YouTube’s Trending web page is often stuffed with easy-going content material like music movies, comedy sketches, and recreation trailers, together with well-liked creators like Mr. Beast and SSSniperWolf. However, on August 24, the number-one trending video was a callout in opposition to the platform itself, with accusations of racism or favoritism levied at Google’s video-sharing service. The commotion was everywhere in the platform’s remedy of a gameplay video. The explosive claims have led different high creators, from moistcr1tikal to Philip DeFranco, to debate simply how inconsistently YouTube’s content material moderation workforce enforces its insurance policies.

Cory “CoryxKenshin” Williams is a Black YouTuber and web character with over 14 million subscribers, greatest identified for his humorous content material. He obtained his begin in 2009 importing comedy skits earlier than transitioning into making movies on horror video games, taking part in celebrated titles reminiscent of Bloodborne and Five Nights at Freddy’s. While he takes common hiatuses from the platform, nearly each time he returns to posting content material on YouTube, he traits for a number of days in a row due to his infectious character. I imply, simply inside the final 30 days, he’s accrued some 100 million views. That’s fairly dang spectacular.

So, if CoryxKenshin’s seeing that kinda success on YouTube, why’s he pinning such heavy accusations onto the platform? Well, it oscillates round The Mortuary Assistant, a brand new horror recreation from developer Darkstone Digital that’s throughout YouTube of late. In the sport, you play as an assistant mortician, embalming cadavers and performing rituals all within the hopes of maintaining demonic forces at bay. The mature-rated content material contains situations of “disturbing imagery” and “strong language,” in keeping with the sport’s Steam web page.

CoryxKenshin uploaded an hour-long playthrough of The Mortuary Assistant’s demo on August 18. That similar day—apparently inside a couple of hours, even—the video was age-restricted, that means it’s a must to log in to confirm you’re over the age of 18 to observe. CoryxKenshin mentioned that YouTube gave no clarification as to why. He appealed the moderation, just for YouTube to reject that attraction, confirming in an electronic mail that the video “violates our Community Guidelines” however wouldn’t contextualize what that meant or which a part of the video broke YouTube’s guidelines. CoryxKenshin then had a dialog together with his companion supervisor whereas looking across the platform to see if anybody else’s movies on The Mortuary Assistant had been age-restricted. None have been, at the least at first.

His consultant advised that maybe the tip of his video, the place a personality battles melancholy and self-harm, could possibly be the rationale for the content material moderation. Despite not understanding what precisely triggered the restriction, CoryxKenshin began evaluating his content material to that of different creators who featured the identical scenes. That’s when he discovered that Markiplier’s video on The Mortuary Assistant, which featured the identical gameplay, wasn’t age-restricted, main him to imagine favoritism, racism, or each is at play inside the platform.

Instead of getting a dialogue with CoryxKenshin about his video and why it was age-restricted whereas Markiplier’s wasn’t, YouTube apparently eliminated the age restriction from CoryxKenshin’s video earlier than reinstating it after which age-restricting Markiplier’s video a couple of days later. This evidently pissed CoryxKenshin off, not as a result of it wasn’t a superb improvement. It kinda was, however this appears to solely additional illustrate the unequal weight YouTube applies when implementing its insurance policies. CoryxKenshin even talked about he “bleeps out cuss words in video games” and doesn’t use sturdy language in his content material, so he’s completely baffled at the way it looks as if YouTube treats him so in another way.

“Why is my channel so much more heavily scrutinized than my peers?” CoryxKenshin requested, the frustration clearly swelling in his throat. “When I say peers, I mean people around my level, around my view count. Just to keep it simple: Why is my channel so much more thoroughly scrutinized, especially so when I’ve been number 1 trending multiple days in a row which I’ve done multiple times?”

CoryxKenshin mentioned this wasn’t the primary time YouTube has unfairly moderated his channel, both. He recounted one other occasion in 2021 when YouTube gave him a neighborhood guideline strike, with out communication or a proof, for a video of his from 2019. It felt prefer it got here out of nowhere, provided that it had been so lengthy after making the video.

“Every single time I start to get an uptick in traction, an uptick in activity, here comes YouTube coming through,’Hey, let’s get him for this video from 2019. You see this Cory? No, this is bad,’” CoryxKenshin mentioned. “It wasn’t bad the nine months I was off the platform. It was only bad when I got back and I was number 1 trending. This situation was only bad because I’ve been number 1 trending since I got back. Every other YouTuber has uploaded The Mortuary Assistant, and now YouTube’s about to start putting in some age restrictions because I called them out on some unfair behavior.”

Kotaku reached out to CoryxKenshin, Darkstone Digital, Markiplier, and YouTube for remark.

Plenty of oldsters on-line have proven their assist for CoryxKenshin’s candidness. YouTubers like Jidion advised firm CEO Susan Wojcicki ought to “sit down and talk these issues through” with CoryxKenshin. News commentator Omni mentioned nobody “is surprised at this point” by any of those allegations, whereas Twitch streamer CashNasty gave “respect to CoryxKenshin” for talking his reality. Even large names on the platform have made movies overlaying the subject, together with Ludwig, Philip DeFranco, and moistcr1tikal, most of that are in settlement that YouTube’s content material moderation insurance policies are imprecise at greatest and trash at worst, and that one thing sussy is happening behind the scenes in CoryxKenshin’s case. Though YouTube hasn’t mentioned something publicly but, the state of affairs appears to have ballooned far too large for the platform to disregard now.