A number of popular animators have been demonetized by YouTube, and they’re blaming the platform’s AI moderation tools.
Losing demonetization can be a death blow for a number of online creators on YouTube, and it can be a massive fight to get it back. Some are fortunate to have different outlets where they can make money, so the loss of income from YouTube might not impact them as much as others, but this isn’t the case for everyone.
In the case of a number of popular animators, many of whom focus on dinosaur and kaiju-based animations, they’ve had their channels lose the ability to make money.
This includes DinoMania, who has over 1 million subscribers on YouTube, who pointed to AI moderation tools striking down creators who put in “actual effort” and don’t use “AI slop” for their videos.
Popular Dinosaur-focused YouTube channels demonetized
“It is ALWAYS the kaiju/dinosaur animators, and the reason is THE EXACT SAME each time. It should also be noted that it all started happening as soon as their brilliant “AI moderation” was implemented,” they said in one post on their channel.
“Apparently, kaiju and dinosaurs are strictly for little babies, so if you make videos that oh just so HAPPEN to not be fetus-friendly, you get demonetized.
“Which means that if you own a dinosaur or kaiju channel, and earn from your videos, you’re in danger. Furthermore, from the limited knowledge I have, it seems to be happening to many OTHER channels, where money is taken away for some different reason, because AI didn’t like something.”
DinoMania suggested that ARK: Survival Evolved creators have also suffered from demonetization, so it isn’t just limited to animators too.
Other channels that have lost demonitization include Blunt Brothers Productions and SlicK, who have 1.3 million subscribers and 825,000 subscribers each. So, these aren’t small channels that are being struck.
“Honestly it’s a shame how YouTube treats it’s creators, slapping on an AI moderation tool which is faulty to no ends and then ends up falsely claiming our content, when there is literal adult content, slop content and bots which infest every corner of this platform (Thanks AI you’re doing great!1!1!),” SlicK said.
DinoMania noted that they’re looking to start Patreon subscriptions to move away from the reliance on YouTube, but a number of fans have called on YouTube to make a change and return the channels’ ability to make money.
Back in December, YouTube star MoistCr1TiKaL blasted YouTube CEO Neal Mohan for being “delusional” and letting AI run wild on moderation. “AI should never be able to be the judge, jury, and executioner. It should never have the ability to terminate a channel,” he said.
