Hi. I'm Marina Watanabe, local YouTube bisexual.
About a year ago I came out as bi, and I made a video on my channel talking about my experiences growing up
in a repressive catholic school environment and my struggles to understand and accept my sexuality.
Even in 2016 it was really nerve–racking and scary putting that video up but ultimately
I received so many positive and uplifting comments that only affirmed my identity and my decision to come out.
The reason I made that video was:
1. To share bisexual perspectives because in case you haven't noticed there is not a ton of
bisexual representation in the media where they actually say the word bisexual and it doesn't end in tragedy.
But more importantly I made that video for my younger self and any kid or teenager
who might have felt the same way that I did growing up, who didn't have access to resources or information
that would've made them feel less alone, or less confused, or less afraid.
If I had known that LGBT channels and vloggers existed when I was growing up I think I would have spent a lot less time
feeling afraid and confused and turning inward on myself
and not feeling comfortable sharing my thoughts or my identity with other people.
Well I did go to a really conservative and homophobic school from kindergarten to eight grade
I was lucky enough to go to a public high school in California.
The people I went to school with and my teachers were all generally really progressive and open-minded
and they never made me feel like being gay, or bisexual, or lesbian was a bad thing
but I know that that's a privilege that so many kids growing up in more conservative areas simply don't have.
I was a little late on this information because I just moved and I've been really busy but a few days ago
I found out that YouTube has created this age restricted mode that basically censors any kind of LGBT related content.
This is regardless of age appropriateness, or audience, um, it could be the most kid friendly, young adult, young kid oriented
content and if it has the word 'gay' or 'lesbian' or 'LGBT' in the title it's gonna be removed from restricted mode.
According to YouTube their restricted mode is suppose to filter out anything that's not considered "family friendly"
which is great because apparently gay and lesbian and bi and trans people are not family friendly
and our existences are inherently sexual and inappropriate?
Actually if you go into your settings and you turn on restricted mode if you go to my channel
you can see that my coming out video has been removed. A bisexuality Q and A has also been removed
where I challenge harmful myths such as not being bisexual enough
and other misconceptions that make it really hard for people to come out as bisexual.
Also a video I made about the history of menstrual products
and the stigma and shame that was cis women have historically experienced was also removed.
So apparently factually correct information about bodies and sexual health is "too inappropriate".
YouTube has said that it's a small subset of it's users that utilize the age restricted mode
but from my understanding and what I've been reading about it YouTube's restricted mode
is what they're pushing to replace their previous website in place for K through twelve public schools which was YouTube For Schools.
So basically they're removing their old system for public schools and reinstating their restricted mode
that essentially restricts kids and teens from having access to LGBT positive information and content.
Yikes.
Up until today I hadn't really seen any major publications talking about it.
A lot of my own fellow YouTubers who are in the LGBT community have tweeted about it.
Rowan Ellis made a great video about the topic if you want to check it out.
They've all had the same experience where when they go into restricted mode tons of their videos
that would be flagged as LGBT content was simply be not viewable.
So that's fun.
YouTube apparently issued an apology today, uh, saying:
"Sorry for all the confusion with Restricted Mode. Some videos have been incorrectly labeled and that’s not right. We're on it!"
The fact that pretty much any video labeled with 'gay' or 'lesbian' or 'LGBT' or anything like that
has been systematically been removed from this age restricted mode tells me that this wasn't an accident, this wasn't a mistake.
This was literally a system created to filter out any LGBT related content.
And the fact that YouTube's response was basically like "Oops! Didn't mean to do that." Is just deeply misleading and kinda sketchy.
I'm hoping that since so many people have been tweeting YouTube and tagging them with their concerns
and their outrage with this that it's gonna be changed and there's gonna be a better system put into place.
But I don't have a lot of confidence in YouTube right now after this whole "mistake"
so I guess we'll just have to see what happens there and as YouTube says there is more info to come.
Thank you for watching this video.
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