Nailing History

**URGENT** -- Google Pulled The Plug

• Matt and Jon

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The door slammed without warning: our podcast Gmail was disabled, our recording tools broke, and our notes vanished into a limbo we couldn’t even name. We hit record anyway, tracing the chain reaction from a single login error to a full-stack outage and a $24 stopgap just to keep our voices live. What started as a Sunday session turned into a forensic tour of how one platform account can control your publishing, your files, and your ability to show up for listeners.

We walk through the message that greeted us—“account disabled,” appeal link, no reason—and the blind spot that creates when you’re trying to fix the unknown. From Google sign-in blocking our Descript access to YouTube still hosting our videos, the paradox is clear: the platform can keep your content while cutting you off from the keys. We sort possible causes—policy flags, suspected hacking, file-sharing on Drive, even mislabeled educational use—and explain why uncertainty is the hardest part. Without a specific violation, every creative habit feels like a risk, and every minute becomes troubleshooting instead of storytelling.

Then we get practical. We outline what we lost (Drive notes, episode prep, trip write-ups), what we salvaged (publishing through our host), and what we changed in real time: building a backup path to record, drafting a plan to decouple third-party logins, and mapping a storage strategy that mirrors files across local drives and an alternate cloud. If you rely on single sign-on, if your show notes live in one workspace, or if your backup plan is “we’ll export later,” this conversation is your fire drill. We share the playbook we wish we had a week ago so you can build resilience before a silent lockout hits your feed.

If this story helps you future-proof your workflow, share it with a creator who needs the nudge. Subscribe for updates as our appeal unfolds, and leave a review with your best platform-proofing tip so we can feature it next time.

SPEAKER_00:

Hey fans, welcome to the Nailing History Podcast. Guess who doesn't want us to do this show? Tell 'em, John. Our old friends can go f themselves. F them. Google. This is some f bullshit. Sorry. Google. So fans, a little bit of backstory. I just hit record. John and I haven't discussed this face to face yet. I'm sitting down doing some work on a Sunday. John dilly-dallied all day, finally getting around to being available for the podcast. Whatever. He texts me, he says, Hey, what's the password for the nailing history email?

SPEAKER_01:

I said it's a die as a number one.

SPEAKER_00:

So he says it's not working. I said, okay, I I'll try to sign on. Or like try to figure it out because I'm signed on on all my devices. Asked me what the the uh email address was. So I go to like, all right, I guess I'll just sign on. I go to sign on, and um, I get a pretty interesting message from Google. It says, your account has been disabled. It looks like this account was used in a way that violated Google's policy. To learn more, go to in bold letters, g.co slash account appeal. Now, a company like Google, wouldn't you think that the G.co slash account appeal would be a fing hyperlink? No. You can't click on it. Of course not. So then, oh, this account became unavailable on October 24th, 2025, starting on sept period. Starting on September 19th, 2026, this account will be considered for deletion. If you think your comp your account was disabled by mistake, submit an appeal as soon as possible. You can also download your data from some Google services. This gives you a way to keep your data even if your account is not restored. Um so of course I go, okay, I guess I'll start an appeal, and maybe they'll explain to me what happened and why we got disabled. Why the account got why an account that we that I never used for anything that's linked to a podcast that nobody listens to with uh 44 videos that are still live on YouTube, by the way. You can still get our stuff on YouTube, so they're still making money off of this podcast. Don't don't you don't you worry about that. Don't you worry about that. Google's still making their money off of our podcast, right? So I get so I click on I'm gonna file an appeal. Uh it doesn't give you any information about why, and then it says reason for appeal or something, and it gives you like one line to write down. No, what would you write? I don't even know what we did. You gave us no warning. I went to log on to an email and I got this nonsense. I couldn't access anything on it, I couldn't look at it, I got no warnings. October 24th, that was like three weeks ago. What happened? So, what would you write down?

SPEAKER_01:

Give it back.

SPEAKER_00:

I wrote, we didn't do anything.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh I've seen some common reasons for account disablement. Security threats. They think we've been hacked. Maybe our Kenyan fans know something about that. Policy violations include harassment, bullying, threats, creating a false identity. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00:

Listen.

SPEAKER_01:

That's wild.

SPEAKER_00:

If we were hacked, why would you disable it? I didn't get like you you I mean, they have so they had my personal email address, was like the backup email address for this.

SPEAKER_01:

So now you're black people.

