Wild YouTube bug allows users to sneakily upload explicit content

Typing the word “boobs” into YouTube with less than satisfactory results is a teenage right of passage. That experience may be in danger thanks to a niche community of dedicated smut peddlers skirting YouTube’s restrictions on nudity.

YouTube is ordinarily pretty swift in taking action against users who transgress its innumerable terms of service. Even actions outside of the content platform can impact users as seen recently following the Russel Brand allegations.

In particular, the site takes a particularly strong stand against nudity and sexually explicit content being posted. IShowSpeed was very nearly banned from YouTube after a recent wardrobe malfunction on stream.

With these tight restrictions in place, users have managed to find a way around YouTube’s prohibition of graphic content. 404 Media’s Emanuel Maiberg has published an investigative report on self-titled “YouTube hackers” hosting content you would ordinarily find on a different Tube of the red variety.

YouTube had a wild exploit that allowed people to share porn on the platform even after their channels were deleted https://t.co/MP2MtYfZhB

— Emanuel Maiberg (@emanuelmaiberg) October 3, 2023

Maiberg infiltrated a group of “p**n hunters”, a group of internet denizens dedicated to finding and publishing explicit content to YouTube. One member of this collective had found a way to throw off YouTube’s moderation algorithms and avoid the deletion of explicit material.

A user by the name of “,” explained to Maiberg and thousands of users in a since-deleted video that you can overload YouTube’s tags section with special characters to alter how its algorithm detects and interacts with content. This method makes it particularly hard for YouTube to delete certain videos.

The exploit was shared amongst the group Maiberg had infiltrated and its members subsequently flooded the site with videos featuring their favorite adult content creator. Thousands of videos produced by Sweetie Fox, the number one ranked performer on a certain Hub, are still floating around YouTube.

Since word of the exploit gained traction on social media, many of the videos have been deleted but not all of them according to Maiberg. It looks like certain users were able to use special characters to phase out important identifiers such as a video or channel title.

Maiberg revealed certain videos featuring Sweetie Fox had been on the site for a number of weeks and could only be deleted by submitting a link directly to YouTube support. Google made a brief public response to the issue but at the time of writing, these videos are still accessible.

“We’re aware that a small number of videos may have remained on YouTube following a channel termination,” a company spokesperson said. “We’re working to fix this and remove the content from the platform.”