fricknlickn:

I’m sorry, but this is complete bullshit. I get censoring out videos that talk about sex and more explicit things – which these restrictions accomplish to some extent – but this does more than just that. 

For example:

• You know dodie’s “Sick of Losing Soulmates” video? Yeah, the official music video got taken down, but not because of language. The original release of the song on her main channel is still up with the restrictions on.
• When you look up creators like Connor Franta, Troye Sivan, Hannah Hart, and Tyler Oakley, just to name a few, in the search bar, their channels don’t show up.
• Mary Lambert’s “She Keeps Me Warm” official video isn’t available. Some videos of her performing it are up, but not the actual music video, a video that has no adult themes. 
• Evan Edinger’s video on demisexuality isn’t available. Sure, he mentions the word “sex” a few times, but sex ed/human reproductive system videos aren’t down.
•  MilesChronicles only has eight videos up with the restrictions. All their videos relating to their gender or sexuality don’t appear on their channel.
• Troye Sivan’s coming out video (2013) isn’t there.
• All of Melanie Murphy’s videos – except one – where she talks about her bisexuality aren’t available.
• Only eight of Stevie Boebi’s videos show up on her channel; only one directly relates to being queer, the other is her identity video where “lesbian or bisexual” is in the thumbnail.

Trust me, there are more; you don’t have to look far to find them. But why does it matter? Can’t you just turn off the restrictions? Well yes, if it isn’t locked. YouTube offers an option to lock on Restricted Mode for the browser. A kid who’s trying to figure themself out and is terrified about it won’t have these resources and stories and models to help them if their parent(s) enable this restriction. Their self journey will be so much longer and harder than necessary because of it.

And what about the younger kids. The kids who are in a heavily sheltered environment where the only information they have about being queer is taken-out-of-context Bible verses. They’ll see the very minuscule number of lgbtq+ videos and feel even more isolated and like a pariah.

We need these videos.

Youtube has been a happy place and a space of belonging for me and so many others, we can’t take lose that. @youtube you said you’re proud of representing queer voices, you better fucking mean it.