SPEAKER_00:

You could have sent me an email and said, hey, something happened. We're going to disable your email unless you do this. Or can you explain this? We're going to you can't just disable somebody's email. It's our business email. Because guess what happened? Guess what happened? You know how we're recording on Descript right now?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know how we did that? Our descript account is linked to our Google account. So guess what? I have to log into our Google account to get the descript. So guess what? I couldn't do it because our Google account is disabled. And now I I mean I can't leave the fans down. So what did I have to do? I had to create another descript account. I had to pay another 24. I had to pay another$24 to get access to the descript to record to get our voices out there. We're trying to be silenced by Google. I'm thinking about it. What did we do? We came out and we called him out. We called him out for the National Guard stuff. Woodrow Wilson.

SPEAKER_01:

That's true. That stuff was getting a little hairy. You think that's related to the YouTube content, or it's something on our Gmail, like our actually in the email inbox?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, listen, I was thinking about a couple things. I'll be I'll be honest. There's a couple things. So okay. We went dark and okay. So true. Our first after dark episode. I marked it as um, I marked it as uh explicit. Why accounts are disabled? I'll just read it to you. This is from Google's account help, which is an oxymoron because it's not helpful. Why accounts are disabled? Here's a bunch of them account hacking or hijacking. Automatic calls or okay, account hijacking, account hacking or hijacking. Don't sign in or use another person's account unless you have that. Okay, whatever. Automatic calls or messages, no. Okay, so account hacking, no. Automatic calls, no. Breaking product policies. Some Google services have their own codes of contact, conduct of terms of service, YouTube. But like it's not our YouTube because our YouTube, Emily M said that because I sent this to her and I said, no, our YouTubes are still up. Child sexual abuse and exploitation. Don't use Google services in a way that exports or abuses children. React in the following kinds of content. I think I can safely say that's not us. Not us. Creating a false identity to deceive people.

SPEAKER_01:

We never did much in the way of role-playing. However, uses like making a fan email account in a celebrity's name are fine.

SPEAKER_00:

Export or sanctioned law violations. Don't use Google Service in your account in a way that maybe you want to cause a violation of applicable export or sanction laws. I don't know what that means. Okay. So an export. Harassing, bullying, and threats. We threatened the truth. We threatened with the truth last episode.

SPEAKER_01:

High call volumes. Did we incite others in these activities? Don't harass, bully, or threaten others. We don't allow Google services to be used to engage or incite others in these activities.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know if we did.

SPEAKER_01:

Keep in mind that online harassment is illegal.

SPEAKER_00:

Maybe they didn't like the Kenyan talk being over being overly high call volumes, impersonation representative misrepresentation of identity. Did I already say that? Wait, oh, I'm am I going backwards? No, you're reading it there. No, I'm going literally. Now we're fishing, whatever. Non-consensual, explicit imagery, and sex torsion. Don't even have a video. You don't even have video. Imagery doesn't have to be video.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Sexually explicit content. Now, here's my thought on that.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Embarrassing content.

SPEAKER_00:

So uh as you know, John, and I don't know how much of our fans know, but you and I have come fairly akin to using ChatGPT to create images of funny things, right? Well, like my problem it's in good fun. I I don't I so this is the issue that I was ha and I don't know why I was doing this. I didn't really need to be doing this, but I was I was creating so you have so I'm gonna blame you for this. You have a piece of shit phone. Got it, right?

SPEAKER_01:

After dark. One plus.

SPEAKER_00:

And I yes, it's a piece of f shit. And sometimes now they've improved the messaging, the mes the sending of images um between iPhones android pieces of shit phones um by uh um with like this RCS messaging. So there's SMS, there's RCS, and there's iMS. And RCS, the images don't get worse in quality. Okay. Um, but your piece of shit phone, for whatever reason, you're the only person that I know that is sometimes in RCS and sometimes not. So a lot of the times when I'm going to send you something on from uh ChatGPT, an image, it's an SMS and I know it's coming in like shit. So it seemed to come through fire. Wait, how is this? Long story. No, wait, I think it was actually my piece of shit work phone. Wait, how was this? Oh yeah. I was using my piece of shit. Whatever reason, I forget now. I'm I'm I'm tying myself into the corner, but I was using nailing historypod at gmail.com as like the go between to like send the images from one device to the other. So like I was and I don't know why I was doing it, but like I was using, but then again, I was using my personal email that I that hasn't been disabled, and I was sending it to nailinghistorypod at gmail.com so that I could then go on and access it on a phone to mail it to text it to me. To text it to you, yeah. It was something. I forget the whole process.

