The joys of restrictive mode, or how YouTube is shooting itself in it's digital foot.

Ok, we've probably all heard at some point in the last few months youtubers mention that their video views are down, and everything seems to be blamed from changes in the algorithm to glitches and bugs and bad coding to Pewdiepies fiver video fiasco to advertisers pulling their ads because apparently terrorists have videos up on youtube.

I really don't want to go searching on that to confirm if it's true or not, there are some keywords you do not want showing up in your search history.

But I think, of all people, Onision has finally hit the nail on the head with the hammer, and found out just what might be the real reason behind this all.

Restrictive mode.

That's right, right at the bottom of the page is the option to turn on or off the restrictive mode, all in an effort by youtube to prevent "questionable content" being seen.

Now I've only just watched the video Onision has put up on this, and whatever you may think of him, when he does look into things like this, I find he tends to be very much on the money. He checked out his own channel and his feed to see what results he got and found his own main channel did not show up at all in searches and the videos on his other channels he could see listed were limited.

You'll need to make sure your Restrictive mode is off to watch this.

So I quickly checked out my own channel with the restrictive mode on and found sure enough, my own content restricted for view, even from myself. Entire playlists were not viewable, seemingly taken down because of the names of the lists involved, and likewise the same with the videos from those lists that are cross referenced on Other playlists I have.

Of course this doesn't explain everything wrong with youtube, random demonetisation still seems to be a thing. On his latest vlog Evan Edinger pointed out that he had two of his videos demonetised recently as the content was deemed to be not "Ad friendly". It's been fixed now but you can still see more about this in his latest vlog below.

Evan Edinger, don't worry, there's no restrictions on him. Yet.

I've even checked out, so far, three other youtubers, namely Ashens, Markiplier, and of course, Pewdiepie. Can you guess which was affected the most and which was affected the least? Here's a hint, they are listed above in order of least to most affected.

And since the playlists of mine that were most affected were Let's Plays, and all involved combat and fighting to some degree, and my playlists that weren't Let's Plays involved things like Martial Arts, I think I might be seeing some sort of trend here. More research is needed methinks to confirm this further, so this article may see further updates added to the end of it in due course, but right now, it is not looking good as far as anyone wanting to make content on youtube and have it found.

No wonder my own views seemed to be down of late. Oh wait, my views are always low. But this might certainly explain why people, even the big names are losing views, and therefor losing revenue if they make a living off youtube, unlike me.

So here is the potential flaw with the Restrictive mode, at least as far as I see it. Youtube gets to set it for you. You just get the choice to turn it off or on, and I'm wondering how many even know to look for it? Hang on, lets see:

This little setting right here, might just be stopping you getting the full youtube experience.
I say turn it off, till youtube get it into their heads that we can make our own decisions on what kind of content we do, and do not want to see, and let us set out our own parameters for what content we do and do not want to see.

And likewise, if this is in relation to advertisers flexing their muscles to determine which types of videos get to see they adverts, don't they realise that we are the very same people who buy they products? This works both ways, we can't buy your stuff if we don't know about them, you can't sell them to us if you won't let us see your ads.

More to come as and when I find out more. Please spread the word.

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