The Alaskan Sunnyside Sisters, the family bluegrass group that turned heads earlier this year with a performance at the Grand Ole Opry, singing “In the Highways” as part of a tribute marking the 25th anniversary of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, say their YouTube channel and Google account were hacked and taken over completely, wiping out two years of content in the process. The sisters shared the news in a video posted to their Facebook page, with each of them taking turns explaining what happened and reassuring fans that the family has no plans to stop making music.
According to the sisters, the breach became clear when they logged into their YouTube account and found a livestream already running that had nothing to do with them, a cryptocurrency promotion using other people’s names and identities. From there, they discovered that a number of their videos, including ones that had been set to private or unlisted and special content made exclusively for subscribers, had been switched to public. Within minutes, their entire YouTube channel was gone from the platform altogether, taking all 840 of their uploaded videos with it. The sisters said the channel represented roughly two years of family performances, travel, memories and the work they had put into building an audience that has grown into the hundreds of thousands across their social platforms.
The family said they have also been locked out of the Google account tied to the channel and are still working to get everything back. They were careful to distinguish this from an earlier loss of their TikTok account earlier this year, saying that situation was different. This time, they said, they did not choose to give up the account. Someone took it from them.
Even with the channel gone, the sisters used the video to reassure their audience that losing the videos will not stop them from making music. They said what was lost matters to them for reasons beyond the numbers, pointing to the two years of viewers who have grown attached to their family and their music through the channel. The group thanked their supporters directly and asked fans to be careful in the meantime, warning that anything posted to YouTube under their name that they have not personally announced should not be trusted, and urging people not to click on suspicious content or send money to anyone claiming to represent them. The sisters said they will share updates as soon as they have news to report on recovering the account.