Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's even in the YouTube algorithm. I've had a couple of videos taken down due to "potential child endangerment". They were videos of me and my kid doing things that are, realistically, safer than riding a bicycle. It's pathetic how fragile kids are being made these days.
The YouTube rules are completely insane. Whoever makes them has totally lost their mind. For instance, YouTube recently implemented a policy such that they now demonitize videos that contain profanity in the first 15 seconds - AND THIS APPLIES RETROACTIVELY TO VIDEOS RELEASED BEFORE THE POLICY WAS CHANGED. Between that, the downvote count being removed, random demonetizations, mysterious channel shadowbans, the DMCA…
> Whoever makes them has totally lost their mind.
I don't think then problem is entirely YouTube per-se for some of the rules, it is the "people" who demand they do certain things a certain way. And by the "people", I mean (to lesser extent) us, the viewers; but mostly the advertisers, the mega-corps with deep pockets who want to be as far away as possible from everything that's not seen as sanitized humanity.
YouTube, then, like most capitalist entities, is merely incentivized to gravitate towards something, anything really, that will maximize their bottom line.