Open Letter to YouTube Panopticon

I have a piece of work called The Neutral Body: Work In Progress, because in this late stage of internet monopolisation, I have uploaded a few videos to YouTube as part of my artistic documentation of the show, in order to share them more easily with the University I made the work at and others. None of these videos are public, none of them are in the YouTube algorithm.

YouTube is in a tricky place here in the UK; because we are in a post Online Safety Act word, which is the biggest restrictions on free speech in the UK during my entire lifetime that has to reshape the online landscape. YouTube has to mark everything that is uploaded to its site as suitable for children or not. I do agree that YouTube does have a duty of care, if I was uploading videos of beheadings or animal torturer we’d be having a different conversation.

For video to be age-restriction. on YouTube, you need to be signed into a YouTube account in order for them to play the video in order or YouTube to be able to ascertain that you are an adult. Here is a list of music videos I was successfully able to see on YouTube without having to log in to any YouTube account: WAP, Anaconda, Dirty, Wrecking Ball, Call On Me, Milkshake, Baby Cakes, Put Your Hands Up For Detroit, Destination Calabria, Wicked Game. I might just be be demonstrating my age here, and making a solid playlist.

The deep irony is The Neutral Body is about my body being reacted to in such extreme ways with a complete lack of context.

However, YouTube’s automatic moderation is terrible. That's no news to anyone. I am deeply offended by the algorithmic accusation from YouTube that my work is being removed because of their community guidelines. Now because they have learnt a few things from Kafka, the policy that gets my work age restricted is different from the one that gets the video banned.

First YouTube Policy on Age-restriction.

‘Content that discusses or depicts suicide or self-harm in a graphic manner or promotes eating disorders may be removed or age restricted if it's not appropriate for all audiences.’

This is where I see red. I understand that policies for a global organisation raking in $60 billion in revenue in 2025 need to be broad.

This show has nothing to do with suicide, so and luckily my show about suicidal ideation and community is not being also flagged by the YouTube bots because its not on YouTube. Check out Lighten Up.

I am apologetic with rage at the bot's suggestion that the show promotes either eating disorders or self harm. The deep irony is The Neutral Body about sharing my autobiographical stories, my experiences with self harm, and my struggles with body dysmorphia. And we now exist in a world where even mentioning something exists means it becomes flagged content. And I can’t spell it out more clearly DESCRIBING IS NOT ENDORSING. It means you are algorithmically gagged from eleven mentions of certain banned words.

It is an attempt to find community for people who struggle with these extremely isolating experiences and to show them they are not alone. In some ways it’s a show about me living a life of mistakes so you don’t have to. It’s a show about vulnerability and honesty.

The show is a healing and affirming process of reckoning with in many ways the huge damage I have done to my body, and why I grew and stopped doing that any more. The accusation from YouTube that my performance endorses or promotes self-harm or is wrong, insulting and enraging.

YouTube is in a bind, and in a post Online Safety Act forcing their hand and mine, I do not disagree with the need for the video to be age restricted. None of these videos were public.

But let's talk more broadly, the biggest struggles I had with disordered eating and self harm, happened under the age of 18. If we require people to be ‘old enough’ to ‘handle’ the content we prevent them from accessing the story and support at an age that will help them. If I can prevent someone else from self harming for a decade like me, I should be able to do that. These young people should be able to access the help they need at the age they most need that help. Not seven years after they have been self harming in my case.

The deep irony is The Neutral Body is about unpicking at this need to display one's trauma in order to be understood by those who do not share your experiences.

We have completely lost the ability to have a nuanced conversation about things being suitable for children and young people online. I live in a country where we can get married, with a parent's permission at 16, join the army at 16, vote at 16. I love living in Scotland. And I believe this is the right way to do things. In the UK it’s really common for young teenagers to drink socially, at home, we have an understanding that each kid is different. There’s some shit other teenage boys in my life were watching that I still have not watched in my 30s because I know it's not for me. I have never watched Silence of the Lambs but it is a British Board of Classification rating 15 now. I feel like I was the only person in the world who has not seen the video of Charlie Kirk getting shot because I know I do not need to see that. We have completely lost the ability to treat every child and teenager like a person, with their own wants and needs, because that's the reality here rather than blanket bans.

I received the first email in the second week of August on my first day of work at the Edinburgh Fringe 2026, so I wait till I have a moment to think. I respond to the email by requesting a review of the claim, because the show is clearly not promoting or endorsing self harm and eating disorders.

Due to YouTube Studio's terrible design I had no idea I would write a little 300 note for the moderators until much later in the process. I press the review button and get an almost instantaneous response in my inbox. It was so laughingly instantaneous because if a human had properly screed the one hour video it would have been mathematically impossible. If you are about to pick a fight with YouTube’s moderation, I recommend you take a time stamp of when you hit the review button, because the responses are so instantaneous.

Second email, drawing from a totally different part of YouTube’s community guidelines

Second YouTube Policy on Nudity and sexual content policy.

Certain types of adult sexual content, such as nudity, sexual acts, sexual audio or sounds (including explicit language or narratives), and excessive profanity or lewd language, may be removed or age-restricted if it's not appropriate for all audiences.

