of time to file the opening brief will be granted absent new extraordinary and compelling circumstances.
Failure to file the opening brief by November 27, 2026 may result in dismissal of this case for failure to prosecute. See 9th Cir. R. 42-1.
We will continue to monitor DeCastro’s reactions to his demonetization as we receive new information.
This is a breaking news story.
