More and more creators are complaining about censorship and stricter moderation than before on YouTube. The latest example comes from a movie youtuber. Her video mentioning the film Shortbus, which deals with sex, allegedly violated the platform’s rules — and her entire channel was taken down in rebuke.
After the censorship of swear words and the ban on mentioning suicides, it is now videos about sex that are no longer welcomed on YouTube. That’s whatvideographer Intercut explained on Twitter on January 23, 2023.” Yesterday I released a video where I was talking about Shortbus »he explains, noting that it is “of a film that talks about sex, among other things “.
Intercut then explains that, following the publication of this video, ” Youtube deleted my channel of 45,000 subscribers “, which represented ” years of work, hours of content “. His incomprehension is total: I received no advance warning. The video had been online privately since Thursday, for 4 days, to see if Youtube saw a problem. 0 problem. She was even monetized (sic). Why didn’t you warn me at (sic) this moment? I would have deleted the video “.
Is censorship stricter than before?
As Numerama was able to verify on YouTube, the Intercut channel is no longer available on the site. There has, as yet, been no official explanation from YouTube as to why there was no warning before the channel was removed, or whether it is ‘a mistake.
The site has so far responded to Intercut on Twitter saying its teams will ” ride up [le] cases to our analysis teams “. In the meantime, the questions remain unanswered: was the published content really pornographic, to the point of justifying a deletion? Impossible to know, now that the video and the channel have been deleted.
YouTube Rules regarding nudity and sexual content are very strict. ” Any explicit content intended to be sexually gratifying is prohibited on YouTube “, even if the platform can make exceptions for content for educational or artistic purposes. But even in these cases, We may also prohibit out-of-context nudity […]. The same applies to depictions of sex scenes in artistic content such as films, audio content, music or video games. “. Talk about short busa film about sex, could therefore be on the verge of a ban on YouTube.
There are however a whole bunch of videos talking about short bus on YouTube, like the movie trailer, excerpts, reviews, and even shorts. There is also, from the first seconds of the trailer, an orgy scene filmed. So it would seem that the film itself is not completely unacceptable. Why delete a video and not all the others?
Creators face new YouTube rules
In any case, the problem remains that the rules of the platform are not always clear to creators – and that more and more of them are complaining about tougher moderation. YouTuber Terracid, followed by more than two million people, recently explained that he had seen several of his videos retroactively demonetized by YouTube, following the arrival of a new rule. He had not been warned before by the platform.
Same thing on the side of Tales From The Clic. The creator’s last video, which talked about Kurt Cobain, has been deleted, as it mentioned that the singer had committed suicide. After questioning YouTube, the videographer learned that he was accused of presenting ” Kurt Cobain death scene footage […] including a corpse, as well as the method of suicide “. He would have simply used a newspaper archive, and said that the singer had used a gun. “JI accept your decision but I find it extreme “, explained the Youtuber.
More than arbitrary decisions, it is above all the lack of communication on the part of YouTube that remains in the throats of many creators. ” A warning, a message would have sufficed “Explains Intercut on Twitter. ” I’m freaked out there. Without solution. I don’t even know how to get over it. Really, my whole personal world is collapsing. For a video. That I could have removed, blurred, erased, in 1 minute.”
Update from January 24 at 3:40 p.m.: YouTube has brought Intercut’s channel back online. The video in which the creator talks about Shortbus, however, still seems to be on hold.
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