Official Adventist Church YouTube channel restored after five days of termination

The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s official YouTube account was restored over the weekend thanks to a petition from the administration and church members, after hackers took over the platform to promoting a cryptocurrency scam on February 27.
The scam, which was reported by multiple YouTube accounts worldwide— including the Adventist Church in Poland and Jamaica — is hijacking major YouTube accounts and impersonating Elon Musk’s SpaceX channel, offering fake freebies to make money for viewers.
In response to the violation, YouTube terminated the official Adventist Church channel, although no warning was given or there were strikes before the full termination.
The Word Adventist Church’s communications department quickly submitted two official appeals to YouTube, including materials demonstrating the channel’s importance to Adventists around the world. After four days of uncertainty, communications services around the world coordinated a campaign on Twitter, asking members to pray and call @TeamYouTube to restore the channel.
The campaign began at 7:14 p.m. on Friday, March 4. Hundreds of people united their voices.
By 6 a.m. the following morning, March 5, YouTube had restored the channel, with hundreds of people once again taking to Twitter to express their gratitude.
For Seventh-day Adventist World Church associate communications director Sam Neves, the reinstatement has been an answer to countless prayers.
“Our whole team was devastated. It would be the first Sabbath in almost 10 years without inspiring people through our YouTube videos,” he said. “But God answered our prayers through the YouTube team. When our team in the Americas woke up last Sabbath, our channel had been restored. It was truly a happy Sabbath.
The ordeal, which lasted 5 days, reminded all Adventists of the value of video content and the importance of the YouTube platform to the Church’s evangelistic efforts.
“It was also a strong reminder to all communications teams of the importance of strong security protocols to keep every social media property safe,” Neves added. “The hack lasted just under an hour, which was the time it took the social media team to remove the fraudulent video and restore the channel’s name and visual identity. only possible because the channel’s owner account was restricted by multi-factor authentication protocols. The other affected channels lost their ability to stop the hack on their own, as their owner account was also compromised.”
With content ranging from the latest ANN news to theological studies, messages of encouragement and official statements from Church leaders, the Official Adventist Church Channel is both a vital communication platform and a historical document of past events.
“Each of our worldwide Adventist church chains is unique and serves a large community. We exist to help everyone understand the Bible so they can find freedom, healing and hope in Jesus,” Neves said.
With many videos receiving thousands, if not millions, of views, it’s clear that people around the world have been personally and collectively touched by the videos posted to the official Adventist Church YouTube account.
“My granddaughter is a teenager and she has a lot of anxiety, she has a lot of pressure points. So I shared this video with her, and they said they were going to listen to it. Thank you for serve our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”—Mary Burge (1 month ago)
The Adventist Church’s official YouTube channel is part of the global church’s digital evangelism initiative. The channel’s subscribers have grown from 20,299 in 2019 to 182,493 currently. This 800% growth is due to the efforts of a great team of professionals around the world who create new content, manage the channel and provide pastoral care to viewers.
The World Administration of the Seventh-day Adventist Church expresses its thanks to all church members who prayed and asked @TeamYouTube to restore the channel, and also thanks YouTube for their prompt and professional service in resolving the issue .