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Popular YouTuber Cory DeVante "CoryxKenshin" Williams has accused the Google-owned streaming platform of racism and/or favoritism after one of his walkthroughs was age-restricted.
In a video, the 29-year-old highlighted that despite playing the same game as major YouTubers like JackSepticEye and Markiplier, the platform only placed the clause on his content.
The 14-minute video, titled YouTube: Racism and Favoritism, is rapidly gaining traction on social media. It chronicles how CoryxKenshin has dealt with similar issues on the streaming platform for years.
At the start of the video, the content creator explained that he is serious about his allegations. He wants people to know that he came to this conclusion after research and experience:
"The allegations I am levying towards YouTube are extremely serious and I'm taking this video extremely seriously. YouTube, you guys either play favorites, you are racist, or it's a mix of the two. These are the three options YouTube, which one is it? Here's my proof..."
"Why is my channel so much more heavily scrutinized than my peers?": CoryxKenshin details his experience of "targeted" scrutiny and discrimination
CoryxKenshin is a highly successful YouTuber who currently has over 14 million subscribers on the platform. He has been uploading videos since 2009, when he was 16 years old. He is now one of the top African-American content creators on YouTube.
His recent accusations stem from the way YouTube age-restricted his recent Mortuary Assistant playthrough. The game was released this month to much fanfare. Horror game content creators have clearly taken a liking to the game, considering how all major gaming channels are full of Mortuary Assistant videos.
The Markiplier incident
As stated by CoryxKenshin in the video, none of the other content creators' videos were age-restricted when he was served the strike. Age-restricting a video severely impacts its reach via the YouTube algorithm.
When CoryxKenshin appealed the ban, the reviewer rejected the appeal:
"No one else's was age restricted. So, I appealed the restriction. 'Hey guys, I'm not sure why mine got age restricted, could you look into this?' Appeal rejected. They doubled down. The policy team said, 'No Cory, your video is restricted for good reason. We're not going to tell you why but it's restricted that's our final decision."
CoryxKenshin then reluctantly reached out to his YouTube representative and sent him Markiplier's video of the same content, which had no restrictions. Miraculously, this made the policy team lift the restrictions.
However, as noted by CoryxKenshin, this proved that the Google-owned platform was not being fair. Consequently, he wrote to his representative and asked them to clarify whether the situation occurred due to favoritism or racism. His main query was:
"Why did it take Markilplier's clip to reverse the decision?"
A couple of days later, YouTube age-restricted both CoryxKenshin and Markiplier's videos.
According to Cory, this happened because he had caught the platform "pants down" in the act of discriminating against a person of color:
"They saw that I saw that there was some unfair stuff going on. So then they tried to appease me by the age restricting the video. I say, 'Wait why are you doing that because I sent Markiplier's clip and then they say oh okay well let's just age restrict them both."
Establishing a pattern
According to CoryxKenshin, YouTube also issues some sort of strike or ban on him every time he gets a lot of attention from the community, thereby hurting his channel's growth:
"Nothing ever happens until I come back and I start uploading again and I'm getting my numbers. They're climbing they're exploding. I'm number one trending and then they're like, 'Hey we need to stop him, we need to like, this Black man, he's getting too many views.'"
However, the YouTuber did concede that he cannot 100% prove a racist motive for the pattern of scrutiny that seemed to be disproportionately affecting him:
"As one of the biggest Black creators on the platform, I want you to hear it from mouth. That there is some shady business going on behind the scenes at YouTube."
Fan reactions
Many fans and social media personalities have opinions on the issue. Well-wishers mostly agreed with the content creator as they voiced their takes on the internet:
CoryxKenshin is a highly respected YouTuber, and the support he is receiving on social media may prompt a response from the platform sooner rather than later. However, as pointed out by many, the act of removing the restriction and then re-applying it does make the situation worse for YouTube.
