YouTube’s censorship algorithm strikes again! The latest victim? A gay fetish channel.
The fetish-focused dating app and website Recon received word on July 25th that it’s informational/educational YouTube account had been disabled, according to them.
Company brand director Sandy Pianim then reached out to a few select friends to share the news before he later went public. That then led friend and fellow YouTube creator Amp Somers to make a Twitter thread about the incident.
“I tweeted because I’m tired of people being deleted and people being quiet about it all,” Somers told them.
Keep in mind, the entirety of the account was disabled. Meanwhile, several other fetish channels, where you can watch videos of women in latex, were left unaffected. Clearly, this is not an issue of censoring fetishism and an issue of censoring LGBTQ fetishism.
Even worse, this isn’t the first time that the channel has been banned by YouTube.
According to Buzzfeed, the account was banned back in 2016. YouTube’s excuse at the time was the same as this time. “It’s a hitch in the algorithm.”
“With over 400 hours of video uploaded every minute, we rely on our community and machine learning technology to flag content that may violate our Community Guidelines for human review,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. “With the volume of videos on our platform, sometimes we make mistakes and when this is brought to our attention we reinstate the videos or channels. We give uploaders the ability to appeal these decisions and we will re-review the content.”
It seems that these problems with LGBTQ content and the censorship algorithm have been happening a lot lately. In fact, there have been constant problems for the past two years or so.
For instance, 2017 saw several YouTube creators complaining about their LGBTQ-themed content being pushed behind a “restricted mode” wall. These were not just videos about overt sexuality, but everyday videos about bullying, weddings, and life as an LGBTQ person too.
Then earlier this year, South African singer and lead actor of the film The Wound/The Inxeba shared that the music video for his single “Clairvoyant” had been censored by the website.
These constant aggressions against LGBTQ people have left creators feeling resentful against the video sharing platform, and it has yet to correct these “kinks” in the program.
Unfortunately, the disabling of this LGBTQ fetish account, which again is not the only fetish account on the site, proves that YouTube has a problem with LGBTQ people (whether they admit it or not).
Back in 2016, the channel’s site was later reinstated after Buzzfeed made headlines about the incident. Hopefully, us raising a stink and getting in YouTube’s face about it will get their attention.
That said, will something like this happen again with its faulty algorithm? Most assuredly. And it seems to YouTube, that’s just another day on the job.
h/t: them., Buzzfeed
My friends Bear vids were
My friends Bear vids were banned. It only takes one dumb-arse American homophobe to complain and they respond.
I’ve never heard of this web
I've never heard of this web site but I am all for banning the so-called kinky web sites that promote anonymous, deviant and filthy lifestyle.