I needed to make this.
This is about, um, something that YouTube
has put in place.
We don't really know, I think, how long
it's been there, but it's something that
people are just starting to realize the
extent of it, particularly in regards to
LGBT-related content, and that is the
Restricted Viewing Mode.
This is a mode which YouTube itself
explains is for families and for children,
and it is filtering out a hell of a lot of
LGBT content. I've had around 40 videos,
um, taken off in Restricted Mode, so you
can't see them if you're in
Restricted Mode. Calum has had
every single video on his channel but one
taken off. Um, uh, neonfiona has had all
of her, um, things to do with having a
girlfriend taken off, but not her thing
to do with having a boyfriend.
So this is something that no one's really
sure how it's working, but we know that
it has some kind of targeted...targeted
effect for LGBT individuals, whether that
is with kind of automatic, um, tagging of
content that they don't think
is "appropriate." But I think it's really
important to look at why LGBT content has
been deemed as inappropriate. This is
something which goes far beyond just, uh,
a mistake that YouTube might've made that
they're going to draw attention to and fix
later. This is something-(huffs)-this is
something that's getting me really, really
angry, and I've made some videos recently
about, uh, LGBT kids' content and it all
comes back to this particular insidious
idea, which has been with us for so long
as part of our history.
Look at our history.
Look at Anita Bryant. Look at, uh,
Section 28. The sexualization of queer
and trans people is still rampant.
This kind of insidious poison, which makes
us seem inappropriate, is still around.
It's still having an effect. Um, I've got
some notes here 'cause I just-my thoughts
were so scrambled, I needed to write them
down. Um, this is still affecting the
community. This hasn't gone away. This is
still the reason why friends of mine who
are schoolteachers feel-are told often by
the faculty that they can't come out,
because they can't be known that there's
a gay teacher in the school. When I was
at school, this was still having
an effect. I remember-I've talked about
this before on my channel, uh, going on
to the school websites to look up
help lines and support groups to do with
being LGBT and they were all blocked
specifically for LGBT content. I was told
that we were not to have, um, any member
of staff come out in our school, or even
come out as being a safe person to
talk to, not even come out as LGBT, but
just to be someone that LGBT students
could go and talk to who they knew wasn't
homophobic or transphobic, and I was told
it was "inappropriate" because
"inappropriate relationships" could form.
This is something that was never done to
do with straight teachers at all. We had a
male form tutor who was head of our
pastoral care and sex education when we
were 15, 16, 17. This is not something
that-it's a double standard around LGBT
people that isn't around straight people.
Essentially, one of the main issues with
this is that queer youth cannot get
support. They cannot get support because
it has to be run by queer elders or queer
adults and it's seen as inappropriate
to have queer youth and queer adults
in the same space, even though these
community spaces are needed for these
kids.
This is a marg-...a marginalized identity
that often doesn't have links within
family. This is something that you
discover in isolation and alone when you
don't have these kind of intergenerational
LGBT relationships that can be formed.
It's this kind of attitude that is fueling
the trans bathroom "panic," because all of
the rhetoric is around
protecting children, protecting kids,
protecting my daughter that's going
in there. And this is-underneath the
surface, we know that this is about the
sexualization of trans people, the idea
that trans and queer people are inherently
sexual and perverse in their sexuality.
That is something that cannot be denied in
the way that this is scaremongering to do
with children. This attitude that queer
and trans people are inappropriate-just
their existence is inappropriate to be
talked about around children-is insidious
and it is-it has a history here and it is
not based in any kind of reality. (huffs)
People talk about it being about
protecting children. For me, it's this
completely nonsensical idea that has no
basis in reality around protecting
specifically straight and cis children,
or children from straight and cis
families. It does nothing to protect queer
and trans children. It does nothing to
protect people with queer and trans
families. It is inciting ignorance into a
new generation, which should not be
tolerated. By controlling what children
know about-children still hear about gay
people, but often they hear about it
negatively. They hear it in the bullying
in the schoolyard. They don't hear actual,
factual, emotional, positive information
like they should do, and that has a huge
effect on them when they grow up and their
attitudes, but also to trans and queer
youth. Trans youth, queer youth are dying.
They are killing themselves,
they are being killed, because this
attitude is being allowed to be
perpetuated, and it cannot go any longer.
YouTube is one of the only places that
queer and trans youth-gay youth, bisexual
youth, pansexual youth, asexual youth-
any of these kids have a way into
community, have a way into knowledge, have
a way into feeling like they aren't alone.
I've literally just finished presenting
a documentary on this. (exhales)
It is so invaluable, and the fact that
YouTube has allowed this to happen-they
are complicit in this. Whether it was
deliberate on their part or whether they
just didn't think about it, whether they
thought it wouldn't do any damage,
they are complicit in what's happened,
because this cannot be denied-that these
videos are being taken down, whatever
they're being flagged for, whether it's
auto-flagged or that someone has flagged
it and no one has picked up on it. This is
something YouTube needs to look into.
If you really want to protect children,
if that is really what you want, if you
genuinely are someone who wants to protect
children, this is not the way of going
about it. This is not the way of going
about it, and it needs to stop.
YouTube, you need to talk to us.
You need to talk to our community about
how you can help us and ways in which
you're hindering us. This is something
that is just going to continue to happen
the longer that we create this cycle
of ignorance. Kids are scared, kids are
alone, and kids are dying, and this is
not how you help them.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community