YouTube privacy questions

LBB

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Hi, I am a 52 year old man that loves to learn and I tend to be on the serious side these days. I feel I have some important things to talk about and I am thinking about starting a Youtube channel to voice my opinion on important issues. However, many times it will be on hot topics and I'm a little worried about my safety because I suspect I may have a video or two that goes viral and there are a lot of crazy people out there that can make death threats, etc if you say something they don't agree with and feel strongly about. So I came here hoping to get some answers to a couple questions like:

Can a person track me down and find where I live through Youtube?

If I have more than one youtube channel can somebody figure out they are all from the same person?

If there is somewhere else I should be posting these questions please let me know. I just wanted to try to get answers to these before deciding if I should create a Youtube channel to do this. I live alone and just want to make sure my dog and myself stay safe.
 

TheSwedishTraveler

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Welcome to the forums! I hope you will enjoy it here!
To answer your questions: It depends on how much info you give out in the videos, some people might be so crazy that they find out where you are, but most do empty threats.
Some people might notice that you have more channels, but does that really matter?
 

KatyAdelson

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Welcome to the forums! =)

This is going to sound super creepy, but sometimes I spend time seeing if I can figure out where a YouTuber lives... :S I never do anything if I figure out their address, but I want to know what to look for so that I know what NOT to put on the Internet. x_x It amazes me at how easy it is to figure out where even huge YouTubers with millions of subscribers live.

If you live in the United States and use your full name, it's easy for people to figure out who you are and where you live (it might be similar in other countries, but I can only speak for the United States). People can find out a lot of info with your name - even frequently bought items (if you use a credit card) and credit ratings. The only time it becomes a bit difficult is when you have a very common name. However, if you mention a family member's name (perhaps one that is not so common of a name), people can use that information to quickly figure out who you are and where you live. If you show the outside of your house, people can figure out where you live. If you give a phone number, or an email address that has a paper trail on the internet for other purposes, then people can figure out who you are and where you live. It amazes me how many YouTubers are so careless about these things and post it all online. :S

However, you can safely do it as well - do not mention your full name, use a new email address that is only associated with your YouTube stuff, and don't show your house or surrounding neighborhood area (also, do not show what it looks like outside windows). I'd even be cautious about mentioning the city you live in unless it's some gigantic metropolis. The only time I can see where mentioning what city you live in might be helpful is for local business purposes.

As far as finding out a channel is operated by the same person, only really observant people who watch both channels will notice. If videos go viral on both channels, some people will probably make the connection between the channels. Google will know because of your IP address, but as far as I know, the site 't draw attention to it. If you like the other channel's videos and show your liked video playlist on your account, then people will probably figure out the channels are operated by the same person.
 

Crown

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Hi, I am a 52 year old man that loves to learn and I tend to be on the serious side these days. I feel I have some important things to talk about and I am thinking about starting a Youtube channel to voice my opinion on important issues. However, many times it will be on hot topics and I'm a little worried about my safety because I suspect I may have a video or two that goes viral and there are a lot of crazy people out there that can make death threats, etc if you say something they don't agree with and feel strongly about. So I came here hoping to get some answers to a couple questions like:

Can a person track me down and find where I live through Youtube?

If I have more than one youtube channel can somebody figure out they are all from the same person?

If there is somewhere else I should be posting these questions please let me know. I just wanted to try to get answers to these before deciding if I should create a Youtube channel to do this. I live alone and just want to make sure my dog and myself stay safe.

Welcome. I've moved this to the YouTube main forum and changed the title to something a bit more meaningful to hopefully get some answers for you. :)
 
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LBB

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Welcome to the forums! I hope you will enjoy it here!
To answer your questions: It depends on how much info you give out in the videos, some people might be so crazy that they find out where you are, but most do empty threats.
Some people might notice that you have more channels, but does that really matter?
The reason I'm concerned with people knowing if I have other channels is because I don't want to show my face or give any potentially revealing information (like the state I live in for example) on another channel when I have been careful not to do so on my opinion channel.

I'm mainly concerned with somebody tracking me down electronically through youtube. Like finding my IP address for example.

KatyAdelson,
You sound like the person I need to contact to see if I'm making mistakes! ;-)
 

TheDutchTexan

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Yes. I have personally tracked down 2 YouTubers by simply putting 1 and 1 together because I wanted to see if it was possible to find out where someone lived. One was insanely simple. He ran his channel with his own name, tracked him down in 30 minutes flat and verified the outside pictures of his residence with what he showed in his videos. The other would start his video in his back yard all the time. He would venture around his neighborhood. I used google maps and found his place of residence within an hour of searching. It is scary. Especially if you are a vlogger and show your face. Now I am just a regular married guy and no stalker. But if I can do it, someone else can. You need to be completely fine with people finding out where you live. If you do not advertise it you will more than likely be fine, but anything can be used as a lead. How do you think criminals get located by their selfies all the time?