YouTuber Summoning Salt’s videos connected the past of speedrunning are immoderate of the astir fashionable successful the hobby’s abstraction and beyond, and present 1 of them has fallen prey to the Google platform’s notoriously confusing and opaque moderation process. “This video whitethorn beryllium inappropriate for immoderate users,” reads a informing earlier his new hour-long documentary connected the past of Mega Man 2 speedruns, drastically changing however it’s monetized and however it surfaces successful YouTube’s algorithm. It’s the latest lawsuit of a contented creator battling a Kafkaesque strategy for weeks successful an effort to get a wide reply connected the platform’s rules.

“My Mega Man 2 video was conscionable age-restricted,” Summoning Salt tweeted connected September 21. “I can’t adjacent ideate what successful determination could beryllium triggering it. There’s nary intersexual content, gore, excessive swearing, etc.” An entreaty was besides instantly denied, the YouTuber said.

What was Google flagging exactly? It seemingly honed successful connected a three-second clip successful the mediate of the video erstwhile a speedrunner says “fuck” respective times aft messing up during a satellite grounds attempt. According to YouTube’s ain guidelines, however, that’s not needfully capable to get a video age-restricted. The platform’s moderators, however, maintained that the three-second clip constituted a “sustained rant.”

“This is an implicit joke,” Summoning Salt wrote successful a follow-up tweet thread. “This is your ain illustration of what would suffice a video for constricted ads. It cites a video that has “strong profanity mentioned successful each sentence. I person a 78 infinitesimal video, with 1 little clip successful the mediate with idiosyncratic saying the f-bomb a fewer times.” He besides tweeted a breakdown demonstrating that an AVGN video with a overmuch higher attraction of profanity was not age-restricted, portion his video, for immoderate reason, was.

“The History of Mega Man 2 World Records,” which documents implicit a decennary of speedrunning attempts, dramas, and controversies, showcased everything viewers travel to Summoning Salt’s videos for: arcane gaming past breached down and shown successful a amusive and approachable chronological format. But each time the video remained age-restricted, it mislaid the gross the YouTuber relies connected to make content.

On September 22, however, YouTube reversed its decision. “After further review, we removed the property regularisation from your video,“ YouTube’s enactment relationship tweeted. “Straight up, we made a mistake.” The harm was done, but astatine slightest that was the extremity of it, right?

Not quite. Summoning Salt went connected to amusement graphs of the video’s “suggested views” compared to past ones that seemed to bespeak the Mega Man 2 speedrunning past documentary inactive wasn’t being promoted arsenic it usually would beryllium by YouTube’s algorithm. And past a week later, thing unfortunate but not altogether astonishing happened. YouTube re-flagged the video.

Summoning Salt woke up connected September 30 with a caller email informing him the video whitethorn beryllium inappropriate for younger viewers and truthful was being property restricted. He tried to entreaty it again, and again the entreaty was astir instantly declined. But this clip for a caller reason: enactment and nudity. “I’ve received nary clarification arsenic to wherefore I was ever told that it was flagged for enactment and nudity,” Summoning Salt tweeted. “I conjecture it’s not excessively astonishing that the aforesaid ‘careful reviewers’ that deliberation a 3 2nd rant is sustained besides deliberation that Mega Man 2 someway has sex/nudity.”

While determination was nary mentation for that decision, YouTube did seemingly marque a last determination connected the video’s age-restricted presumption past nighttime connected October 30. “Senior members of our argumentation squad person confirmed the property regularisation determination is last owed to sustained usage of dense profanities,” an email from the level read. For the Mega Man 2 speedrunning documentary, it’s fundamentally excessively precocious anyway.

“I’m inactive trying to determine what’s next,” Summoning Salt wrote overnight. “I mightiness effort to clip the 3 seconds retired of the existing video, but I truly uncertainty that would hole its momentum fixed that it’s had practically nary suggested video views for weeks now. Might reupload the full thing—will fto you each know.” He told Kotaku successful an email that helium estimates he’s mislaid betwixt $5,000 and $6,000 of the gross the video would person brought successful had it ne'er been flagged truthful far.

The winding, weeks-long saga is simply a peculiarly daming illustration of conscionable however hard it tin beryllium for radical to get a wide reply from YouTube erstwhile its moderation team, quality oregon otherwise, ensnares them successful an age-old statement implicit what constitutes profanity. It besides seems to constituent to a deficiency of consistency wrong Google’s moderation teams themselves.

YouTube is simply a favourite among contented creators for however good it’s monetized and capable to compensate them compared to rivals similar TikTok, but the velocity and soundlessness with which that tin beryllium sabotaged remains a large constituent of frustration. The level didn’t instantly respond to a petition for comment. And, of course, anyone who really wants to spot Mega Man nude volition person to look elsewhere.