YouTube has been enjoying an ever-increasing success with the growing number of users everyday. People visit here either to get entertained, gain knowledge or showcase their skills to the world. Moreover, there are numerous serious YouTube channels which work towards showing people some uncovered secrets of a few parts of society. However, often the strict guidelines of YouTube lead to banning such unusual and bold channels among which, one is Erika Lust.
Erika lust, a YouTube channel (named after its admin) which consisted of erotic content, was banned on 4th July. The video platform justified this ban by saying it violates the community guidelines. The channel had a considerable amount of following from the viewers as it showed 11,000 subscribers before it got terminated.
The ban came in after a few hours of Erika posting her video interview with sex workers on Twitter. The interview was a part of the channel's web series named 'In conversation with sex workers' which was conducted in order to get some insights about the life of sex workers. It represented the disregard of the society towards them along with some details about their work, their regular interaction with clients and what role law plays into this.
The thing which was strange about YouTube is it banned the channel despite the video not consisting of any intimate scenes or vulgar conversation.
Expressing her disappointment, Erika Lust posted on her website, “There was NO explicit content, NO sex, NO naked bodies, NO (female) nipples or anything else that breaks YouTube’s strict guidelines in the series.”
“It was simply sex workers speaking about their work and experiences,” she added.
The major problem identified was the links which were attached to the YouTube videos posted on Erika's channel. Basically, they redirected the users to Erika's blog and website among which, the latter is considered by YouTube as a porn site. However, Erika strictly denied this and said that her blogs and her website were clean and they simply provided descriptions about the videos on YouTube.
This is the second time the YouTube channel holder is facing the brunt of YouTube guidelines. In 2016, one of her videos was removed, with the same reason for 'violating the community guidelines.' Erika questioned about the removal then as well asking why other, more explicit videos remained on the platform and her's was removed.
In response to the ban on Erika's channel, a YouTube official said, “All videos uploaded to YouTube must comply with our community guidelines, which prohibit content that's main or sole purpose is to drive people off YouTube and onto another site.”
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