Poker has a major YouTube problem

The scale of the crisis was brought into clear focus on April 18 when 888poker Stream Team member and PokerOrg columnist Nick Eastwood put out a 22-minute video that went into great depth about his ongoing battle with the YouTube algorithm and the scale of the crisis at hand.

Over the last five days, the video has attracted 280 comments (and counting), including poker-playing content creators like Gary Blackwood, Kevin Martin and Joey Ingram. 

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Algorithmic confusion

The biggest issue, beyond the obvious monetary concerns and ad revenue, is the confusion and lack of clarity as to what is specifically triggering all of the issues.

"The funny thing is, I've done four streams since April 10 and said nothing different on any of them. Two of them have been age restricted, and two of them haven't and they're exactly the same," says Eastwood. "They're all on the same overlay. I very deliberately said some things that I thought the AI should strike, like deliberately promoting the site that I play for and keeping my links in there and all that stuff, and it's not been flagged.

"The biggest problem is there's no way of discerning what is actually being flagged, and I don't know whether it's just an inconsistent algorithm or whether it's intentional."

Issues extend beyond vloggers and streamers

It's not just vloggers who are being hit. Media companies, including PokerOrg itself, have been facing the same issues. 

Sarah Herring, Head of Instant Media at PokerOrg, has been dealing with much of the fallout firsthand.

"Initially we suspected that it would mostly be related to the live streams, and the streams are actually where we got a channel strike," Herring says. "Six weeks ago we moved to streaming exclusively on Google-approved sites and so we thought we were safe. We are appealing, but we've subsequently not streamed since we got that strike, and until we get the appeal resolved, we're not going to.

"Tons of Shorts are being flagged as '18 and over,'" Herring continues, "and then we have to appeal those too. We just had another appeal approved that stated the content does not violate community guidelines. I'm trying to find the commonality in the content, which I think is just natural and human, right? And we're just looking for what makes this the same and these ones different and so far, it just feels impossible to figure out."

PokerOrg's Sarah Herring has seen content being flagged by YouTube in recent weeks.

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How issues are manifesting

Poker creators have long been conscious of delivering their content to an appropriate audience and tagging it as such. But recently flagged videos take restrictions to an entirely different level. Users are now forced to log in to verify their age, which can result in a huge drop in audience. 

How many under 18s are watching poker content? Eastwood tells us that 0% of his 20,000 subscribers are under 18. Owen's massive channel averages 0.4% of viewers under 18. And beyond the partial or complete demonetization of new and existing videos, the significant drops in views lead to newer videos all but being excluded from the search algorithm.

Creators have tried a variety of approaches to try to slow or stop their videos from getting flagged, including removing links from video descriptions, blurring or obscuring potentially flaggable elements and even pre-uploading videos for review before they're released. To date, none of these options have worked consistently.

"I uploaded a video three days early and it passed all the checks," Eastwood says. "I published it, and then they quickly restricted it, which is obviously completely unworkable. I got half an hour where my video was trending normally, and it was completely fine, and then once it got restricted the discoverability completely tanked and it flatlined."

Nick Eastwood is just one of the poker content creators hit by YouTube over recent weeks.

Scattershot responses from YouTube

One of the more puzzling replies from YouTube for some of the appeals, noted by both Owen and Eastwood, is that content is being flagged for showing "harmful or dangerous activities that risk serious physical harm" — a claim that leaves creators baffled.

Until there is further clarity, poker creators are on the defensive and are being forced to consider alternative plans. Even in the best-case scenario, where appeals are accepted and videos are returned to a normal status, missing out on the release window can have a huge impact on numbers.

There's also the matter of investing considerable time interacting with what appears to be a primarily automated system that's not functioning in a clear and concise way.

Troubling timing

Could it get worse? The World Series of Poker — the most fertile ground for poker content — begins in just over a month, and there are serious concerns about what could happen with YouTube. 

Between the lack of clear messaging and the scale of the content takedowns, a lot of the hope for a resolution lies in finding the right way to band together with a common goal for poker creators.

"These are just businesses, and they can just say, 'We don't want your content on our platform,'" says Herring. "But it's pretty complicated in that there is not even a clear explanation as to why some things are flagged and some are not. But there aren't a lot of places where you can watch long-form video content, right? YouTube is pretty much the only game in town right now.

"It definitely does present a bigger issue for a specific genre of content that we're going to need to address as a community if YouTube doesn't resolve it soon."

^{Images courtesy of 888Poker/Gema Cristobal/Neil Stoddart.}