YouTubers Karl Jobst and Mutahar Anas (SomeOrdinaryGamers) posted videos on Nov. 13 alleging that the Open Hand Foundation, operated by The Completionist, has been withholding donations for nearly 10 years. On Nov. 15, the organization tried taking the videos down but was rejected by the platform.
According to Jobst, who shared emails on Twitter, the Open Hand Foundation had made privacy claims against the YouTuber, but YouTube rejected them. Jobst claimed in the emails that all the information contained in his YouTube video was publically available, with most of it found on the organization’s website.
“Someone within the Open Hand Foundation made a privacy complaint against my video. YouTube rejected it,” said Jobst in a Nov. 15 Twitter post. When asked how Jobst could know it was someone from the Foundation, he explained that privacy claims can only be made by first parties and not on someone’s behalf. “YouTube only accepts complaints from first parties, you can’t file a complaint on behalf of someone else. So either it was them (most likely and no reason to believe otherwise) or someone convinced YouTube it was them,” he said.
This situation also caught the eye of Mutahar Anas from SomeOrdinaryGamers, who, alongside Jobst, led this investigation into the Open Hand Foundation. He commented that this behavior is highly suspicious and that all the Foundation should do is publicly share the status of donated funds and move them to where they were supposed to go.
“Man this is just getting sketchy. All that needs to be shown is the Foundation’s bank statements to show the money is there and just donate it. Trying to find ways to remove these videos when clearly even YouTube disagrees is just odd,” he wrote on Twitter. He, like Jobst, left room for doubt that it could be a third party impersonating the Foundation. Nevertheless, Anas claims the fix for the situation is easy and obvious and that the organization should come clean.
For those who may have missed it, Jobst and Anas investigated the Open Hand Foundation, a charity organization operated by Jirard Khalil, aka The Completionist. It was founded after Khalil’s mother had been afflicted with dementia, with a focus on raising awareness of dementia and helping dementia research and relief for victims and their families. The Foundation raised funds through charitable gaming events, for which Khalil had gotten a lot of recognition and praise from the gaming community.
Jobst and Anas alleged that the Foundation hadn’t donated any money for nearly 10 years and that the funds had been sitting untouched in its bank accounts. One thing led to another, and a very convoluted situation has appeared, shaking the gaming charity scene to its core.
Situations like these are highly delicate, and we hope to see a positive outcome in the end.
