YouTube/Chet Goldstein
- All of the channels associated with EDP445 and Chet Goldstein have been removed from YouTube.
- The Chet channel posted a video alleging that EDP445 had sexual conversations with a minor.
- Alex Rosen, who ran Chet Goldstein, has a history of controversial content.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
YouTube has taken down the channels belonging to Bryan Moreland, known online as EDP445, and Alex Rosen, who ran the Chet Goldstein channel.
The actions, which occurred at the same time, came after Rosen claimed in a video that Moreland had sent sexual messages and images to a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl.
On Monday, the Chet Goldstein channel posted an hour-long "sting" video where Rosen and fellow predator hunter Ghost, who runs the channel CC Unit, approached Moreland in Bakersfield, California. Rosen's video at least made it seem like Moreland thought he was going to meet up with a 13-year-old girl. That video went viral, pulling in over two million views.
Moreland, who had built up an audience making videos and ranting about the Philadelphia Eagles, has disappeared from social media since the videos went viral.
The Bakersfield Sheriff's Department told a local ABC affiliate news station on April 22 that the "video's content is under investigation but as of now no arrests have been made." The department did not return a request for comment by publication time.
Rosen posted an Instagram video about the channel ban, pointing his followers to his side-channel Stanley Yelnatz (which has already been taken offline). Rosen told Insider that he received an email from YouTube, but did not receive a strike, YouTube's term for a warning. Rosen says his stings and content moving forward will be posted to the Predator Poachers website.
"We can't post anything on YouTube anymore pretty much, that platform just doesn't like us," Rosen says in the Instagram video.
YouTube did not respond to Insider's request for comment.
It's not entirely clear what the basis of the bans was
It's still not clear why each creator was banned.
Moreland, the purported subject of the sting, has been accused of messaging multiple minors in the past, and YouTube has taken action against creators who have faced major scandals in the past few months.
Rosen has a history of posting unsavory content along with his stings.
He created the Predator Poachers YouTube channel in 2019 after watching similar YouTubers and experimenting with setting up his own stings. In 2020, it was taken down due to multiple community guideline strikes, though what those strikes were for remains unclear. On that channel, he would often target gay men who were seeking contact with male minors. In one video from the deleted channel, a minor in a sting starts to unbuckle and take off his pants around a suspect before Rosen walks in. The decoy is the cousin of Rosen, who was 16 at the time of recording.
"I agree it was very irresponsible," Rosen told Insider. "We were 19 and just starting out and we didn't think anything of having a cousin of ours who's a couple of years younger there."
In another video, a purported minor who was used as bait for a sting said the male target was "touching and kissing me and trying to hold my hand." Rosen said in later clips that he uses minors as bait for his videos.
Aside from using minors in the videos, Rosen created several ethically dubious situations. In one video, where he confronts a Nebraska man who Rosen said sent sexual messages to an 8-year-old decoy, Rosen says that he won't call the police if the man puts on an "I Lick A--" T-shirt.
"We absolutely toy with them, we make sure we get their confession on camera, that is the most important part," Rosen told Insider before the ban.
Additionally, Rosen posted multiple videos and livestreams where he uses the N-word. In an interview done before the ban of his channel, Rosen said that "it obviously looks bad" and that he has "no hatred in my heart towards any group of people." In one video, Rosen prank called a BLM hotline, used multiple homophobic and racist slurs, and joked about pedophelia.