Popular YouTuber Cory Kenshin today expressed frustration with YouTube through a video in which he claims that the platform has shown favoritism and/or racism as it pertains to putting age restrictions on videos.
The video, which Kenshin also posted to YouTube, comes following some personal issues he experienced with the platform putting an age restriction on videos he posted of a playthrough of The Mortuary Assistant, which came out earlier this month.
Before going into details regarding his claims, Kenshin tried to make it clear that he was trying to show composure through the situation and give all of the details involved while airing grievances.
“I don’t want there to be any lost context,” he said. “I don’t want to just look like I’m coming out of nowhere, having a temper tantrum. … The allegations I am levying toward YouTube are extremely serious and I am taking this video extremely seriously. … YouTube, you guys either play favorites, you are racist, or it’s a mix of the two.”
After he saw that there was an age restriction on his video, the content creator looked to see if other videos with playthroughs of the same game were restricted and he noticed that only his post had any such restriction.
This led to him appealing his restriction. But according to Kenshin, that initial appeal was rejected. It wasn’t until Kenshin pointed out that another popular YouTuber, Markiplier, had a playthrough with all of the same content and no age restriction on it that the age restriction was removed from his video.
Upset that he had to provide YouTube with a video of a more popular, white creator to get his appeal accepted, Kenshin sent an email to his YouTube representative expressing his frustration.
Following the email and some conversations with his YouTube representative, that same original video had an age restriction on it again. And when he went to see Markiplier’s post, he noticed it also now had an age restriction on it.
“They got caught with their pants down,” he said. “They got called out, and then they had to go back and say, ‘oh woah woah woah, we see the narrative he’s kind of pushing here. We need to take some steps back.’”
Over the course of the 14-minute video, Kenshin explains how “unfair” the situation was from his perspective and how he feels that his channel is more “heavily scrutinized” than others.
Though he made claims of racism, Kenshin did concede that it is difficult to know for certain race was a primary factor in his situation.
“How do you expressly prove that someone is a racist unless they’re spamming the N-word in the chat,” he said. “Admittedly, I cannot prove 100 percent that race had everything to do with this.”
YouTube has not publicly responded to Kenshin’s claims. This article will be updated with any comment from the platform or Markiplier regarding Kenshin’s video.
