The Algorithm Won’t Save Us: How YouTube Fails Black Creators
I’ve been watching a lot of ToonrificTariq lately. Al-Tariq Harris has been making video essays about cartoons and animated series since 2012, and his stuff is genuinely insightful in a way that makes me rethink shows I watched as a kid. But the more I dive into his content and others like him, the more frustrated I get about how YouTube treats Black creators.
It’s not just that the platform isn’t doing enough to support them. It’s actively working against them. And honestly? It’s exhausting to watch.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
Black YouTubers get their content flagged and age-restricted way more often than white creators, even when they’re covering the exact same topics. And age restrictions aren’t just a slap on the wrist. They mean your video gets demonetized and buried by the algorithm. Less money, less visibility, less growth.
The CoryxKenshin situation really laid this bare. He’s a gaming creator with millions of subscribers, and he posted a video called “YouTube: Racism and Favoritism” where he showed how his playthrough of a game about depression got age-restricted. Then he found multiple white creators who’d played the same exact game with no restrictions whatsoever. Same game. Same content. Different treatment.
And look, I know what some people will say. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Maybe the algorithm made a mistake.” But when the same “mistakes” keep happening to Black creators over and over? That’s not a bug. That’s the system working exactly as designed.
It Goes Deeper Than You Think
Here’s where it gets really messed up. In 2020, four Black creators sued YouTube, claiming the platform was using its algorithms to systematically restrict their content based on race. One of them, Stephanie Frosch, gave a sworn statement saying that back in 2017, YouTube officials made her sign an NDA and then straight up told her that the platform’s algorithms categorize creators by race and use that information when filtering content.
Let that sink in. YouTube apparently knows who’s Black and factors that into how it treats your content.
I think about F.D Signifier a lot when this comes up. He’s become one of the biggest names in video essays, with over 650,000 subscribers as of 2023 despite only uploading 12 videos that year. His content is smart, well-researched, and tackles subjects that desperately need more attention. But he’s talked openly about facing tokenization and censorship that almost made him quit. He literally can’t say certain words that critics throw at him without getting demonetized.
Imagine trying to have a serious conversation about racism, about the Black experience, about systemic oppression, and you can’t even name the slurs people are using against you without losing your paycheck. How are you supposed to work under those conditions?
Who’s Building This Thing Anyway?
Part of the problem is who’s actually making these decisions. The people designing YouTube’s algorithms are mostly men between 20 and 40. It’s not a diverse group, and they’re bringing all their biases into the code they write. Those biases get amplified because the algorithm learns from user behavior. Every video we click, every creator we ignore, it all feeds back into the system and makes existing inequalities worse.
Creator Kat Blaque has pointed out how even well-meaning leftist YouTubers often make content for white audiences, trying to convince them that racism exists instead of actually diving deep into the nuances. Meanwhile, Black creators are making content that assumes their audience already gets it, that doesn’t need to hold anyone’s hand through “Racism 101.” But those creators get way less attention in the broader conversation.
And honestly, I get it. I’m guilty of this too. How many times have I watched a white creator’s take on racial issues instead of going straight to Black voices? The algorithm makes it easier. It recommends what it thinks I want to see, and what it thinks I want to see is shaped by years of biased data.
YouTube’s Non-Response
When people call YouTube out on this stuff, the company goes into full PR mode. They say their systems aren’t designed to identify people by race and that if the algorithm does something wrong, they’ll retrain it. But that completely misses the point. Nobody’s saying there’s a line of code that says “if Black then suppress.” The problem is that the outcome is the same either way, and YouTube isn’t doing nearly enough to fix it.
When F.D Signifier joined Nebula (an alternative platform), he said he was initially skeptical because most of the creators were white and there were maybe four Black people on the whole site. But he went for it because it gave him access to resources, better production support, and an actual community. Things that should be available on YouTube but often aren’t for Black creators.
YouTube has the money and the power to do better. They could audit their moderation decisions by demographics. They could make sure the teams building these algorithms actually reflect the diversity of their creators. They could create transparent appeals processes. They could engage with Black creators year-round instead of just during Black History Month when it’s good for PR.
But they don’t. Or at least, not enough.
What We’re Losing
This isn’t just about fairness, though that should be reason enough. When YouTube suppresses Black creators, we’re all missing out on incredible content.
ToonrificTariq’s whole mission is “to make every Black kid who grew up loving cartoons feel normal.” He brings together cartoons, hip-hop, and Black culture in ways that nobody else does. F.D Signifier breaks down Black media in this really intimate way that feels educational but also like you’re just having a conversation with someone who genuinely wants to see Black people win. Tee Noir doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. She explores topics from different angles, shares her own experiences, and arrives at conclusions that feel earned rather than prescribed.
These are the voices that help us understand our world better. They’re documenting culture as it happens, analyzing power structures, creating space for conversations that mainstream media ignores. Tee Noir literally started her channel because she noticed there weren’t enough Black women in the commentary space and decided to change that.
But they shouldn’t have to fight this hard just to be heard.
Where Do We Go From Here?
YouTube isn’t going to fix this on its own. That much is clear. The lawsuits will drag on, the PR statements will keep coming, and Black creators will keep getting the short end of the stick.
So what do we do? We seek out these voices intentionally. We subscribe, we watch, we share their work. We recognize that if we’re only seeing white creators in our recommendations, that’s not because they’re the only ones making good content. It’s because the algorithm is doing exactly what it was designed to do.
Black creators are out here doing the work despite everything working against them. The least we can do is show up for them. Because the algorithm sure as hell won’t.
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