YouTube reconsiders age restrictions on Balatro videos after mistakenly blocking them

YouTube has acknowledged the mistake in setting age restrictions on videos of Balatro gameplay and launched a large-scale review of the platform to ensure that its rules are applied correctly.

Here's What We Know

Balatro, a poker-inspired roguelike game, does not contain any gambling elements. Nevertheless, YouTube mistakenly applied age restrictions to the video with its gameplay, referring to the policy on gambling-related content. This caused outrage among content creators and the game developer, known as LocalThunk.

The Balatro University channel reported that 119 of their 606 videos were subjected to age restrictions, which significantly reduced their visibility through YouTube's recommendation algorithms. Out of 30 appeals filed, only 6 were approved.

In response to the criticism, YouTube officially stated: "Balatro gameplay videos should not have age restrictions. We are reviewing these restrictions and conducting an extensive platform review."

This once again shows the complexities of automated content moderation systems, which can either restrict or block something by mistake.

Source: @TeamYouTube