Last week, YouTube changed their system for sorting which of the videos on their site are deemed suitable for minors to view and which videos would not be searchable in restricted mode. Only hours later, concerns erupted from the LGBTQ+ community once they discovered that hundreds of videos posted by openly LGBTQ+ youtubers could not be found when searching for them in restricted mode, regardless of whether they contained nudity, swearing, anything sexual, or anyone engaging in activities with a high risk of injury or death: all of the causes for removal of a video under YouTube’s terms and conditions.

With these new restrictions, lots of channels of youtubers who don’t identify at straight or cisgendered could not be found by typing their names into the searchbar.

“To censor things simply because they slightly stray from a heteronormative society’s ideals will just teach kids that straying from the norm is wrong and that people and things that are different should stay hidden rather than be embraced and accepted,” said junior Camille Piette.

Shortly after these new guidelines set in, the hashtag #YouTubeIsOverParty began trending worldwide as a response to the banning of videos which don’t violate any of Youtube’s rules, but were posted by gay youtubers.

On Monday, March 20, Youtube noticed this and tweeted:

“Some videos have been incorrectly labeled and that’s not right. We’re on it! More to come,” but many users are skeptical, since YouTube has changed a lot of the settings, but have still kept a number of these videos and channels restricted. Many users have vowed to protest Youtube until these videos are no longer blocked from minors.