YouTube Vice President of Product Management Johanna Wright announced in a blog post Friday that engineers have “fixed an issue” with Restricted Mode, an optional video-filtering feature designed to hide “potentially inappropriate content.” YouTube noted that “12 million additional videos of all types—including hundreds of thousands featuring LGBTQ+ content—are [now] available in Restricted Mode.”
“We want to clarify that Restricted Mode should not filter out content belonging to individuals or groups based on certain attributes like gender, gender identity, political viewpoints, race, religion or sexual orientation,” Wright wrote.
In March, LGBT YouTubers drew international media attention to the fact that Restricted Mode was hiding several of their videos, even if they did not contain adult language or sexually explicit content. YouTube responded with several apologies and promises to correct the feature, noting that only about 1.5 percent of daily views come from users who have Restricted Mode activated. Restricted Mode is generally used in “schools and libraries,” as Wright noted.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Daily Beast conducted a spot-check of some of the videos that were hidden when using YouTube in Restricted Mode last month. Some—like the Tegan and Sara music video for “U-Turn” or an ABC News video about a transgender teenager—were now accessible in Restricted Mode. Others—like a documentary about transgender children—were still hidden. In her blog post, Wright promised “to continue making our systems more accurate and the overall Restricted Mode experience better over time.”
—Samantha Allen
Read it at YouTube Creator Blog
