The group began to investigate YouTube’s demonetization system in response to growing community frustration with the way the site automatically demonetizes videos - meaning those videos won’t feature ads and the creators can’t benefit from YouTube's ad-based revenue system. Worse, they say the algorithm penalizes videos featuring LGBTQ-related vocabulary at a disproportionate rate: A full third of titles tested specifically for queer content triggered the bot. Now, a group of YouTubers who spent four months working to reverse-engineer the algorithm have found what they say are alarming results: YouTube’s algorithm, they allege, can flag videos because of apparently random words that appear in video titles. Its algorithmic magic automatically shuts off vital ad revenue to videos it deems un-advertiser-friendly based on a wide array of constantly updated parameters that aren’t always explicable to creators.
To many YouTube creators, the video site’s demonetization bot is an unfriendly watchdog.
