YouTube has caved to pressure and updated its ‘restricted mode’ feature that allegedly blocked some LGBTQ videos incorrectly. The Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)-owned video sharing platform has been the subject of immense backlash from the LGBTQ community over suspicion it was knowingly hiding some videos.
YouTube’s Apology
Fueling uproar from the LGBTQ community is the fact that the ‘restricted mode’ hid a good chunk of videos most of which did not contain any inappropriate content. YouTube has since apologized and made some improvements on the ‘restricted mode’ feature. According to Product Management VP Johanna Wright, the changes should prevent incorrect filtering of videos from the LGBTQ community.
“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,” Mr. Wright in a statement.
Even with changes, Mr. Wright notes that there are still about 12 million additional videos available under the restricted mode consisting of hundreds of thousands from the LGBTQ community. In a bid to prevent similar incidents in the future, YouTube has provided a new set of guidelines that video creators will have to abide by, to ensure their videos are listed correctly on the platform.
Loss of Revenue
While the apology appears to have calmed the storm, it appears some YouTubers are not yet ready to let the company’s latest controversy slide just away. Some major brands have reportedly pulled down ads from the platform over the company’s move to censor videos from the LGBTQ community. Some of YouTube biggest stars such as Tyler Oakley have also aired their outrage over the censoring gaffe.
Losing financial support from major advertising agencies because of such controversy is not something new to YouTube. However, the Google-owned platform could not afford to lose support from video creators given the billions of dollars that could be lost in the process. The search giant generates a good chunk of its revenue from the video sharing platform through ads thus the reason it always strives to make all the affected parties happy.
Google stock was down by 0.13% in Friday trading session closing the week at $858.95 a share.
