{"id":83196,"date":"2022-09-30T22:27:01","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T22:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/youtube-age-restriction-quagmire-exposed-by-78-minute-mega-man-documentary\/"},"modified":"2022-09-30T22:27:01","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T22:27:01","slug":"youtube-age-restriction-quagmire-exposed-by-78-minute-mega-man-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/youtube-age-restriction-quagmire-exposed-by-78-minute-mega-man-documentary\/","title":{"rendered":"YouTube age-restriction quagmire exposed by 78-minute Mega Man documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"intro-image intro-left\">\n  <figcaption class=\"caption\">\n<p>Aurich Lawson \/ Capcom<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside id=\"social-left\" class=\"social-left\" aria-label=\"Read the comments or share this article\">\n<\/aside>\n<p><!-- cache hit 467:single\/related:719b8a228ceb53834af29cfc3711334e --><!-- empty --><\/p>\n<p>A YouTube creator has gone on the offensive after facing an increasingly common problem on the platform: moderation and enforcement that leaves creators confused by the logic and short on their videos&#8217; revenue potential.<\/p>\n<p>The trouble centers on a longtime YouTube video host whose content is popular among the retro-gaming devotees at Ars Technica&#8217;s staff.  The creator, who goes by the online handle &#8220;Summoning Salt,&#8221; chronicles the history of various classic games&#8217; speedrunning world records.  His hour-plus analyzes demonstrate how different players approach older games and exploit various bugs.  The games in question are typically cartoony 2D mouse instead of violent or M-rated titles.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"video\">\n<p><div class=\"ast-oembed-container\" style=\"height: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube&#039;s Age Restriction is Broken\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qs_7crdHpbo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<figcaption class=\"caption\">\n<p>Summoning Salt asks why his YouTube video was age-restricted.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On Friday, Summoning Salt took to social media to claim that his latest 78-minute documentary about 1989&#8217;s <em>Mega Man 2<\/em>, which went live in mid-September, has been &#8220;age-restricted&#8221; by YouTube&#8217;s moderation system.  Bizarrely, the video had been age-restricted roughly one week ago, only for YouTube to relent to the creator&#8217;s appeal and claim that the restriction had been placed in error.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, Summoning Salt was surprised to learn on Friday that the video had been <em>re<\/em>-age-restricted\u2014which he claims severely limits a creator&#8217;s ability to monetize content on YouTube.  An age restriction flag works against content creators in two ways: it limits the advertisement pool that might run in pre-roll and mid-view breaks, and it essentially slams the door on YouTube&#8217;s recommendation algorithm, which might otherwise tease Summoning Salt&#8217;s content to new viewers.<\/p>\n<h2>Remember, this is <em>Mega Man 2<\/em> we&#8217;re talking about<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"video\">\n<p><div class=\"ast-oembed-container\" style=\"height: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The History of Mega Man 2 World Records\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xNKlE5pS88E?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<figcaption class=\"caption\">\n<p>Summoning Salt&#8217;s (age-restricted) analysis of <em>Mega Man 2<\/em> world records.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>YouTube&#8217;s initial notice did not clarify what moderation flag Summoning Salt&#8217;s latest video\u2014a video that documents the 18-year history of people playing and exploiting the NES game <em>Mega Man 2<\/em>, embedded above\u2014had triggered.  His appeal eventually teased an answer from YouTube&#8217;s moderation team: &#8220;explicit language in certain parts.&#8221;  As Summoning Salt explained, the video includes a three-second outburst of six F-words, taken directly from a Twitch streamer&#8217;s microphone during a passionate gameplay moment.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad_wrapper\" aria-label=\"In Content advertisement\">\n    <span class=\"ad_notice\">Advertisement <\/span>    <\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Summoning Salt, a speedrunning-fluent creator, took his analysis tools to the microsecond level and looked for other unrestricted YouTube content in the gaming category to see whether his video&#8217;s curses-per-capita percentage (0.16 percent) had been exceeded.  He immediately found an unrestricted example from another popular retro-minded channel, Angry Video Game Nerd, which had nearly double the swears in a video one-twelfth as dense in the script.  (It&#8217;s unclear how many of AVGN&#8217;s videos, famously full of curse words, are flagged with age restrictions.)<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, Summoning Salt points to YouTube&#8217;s unclear recommendations to content creators for content like curse words.  According to YouTube&#8217;s own rules, the line between &#8220;moderate profanity&#8221; (allowed in YouTube&#8217;s unrestricted videos) and &#8220;strong profanity&#8221; comes down to not only specific word choice but also frequency, and YouTube merely suggests that the line is crossed when reaching a threshold of &#8220;used in every sentence,&#8221; or having certain swear words appear in prominent moments like the first 30 seconds of a video or as text in a thumbnail.