SPEAKER_01:

That's how the US government gets their hands and all the financial matters around the world. It's got to go through the clearinghouse in New York, even if it has nothing to do with it.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, all my fucking all the so all of my chat GPT images went through there, but it also went through I also went through my my my personal email. So I don't think that was it. I think it's fair to say our fans we don't they're not even explicit.

SPEAKER_01:

Spamming? They're not explicit. No, they're not sexually explicit, they're actually very stupid and very ridiculous, but they're not sexually explicit in any way, shape, or form.

SPEAKER_00:

But they do make fun of mate they might make sexual characters or some non-historical Ken Burns, for example.

SPEAKER_01:

Possible future father-in-laws or father stepfathers. Not father-in-laws, we haven't used him. Step possible stepfathers.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know who you're alluding to that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh spamming, not us, terrorist content. No. I feel like I edit I I I edit our stuff before it gets to Google. Enough.

SPEAKER_01:

Unqualified education. Unqualified education. That's probably it. They don't want to hear the truth.

SPEAKER_00:

Don't impersonate an educational institution when creating a Google workspace for or education account. Don't misrepresent your qualification. That's probably it. But like, okay, so we're unqualified. That's not a reason to cancel an email.

SPEAKER_01:

It's not a reason to cancel the e the disable the account.

SPEAKER_00:

That's absurd.

SPEAKER_01:

It's absurd.

SPEAKER_00:

So, okay, so it f us After Dark horribly to just get rid of it. So I can't log into Descript. I had to pay another$24 to get a descript account because I tried to just sign up with the with the free one. And also, mind you, don't forget, don't forget, I spent, I paid, I pre-paid for an entire year of Descript that that expires in April. Now, how now we have we have fans, you may remember from back in the day, we have in the past had to deal with descript customer service.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00:

And it did not go well. So now I have to figure out a way. Now I appealed, I appealed our disabling.

SPEAKER_01:

So we'll wait.

SPEAKER_00:

Um so we'll wait and and see, but if we don't get reinstated, I have to go through descript customer service to explain to them how the podcast Gmail account got disabled for misrepresenting an educational organization, and I need to be able to transfer this descript account over to Yahoo.

SPEAKER_01:

To a Yahoo account to obviously a Yahoo account. Or hotmail or anything. I guess prototype.

SPEAKER_00:

This is the bullshit, is like it was it was easy because you know how like sometimes when you sign up for something, it'll say like you can either create an account or you can just link it to your Google account.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00:

So like I did that with the script.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Yeah, third party. I forget what that's called. I learned about that in cybersecurity. Yeah, it's a third party thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So fans, uh, you're welcome for the$24. John, I hope you appreciate it. No, I will say something.$24, the$24 recording session. Um, and because it's an important recording session.

SPEAKER_02:

It is.

SPEAKER_00:

We need to get this stuff that we're gonna be talking about out before we forget about it and before it's fresh in. So we really need to record now, which is why I took it. Like I could have we could have recorded through Google, but no, I'm not doing that. We're never using Google again. I don't know what I'm gonna do with my work phone that's a Google Pixel. I'm disgusted. I'm absolutely disgusted with this bullshit.

SPEAKER_01:

Shocked it with the biggest. I have a confession to make too for Tio. So uh probably going back maybe two, three weeks now, I was getting things. I'm also signed in on my computer and on my phone, and I was getting notifications saying you need to re-sign in or something. Or I was kept getting these messages like sign back in, sign into your account, you gotta take action, take action, but it didn't tell me what I had to do. Are you serious? I just I just removed the accounts from my that's why that's why I'm not signed in anymore. Because I just removed them from my computer and my phone because I was getting annoyed.

SPEAKER_00:

I just thought it was a password thing. Did you look into it? Did you look into it? No, it was just a password thing. Oh my god. I thought it was just a password thing. You owe me you should bive give me money. Pay me$12.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, I'll give you$12. I didn't know. It didn't say like, hey, we've got problems with your account.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, why didn't you look?

SPEAKER_01:

I did. I tried to put the because I didn't have the password, and I was like, oh, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you so okay, and then you wait until now. We're 16 minutes in. I've been motherfucking Google for 16 minutes, and then you're gonna come and talk to me like that. Now I look like a fing idiot.

SPEAKER_01:

It didn't say it. Just basically you looked like you were logged out of the account, you gotta sign back in. But it didn't tell me there's problems, but didn't give me exclamation points and warning signs saying you got a problem with your account, you gotta correct it. Log See, this is classic you. You're blaming everybody else. I'm not blaming everybody. Yeah, I'm just confessing that I'm gonna see what it's about. Okay, I will give you$12.

