It turns out that Google employees have accessed unpublished videos with YouTube administrator privileges and leaked information in advance, and Nintendo and celebrities are affected

On May 30, 2024, a large number of internal Google documents were leaked, and Google has acknowledged that the documents are authentic. In addition to descriptions of Google's search algorithms, the internal documents include reports on privacy and security incidents over a six-year period, revealing that Google employees had used their administrative privileges on YouTube to misuse or take outside information that had not been made public.

Google Contractor Used Admin Access to Leak Info From Private Nintendo YouTube Video
https://www.404media.co/google-contractor-used-admin-access-to-leak-private-nintendo-youtube-video/

How YouTube's New Gaming Leak Culture Actually Works - Insider Gaming
https://insider-gaming.com/how-youtube-leaks-work/

YouTube insider access tied to massive leak - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/3/24170740/youtube-insider-access-massive-leaks-nintendo

According to the IT news site The Verge, the contents of the announcement at the Sony PlayStation announcement event ' State of Play ' held on May 31, 2024 were leaked immediately after the video premiere was scheduled on YouTube and the broadcast slot was released. As a result, there were concerns that 'Google employees may have accessed private videos before they were distributed.'

After reviewing leaked internal Google documents by multiple media outlets, including the IT news site 404 Media, it was revealed that there were reports of Google employees accessing private YouTube videos.

In 2022, when rapper KSI was trying to distribute Amazon gift cards worth a total of $10,000 (about 1.56 million yen), all of the Amazon gift card codes were already used before he posted the announcement video on YouTube.

Well…No point trying to collect the gift cards in the latest TNTL. It's been claimed before the video is even out lmao. It's not me, it's not Mo, the only person that's watched the video is someone at YouTube to check whether the video should be demonetised or not????????????. pic.twitter.com/aEwOBRc5QN

— ksi (@KSI) November 26, 2022

YouTube conducted an internal investigation into KSI's allegations that the fraudulent use of Amazon gift cards was an inside job, and internal documents state that several employees were fired, including some who were not involved in the fraud. According to Insider Gaming, a similar internal investigation was conducted when the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer was leaked, and at least one employee was disciplined.

According to 404 Media, in 2017, information about the Nintendo Switch game Yoshi's Crafted World was posted on the online bulletin board site Reddit before its official release. The database of internal documents stated that 'a Google contractor used administrator privileges to access Nintendo's YouTube account and leak the information.'

The image below is the actual post. If you look closely, you can see that the URL starting with 'www.admin.youtube.com' is displayed in the browser's URL bar. YouTube, which determined that it was clearly an inside job, began an investigation. As a result, YouTube reported that 'a temporary vendor contract employee used an administrator account to download the video and share unreleased Nintendo information with friends.'

Matt Bryant, a Google spokesperson, told The Verge, 'All issues reported by 404 Media were investigated and resolved at the time.' The Verge noted that there have been multiple incidents of 'insiders using administrator accounts to access user content,' and asked what they were doing to prevent further data leaks, but did not receive a response.