<\/p>\n<p>Summoning Salt noted that the moderation team initially responded with a &#8220;full review&#8221; in roughly 40 minutes, less than the length of the whole video.  Such a swift review process implied that an auto-moderation system used voice analysis to chronicle the number of swear words, and Summoning Salt told Ars via email that YouTube has tools in place to auto-mute what it detects as offending content\u2014but that YouTube doesn&#8217;t apply them in the case of age-restriction disputes.  This leaves creators out of the revenue circuit once YouTube raises such a flag.  He also told Ars that his videos have only been restricted in the past by YouTube due to copyright flags over included music, which he has zero issue with.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aurich Lawson \/ Capcom A YouTube creator has gone on the offensive after facing an increasingly common problem on the platform: moderation and enforcement that leaves creators confused by the logic and short on their videos&#8217; revenue potential. The trouble centers on a longtime YouTube video host whose content is popular among the retro-gaming devotees &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/youtube-age-restriction-quagmire-exposed-by-78-minute-mega-man-documentary\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">YouTube age-restriction quagmire exposed by 78-minute Mega Man documentary<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":90303,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/the-street-fighter-6-beta-character-creator-is-generating-some-truly-cursed-creations\/","url_meta":{"origin":83196,"position":0},"title":"The Street Fighter 6 Beta Character Creator is Generating Some Truly Cursed Creations","date":"October 7, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Street Fighter 6 went into beta today, giving some fans the opportunity to test out the game ahead of its launch. While it's in closed beta, luckily for the rest of the internet, the players with access have created some truly incredible (and terrifying) things with its impressively open-ended character\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19351,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/doom-creator-john-romero-hiring-for-new-original-fps\/","url_meta":{"origin":83196,"position":1},"title":"Doom creator John Romero hiring for new &#8216;original&#8217; FPS","date":"July 19, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Romero Games is working on a new first-person shooter from doom creator John Romero, the studio announced Tuesday. Romero Games, founded in 2015 by John and Brenda Romero, is working with a \u201cmajor publisher\u201d on the \u201call-new FPS with an original, new IP.\u201d Romero Games published the announcement on Twitter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37297,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/jennette-mccurdy-says-nickelodeon-offered-300000-in-hush-money\/","url_meta":{"origin":83196,"position":2},"title":"Jennette McCurdy Says Nickelodeon Offered $300,000 in &#8216;Hush Money&#8217;","date":"August 6, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Actress Jennette McCurdy claims she was once offered $300,000 in \u201chush money\u201d to ensure that she would not publicly discuss her time at Nickelodeon or experiences with a man she worked with, referred to as \u201cThe Creator,\u201d in a new excerpt from her upcoming memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Entertainment&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":77538,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/blazblue-series-creator-toshimichi-mori-leaves-arc-system-works\/","url_meta":{"origin":83196,"position":3},"title":"BlazBlue series creator Toshimichi Mori leaves Arc System Works","date":"September 25, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"BlazBlue series creator Toshimichi Mori has left Arc System Works after 19 years, he announced. Get the full message from Mori below.I have something to report to all of the users. I, Toshimichi Mori, have left Arc System works, the company I worked at for many years. I first joined\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23171,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/the-big-bang-theory-creator-chuck-lorre-files-for-divorce-from-third-wife-arielle-lorre\/","url_meta":{"origin":83196,"position":4},"title":"The Big Bang Theory creator Chuck Lorre files for divorce from third wife Arielle Lorre","date":"July 23, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The Big Bang Theory creator Chuck Lorre files for divorce from third wife Arielle Lorre after three years of marriageLorre has filed to divorce his third wife Arielle LorreCourt documents indicate that they have a preliminary agreement in placeHe's expected to pay spousal support and to cover her attorney feesLorre\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Entertainment&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"It's over: The legendary TV producer Chuck Lorre, 69, filed to divorce his third wife Arielle Lorre, according to documents obtained by TMZ on Friday;  seen in 2020","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2022\/07\/23\/01\/60596101-11041047-It_s_over_The_legendary_TV_producer_Chuck_Lorre_69_filed_to_divo-a-37_1658535565637.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/mega-man-2-death-sprite-760x380.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}