14 DAY TRIAL // YouTube claims to have fixed the issue that caused its filters to go wild on blocking LGBTQ+ videos from the Restricted Mode.
The company came under fire last month after numerous users discovered that, when they turned on "Restricted Mode," innocent videos referencing same-sex relationships and coming-out stories were being blocked. This particular setting that YouTube provides users should filter out mature content, graphic language, violent footage and so on, certainly not LGTBQ+ videos.
The idea behind the filter is to offer a more "family-friendly" version of YouTube, hiding videos that you may not want your kids to see, including things that aren't appropriate for children.
The feature, however, was obviously not working properly because innocent videos were being blocked. Initially, it was believed that this was a problem with people reporting these videos for inappropriate content, as some wrongly-righteous campaigns have been known to do over time. Instead, it seems the problem lay within Google's own coding.
Fixing the problem
The company admitted the problem and apologized. After all, Google isn't exactly the type of company to push anti-LGBTQ+ rules and settings; quite the opposite, in fact. Now that the ordered audit is complete, YouTube says the issue was fixed on the engineering side that was causing the incorrect video filtering.
This fix resulted in 12 million videos becoming available in Restricted Mode, including hundreds of thousands featuring LGBTQ+ content.
A new feature was also added to the reporting system, introducing a form that allows creators and viewers to alert YouTube when videos are wrongly excluded from Restricted Mode. This should act as a safety net in case this type of thing happens again or if they perhaps missed a few videos in the process.
For transparency's sake, YouTube also went into details about how Restricted Mode actually works. For instance, they're going to filter out videos containing discussions or footage about alcohol and drug consumption, sex (not sexual education), violence, profane or mature language, as well as other mature subjects, such as war, crime, terrorism, and so on.