The deep irony is The Neutral Body is about as a woman there are so many things that I can do with my body that would be normal, accepted and commended even if I wasn't a woman.

And I’m clearly now on a watch list because within 3 hours I am getting emails about all the other videos linked to the show being age-restricted. That don’t stop for the next 48 hours. 3 drafts of the projection, three separate videos.

Now YouTube did the same engaging thing as they did the first time, sending out the this work as age restricted emails claiming the work is once again:

‘Content that discusses or depicts suicide or self-harm in a graphic manner or promotes eating disorders may be removed or age restricted if it's not appropriate for all audiences.’

And so I ask for a review because ONCE AGAIN this show does not do that. It's infuriating to even suggest that about the show.

The deep irony is The Neutral Body is about who gets to be the author or artist of their own body, their own story and who does not, and how so often it falls along gender lines.

The only video that has actually been actively banned (for now) is my First Run of the show. You’re familiar with the process now, the email arriving at 41 mins after midnight claiming:

‘Content with nudity that's meant to be sexually gratifying isn't allowed on YouTube. This includes content that shows real, animated or illustrated individuals. We may make limited exceptions for content with educational, documentary, scientific or artistic context.’

Which I swiftly appealed, because it’s both not ‘content with nudity that's meant to be sexually gratifying’ and also it is within an ‘artistic context’. It was at this point I worked out that you can send 300 words to the moderators so I did that too. I sent them a link to the final show and said this was from a rehearsal, and that the nudity is clearly not pornographic. YouTube Studio is actually antithetical to having good record keeping, so I can’t click a button and review what I sent them and when because I’d love to share here what I wrote, but it’s lost in the void of terrible web design.

The deep irony is The Neutral Body is about the public policing, and over policing of femininity.

The laughably instantaneous response for a one hour video arrives in my inbox. Banned. I hope you're all excited for me to share some screen caps from this pornographic work.

I do want to insult YouTube Moderators as a class, I feel about them as a group, the same way I think about police officers. Why did you choose to do this as your job? What on earth can you possibly get out of it?

The deep irony is The Neutral Body is about me proposing to set my statue of my body artistically alongside other famous statues such as The Three Graces by Antonio Canova. On a deeper level ask about when female nudity is permitted and celebrated, not taboo. What does it mean to have both a female artist and subject? To challenge the female nude as only the site for exploitation.

The even more confusing part of the YouTube Moderator experience is the hypocrisy. Video of the show's rehearsals? Irredeemable pornography, banned!

I suspect the moment from the piece they are reacting to is when I lie down on the floor in front of my table of props, and begin to build a plaster cast of my chest. In order for me to do this, I have to have taken off my shirt. For the data nerds out there there are 14 minutes of ‘nudity’ most of which are not actually nude which is more like 9 mins because I am lying there waiting for the plaster to dry i.e. 20% of the video. You can see more scandalous images on beaches the world over.

I have put a privacy box over my dissertation supervisor, but I can’t stress this enough. This is me recording footage from my class for my eventual assessment, and as part of a performance development documentation. I understand that is not what every masters class room looks like or every rehearsal room but this room is both of those things.

And here is a photograph of this rehearsed moment in the actual performance.

Whereas in contrast from the video’s with my projection for the show, still up and merely age-restricted content. Straight up pictures of my cunt. I can send you a link to it today!

Baffling levels of hypocrisy.

I have hidden my deeply edgy and cool YouTube recommendations.

But we get to the meat of what the restrictions are all about after all that bureaucracy and hypocrisy. At the end of the day, the actual challenging bits of my show censor wise are the full frontal female nudity not the content of the autobiographical storytelling. People have very different responses to full frontal female nudity, if for example, you happen to be a woman it may not actually bother you that might. Every single one of us was born and raised by someone. I became an Auntie twice over this year and I am thinking a lot about the sheer amount of work that goes into breastfeeding. I personally believe we need to have fewer hang ups about women's bodies.

It depends on the show it depends on the audience member coming to see the show. We need to bring nuance back to his conversation. Here are three of the shows I saw at fringe this year with full frontal nudity.

I’m going to be using lots of screen shots from the Fringe because they like to decimate it in between years and links will be of use. EVITA TOO, 116 Grams: A Play to Lose Weight, Taiwan Season: The Wall. All fantastic shows.

Zero of them, an 18+ show. This is a show by show and person by person response to suitable content. Leaving it in the hands of parents and audiences.

The deep irony is The Neutral Body is about being ‘exhausted regularly by having a body that is not neutral. I can never slip into the background because I am a woman. And a large woman. I always draw the eye, I am always seen. And I have no control over the meaning that creates in the viewer's eye. I am vulnerable to interpretation and misinterpretation.’

I’m so tired. I am supposed to be healing from a post fringe cold today. Instead I have sunk 8 hours of (hyper)focused work into this. I am so tired of this puritanical Americanisation of everything. In the world of monopolistic internet fiefdom where else am I supposed to put my work in a place that is easy to share video? Any fellow artists got any suggestions of where? Let me know.