YouTube marks music video about love between gay men as ‘inappropriate’
(Photo: Nakhane / YouTube)
A music video about the love between two gay men has been marked ‘inappropriate’ on YouTube, requiring users to verify their age before being able to watch it.
The music video for “Clairvoyance” by the South African singer Nakhane has been flagged as inappropriate by YouTube, requiring users to be signed in and have verified their age prior to being able to view it.
The video, which explores the relationship and love between two men, was released in September of last year.
As of writing, the video’s description has a note from YouTube classifying the video as age-restricted, based on their community guidelines.
According to YouTube’s own guidelines, age-restricted videos are not visible to viewers who are logged out, using restricted mode, or are under 18.
YouTube requires users to verify their age before watching the video.
Videos flagged as age-restricted are also ineligible for adverts, which many YouTube stars have criticised for unfairly affecting LGBT content and creators on the platform.
YouTube states on their website that videos may be age-restricted for vulgar language, violence or sexually suggestive content.
Related: YouTube admits it has a Neo-Nazi problem
Without being logged in to YouTube — and therefore unable to access age-restricted content — PinkNews was able to view multiple videos that are arguably more explicit than the video by Nakhane, including Nicki Minaj’s viral hit “Anaconda.”
(Photo: @NickiMinajatVEVO / YouTube)
Using the hashtag #YouTubeIsOverParty, many creators stated in 2017 that LGBT content was often unfairly targeted by the age restriction, including content explicitly made for children.
YouTube later apologised for “incorrectly labelling” many of these videos after initially defending itself.
Nakhane has hit back against the restriction on the video, stating on Twitter that he was “livid” and questioned what causes videos to be marked as restricted.
(Photo: @nakhaneofficial / Twitter)
The London-based artist wrote on Friday: “I am livid that YouTube has given my video for ‘Clairvoyant’ an age restriction. I’m interested in what the criteria is for this when there are videos with heterosexuals being explicit with no restriction.
“One step forward, three steps back in this world if you’re not straight, huh?”
YouTube did not reply to questions from PinkNews regarding the age-restriction of the music video or the general process of marking videos as age-restricted.
Part of the video for “Clairvoyant” (Photo: Nakhane / YouTube)
According to YouTube’s website, the platform constantly monitors and reviews videos flagged, either by users or its own algorithms.
“Our staff carefully reviews flagged content 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to determine whether there’s a violation of our Community Guidelines,” YouTube state.
As well as guidelines against nudity, explicit sex, or other harmful and hateful content, other rules include copyright and privacy.
However, it is unlikely the video would remain live at all if copyright or privacy were the issue.
In January of this year, YouTube restricted access to an election campaign video of transgender activist Chelsea Manning.