SPEAKER_00:

But they didn't tell us what it was. Well, uh, they probably did. Do you remember what they said? Did you even know that? No, it wasn't that.

SPEAKER_01:

Did you read it was like on my phone? Because my phone also is Guts Android.

SPEAKER_00:

So it was like Do you think somebody hacked us and like started posting a bunch of sexually explicit stuff through our educational institution?

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know. From that front.

SPEAKER_00:

The other thing that I thought about was how do they hack that? What do you think about this? What do you think about this? I don't know if I used nailing history for this reason, and I'd probably let me see. How can I say this without implicating myself more? Um, I may have shared through the drive, through Google Drive, I may have shared um a file, like uh potentially copyrighted material. Not explicit, but potentially copyrighted material. I shared because I got it, somebody sent it to me, and then I wanted to send it to somebody else, and I also wanted to download it for myself. It got sent to me on Microsoft OneDrive. It was legit. It wasn't sent to me by somebody random. So, like, I don't know if that's it, but that didn't really look like a reason. And also, it's on my other personal Google account that hasn't. Imagine if it did they did it to my personal account.

SPEAKER_01:

Everything that's linked to it? Yeah, mine too, yeah. My G, I got I'm paying. Well, I'm also paying for OneDrive. I'm paying. I bet you if we give them a little list, a little scratch, they'll probably reinstate it. Google? If we sign up for like a Google One plan, where you pay for like I pay 20 bucks a year for 100 gigabytes of storage. They'll probably reinstate it.

SPEAKER_00:

It's because it's for free. They said that they they have one review.

SPEAKER_01:

One review of what?

SPEAKER_00:

One review, and if they say no, then it's toast. Seriously? Mm-hmm. F Google. I don't know. I think they're silencing us, but they're also leaving our stuff on YouTube at the same time. They're not making it see, they don't want to make it obvious, like all of our fans would say, hey, where did nailing history go online?

SPEAKER_01:

Are you gonna um So you're gonna still be able to post this through the Nailing History?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know how that's gonna work. I might not be able to post it on YouTube. I'll post it through Buzz Sprout. I can still get the Buzz Sprout, so I can still upload it through BuzzSprout. That I bel like, so it gets uploaded through Buzz Sprout, which is our hosting site, and it gets uploaded immediately to YouTube. So maybe. But like, yeah, I mean we still have a YouTube account.

SPEAKER_01:

I've looked at it when I've gone on the account, it's not a good one. Do you want to hear something funny, dude? Buzzsprout emails.

SPEAKER_00:

So I'm like this is kind of not relevant. It's relevant. So I'm like trying to figure out, but we lost our notes from like three months ago. Like the only way that we would be able to revisit the trip to Charlottesville clearly is with the notes that we put together like a week after we went there, and then like so we had notes from fresh from the trip to on Google Drive, and now we can't access the Google Drive, so that disappeared, and there's no way we can get it back unless we get reinstated on Google. So you try to do it. There was a button to download the data, it didn't work. I did, yeah. The data was just our YouTube videos. Really? It's not anything in the drive account. The drive was empty. It didn't, I it didn't recover anything from the drive. I got up here. So I was like on Google account help, which is an oxymoron again, but I found this one post from this guy named uh his username is uh Ashraf Fuel Islam4189. My account is permanently deleted. I want to recover it. I have invested more than 12,000 in it. I don't know. That's the heading. My account is permanently delete. I want to recover my Gmail account, but Google wants my recovery phone number, but I forgot it. Please help me. That account is my life. I can't recover it, then I will suicite, please.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00:

Like a bunch of crying emoji, crying emoji, crying emoji, crying emoji, crying emoji emoji, tear emoji with a blue head, regular tear emoji, sweating emoji, heartbreak emoji, face, palm in face emoji. I will suicide. S-U-I hold on. S-U-I-S-I-T-E.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh no. I hope Mr. what was his name? Well, poor poor guy.

SPEAKER_00:

Ashra. I wonder what he invested 12,000 of. 12,000 like uh explicit photos? Ashra Fuel Islam 4189. We speak your name. But I let me click on his thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Google One costs 200 bucks a year for the Google AI Pro Plan. Gives you two terabytes.

SPEAKER_00:

Google. I'm not giving them any more money. We gotta figure something out. Good for them. I would be worried if I were you. I can't believe they pulled this shit. This should be illegal. This should be illegal. I mean, we're a business. They're trying to silence us. They're trying to silence us by not being as obvious as just taking our YouTube down. Now they've disabled our ability to record and access everything that we had, so we cannot they're trying to not allow us to continue.

