About a year ago, Zerius Zontay discovered that his family’s work was no longer appearing on YouTube Kids. He and his wife, Symphony, regularly post short clips on the giant video-sharing site, featuring their three sons, who play with toys, sing songs and joke around.
Zontay wanted to get their clips back on YouTube’s app for kids, a destination where the video site tries to direct viewers who are under the age of 13. For months, Zontay lobbied YouTube, repeatedly sending emails to community managers, to no avail. Then, in June, as protests against police misconduct spurred a national conversation on race, his frustration simmered over.
“I’m seeing YouTube promoting Black Lives Matter, but with the Kids app, they’re showing that certain kids don’t matter,” said Zontay, a former music teacher. “You scroll for a long, long, long, long time before you get to a Black face.”
In recent years, YouTube has come under intense pressure for how it handles kids content, both for letting too many underage people use YouTube’s main site and for allowing harmful programming in the Kids app.
In 2017, YouTube published a “Field Guide for Creating Family Content,” and began restricting more types of programming from appearing in the app. Last year, the Zontays’ channel disappeared from YouTube Kids at a time when the video site was removing thousands of channels in bulk to try and cleanse the app of inappropriate content.
When reached for comment, a YouTube spokesperson sent a statement in response. “We are committed to supporting and amplifying Black creators on YouTube Kids and have launched programming initiatives designed to highlight equality, racial justice, and activism for kids of different ages, but we recognize there’s more to be done,” it read.
YouTube, part of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, pitches itself as an equalizer in the media world, allowing anyone to upload videos and amass an audience. But some of YouTube’s video producers say the company hasn’t done enough to support diversity. In June, four Black YouTube creators sued the company for racial discrimination, arguing that the service automatically removed their videos. YouTube has said it doesn’t discriminate and that the suit is without merit.
On June 11, YouTube announced a new $100 million fund for Blackcreators.
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