Weekly Journal (September 15th)

Good morning everyone. If you've been on here for awhile now you'll likely recall that my last two videos, The Expedition 33 and Parallel Worlds videos, both analytically kind of bombed (at least compared to typical performance).

In both cases, back to back, they came up as 10th place performance wise compared to my other 10 recent videos. I swallowed it. Sure, maybe I need to do a better job making something more clickable. It just felt strange considering how many comments absolutely adored both. Ironically, it felt like an all time high as far as actual human responses to it. The comments were abundantly kind and grateful. I saw lots of "this is the best thing you've made" "You best work yet" etc.

A few days after the Parallel Worlds video, I received a DM from Backlog Baldie, a regular here on Patreon. They mentioned that YouTube made a change to how their website works and sent a link to a video explaining: https://youtu.be/cpVnx4_yqTo?si=QbRI8oD5mu_i1rKn

Essentially, YouTube has a new Restricted Mode. It's unclear why or when it began, but it seems to be a recent development. It's also unclear how many people have it on and don't even know that they do. If it is on, "restricted" videos will not display on your browser. This seems to be an option YT has added to keep mature videos off of your feed if you so choose. Here is where it is located in your setting and where you can simply switch it on or off.

Now here is the kicker. The verbiage when you read when you select this setting seems to suggest that this is an AI filter because it hits you with that disclaimer we all associate with AI at this point: "No filter is 100% accurate"

Now this is an easy fix on an individual basis. If you know know about it, just turn it off, right? Well again, we have no clue how many accounts have defaulted to this being ON and we have no idea how many accounts don't even KNOW that it's on. So I'd be curious in the comments here how many of you have found it defaulted on. Definitely let me know if you're so inclined. But now, I'd like to get to the kind of scary part. Here are the videos of mine (from the past year alone) that do not display in restricted mode.

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Yes. 3/12 are safe. And you guessed it, the most recent two that presumably came out around the same time as this change are the two most affected in views. And it doesn't just stop at those two because for others that got out to a spectacular start, they are dropping out of the "typical" performance weeks later.

This is a video that did well but is now bottoming out. You can see that the line has essentially flattened and in time will either drop out or be at the bottom end of the "norm" for the channel. And I realize much of this could just be that the video has run it's course, but I've also seen plenty of stuff catch a second wind later and this Restricted Mode clamp is going to seriously damage that possibility.

And what makes this truly frightening is that unlike monetization guidelines, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to this AI sorting (if it is indeed AI, just my speculation). Before every YT upload, there is a section where you specify what kind of content you have, what it includes, and then YT helps you understand what is and isn't safe for ads. But this just... closes it's eyes and shoots into a barrel full of fish. Why would "The Puny Paradox" - a video about the number psychology and UI be more inappropriate than a video titled "The Greatest Evil A Game Can Commit?" Can I still use swear words in videos? What constitutes as "mature?" What is the benchmark here? I'm literally working on a video right now that I am purposely trying to make as PG as I can so that I can MAYBE dodge this silly filter.

What are we doing here man?

And look, let me be clear. This stinks and it hurts my paycheck and it makes me grumpy, sure. But for channels much smaller than mine, the 100Kish sub count channels, this is a backbreaker if they lean on YT for income. They don't have the huge Patreon followings or the hefty ad deals yet. This filter is literally hiding content that could keep users on the website longer and THEREFORE make YouTube more money! They are shooting themselves in the foot with this. It's not just creators' wallets, it's theirs as well. It's horrible for business.

I say all of this just to spread awareness. Make a big deal about this, tell people you know, help people turn this damn filter off. On both desktop AND mobile! Lets put pressure on YT to help us understand what creators should be "avoiding" to keep this filter off of our stuff. Hell, have it on the website, I guess. But at least treat it like monetization and be clear about WHAT is mature and what is not. And if it is AI... I mean, idk. Sit down and have a talk with it and help it better understand what is mature and what is not. These video are people's lives, don't use us as guinea pigs to test your AI.

Anyways. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Please spread awareness. people need to know about this.