SPEAKER_01:

An ongoing concern is what I just don't know why. Yeah, they didn't send us anything. I literally just thought they logged in.

SPEAKER_00:

They did send us something, apparently. Thanks, John.

SPEAKER_01:

They're just saying you gotta log back in. It wasn't like uh you've got problems with your account. And I was like, well, I don't know how I don't have the password saved on my password man. I was like, I don't have that. I don't feel like bothering you for it. It's like it's fine. Like, I don't really go on there much anyway. So I was like, I thought I figured it was just uh I think it's bullshit.

SPEAKER_00:

AI did. They cost me$24. They didn't want me to do it. They didn't want me to spend the money. They wanted a silence.

SPEAKER_01:

You think he can recoup?

SPEAKER_00:

All because we talk uh do you think Trump's behind it? Really? We never really bathed. This is like some censor This is some censoring.

SPEAKER_01:

It's indirect, yeah. There should have been an email in the inbox. When was the last time you were in the inbox?

SPEAKER_00:

It got disabled on October 24th. I wonder what messages we may have sent on October 24th.

SPEAKER_01:

I wonder what maybe they didn't like the picture of you made a picture with Christopher Columbus and Donald Trump with the White House in the background, and then you superimposed your face on Trump and mine on the Christopher Columbus statue.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't remember that one.

SPEAKER_01:

They just don't know how a good time. They just don't know how to give have a good time. No, but dude. And they made these AI tools. They made these AI tools. It's like, what else am I supposed to use them for? Like using all this data processing power to make funny ass pictures. I think they're funny. Well, as long as you don't really you know what? Google's one thing, but as long as that face swap doesn't take or send your lifetime membership, you're fine. If that account gets disabled.

SPEAKER_00:

I've had so much fun with that facewap. It's my best, it's the best, it's the best thing I've ever bought in my entire life. Hands down, the best thing I ever bought in my entire life. I use it every day. I've had it for probably over a year. I've probably used it at least 365 days in a row. Did you like change the faces? All right. So, fans, just so you guys know, we're still here kind of as long as John, you know, has the time for us. And um keep you posted on how this appeal goes. We'll keep you posted because we might have to just start from scratch. I don't know. I don't know what I'm gonna do. Buzzsprout's still working because I have like a physical account with BuzzSprout, but it is linked to the nailing history pod at gmail.com. So I gotta figure out a way to change it so that we don't get locked out for whatever reason. And then the script, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I bought myself a month for$24. John's gonna give me$12 of that, and um, we'll go from there and see where we're at.

SPEAKER_01:

I just hope our appeal doesn't go to you nowhere.

SPEAKER_00:

I was so mad. They said that it's gonna take uh two days, but sometimes more.

SPEAKER_01:

Certain subconscious.

SPEAKER_00:

Funny, you know, they uh they'll take two days to review, but it doesn't take them two days takes them like that to delete it. No warning.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I mean, so but you say it's I mean, they could have at least like it's gonna be deleted in September. We've got a whole year, but they're saying you only have one chance to appeal it. One chance to appeal.

SPEAKER_00:

If I if we lose the appeal, we're done. We're toast. We're cooked.

SPEAKER_01:

We're cooked, as they say.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know what we did. Google won't f tell us.

SPEAKER_01:

We're gonna think we're degenerate.

SPEAKER_00:

Like, oh what do you mean?

SPEAKER_01:

They're not gonna think we're telling the truth. They're gonna think we're holding withholding evidence.

SPEAKER_00:

I will say, listen, I will say, in all honesty, John, you're clear. I was the only one. John didn't even know the fing password for the thing. He probably hasn't logged in in two years.

SPEAKER_01:

So I know I'd been logged in on my account. I'd been logged in. Yeah, but you never went on, eh? I didn't even know. Every so often I was bullshit. I've got four different Gmail accounts on my computer. I've sometimes toggled between them and I ended up on the the email.

SPEAKER_00:

Listen, what whatever.

SPEAKER_01:

Let's just say, um Thank you for pardoning me. Because now, yeah, I obviously.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, if if it was anything, it was me, and if it was me, it wasn't at all. This is a little nerve-wracking. It's a little scary.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, obviously that's a burner account. Basically, a burner account, but yeah, like my Gmail, other people's Gmails, yeah, I drive. It's more like, yeah, I gotta I should probably invest in a local hard drive.