YouTube strengthens relationships with LGBTQ and teenage users
The platform fixed a previous error that hid same-sex and other content under its ‘Restricted Mode,’ and is launching a series aimed at helping younger viewers identify fake news.
Last month, users discovered that YouTube’s “Resistricted Mode,” which is intended to offer a safe viewing experience for children, also hid many videos that mentioned or featured same-sex relationships.
A video from user Rowan Ellis last month pointed out the flaw. It’s racked up nearly 100,000 views:
Days after the video was posted, YouTube offered an apology and promised to fix the feature. This week’s announcement delivers on that promise. In a blog post, the company said it identified and fixed the issue:
On the engineering side, we fixed an issue that was incorrectly filtering videos for this feature, and now 12 million additional videos of all types — including hundreds of thousands featuring LGBTQ+ content — are available in Restricted Mode.
YouTube is also offering a form that will allow users to alert the company when videos are inappropriately excluded from Restricted Mode.
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