summary:

We are asking for youtube to re-evaluate their blanket ban on minor-led ASMR creation, and consider the proposal of a safe teen ASMR program that allows creators aged 13-17 to publish non-intimate ASMR content under safety protections, parental oversight options, stronger comment moderation, and clear content guidelines. 

YouTube's current approach to minor-led ASMR is currently harsh, and while protecting children online is a priority, broad restrictions on ASMR content created by teens have unfairly impacted creators who produce harmless content intended for sleep, relaxation, studying, and stress relief. Instead of evaluating content based on actual risk, youtube's policies tend to treat ASMR itself as a concern if performed by creators under 18. 

This has discouraged young creators, reduced opportunity for safe creative expression, and contributed to the misconseption that ASMR is inherently inappropriate or sexual, when it is simply a tool used by many for focus, relaxation, and sleep. The following proposal outlines how Youtube can continue protecting children, maintain advertiser confidence, and support the next generation of creators without restricting safe forms of ASMR content. 

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Hello, I am a teen ASMR creator, who was affected by the blanket ban of ASMR led by minors aged 13-17 years old. Youtube updated the guidelines following concerns about inappropriate attention towards child creators on the platform.  Since at least 2019, the platform has increasingly restricted ASMR content that involves minors, where they eventually identified all ASMR as an activity that could lead to unwanted attention surrounding minors. My campaign is calling on youtube to revise the current blanket ban across ASMR content creation created by minors and replace these broad restrictions with a transparent, safety-focused, review process that evaluates the content based on the actions, and risk level rather than the entire category. 

ASMR, also known as Autonomous sensory meridian Response, is used by million of people worldwide, including myself, for relaxation, stress reduction, focus, and sleep. For many, creating ASMR is a creative outlet, that includes sounds such as tapping, page turning, crafting, writing notes, drawing, slime, nature, studying, and various other kinds of non-intimate activities. 

However, YouTube's child safety policy recognizes ASMR performed by minors as an activity that could draw unwanted attention to children. Due to this, many young creators, such as myself, have had their content removed, or restricted. As a result, many young ASMR creators began leaving the platform starting in 2019-2022 following the restrictions and bans surrounding ASMR including minors that began to uprise. 

Our petition is NOT asking youtube to remove protections surrounding minors. We agree that content that sexualizes, exploits, or places minors at risk should be removed. Child safety should remain a priority. However, my concern is that a broad enforcement can affect creators who produce harmless content that is intended for relaxation, creativity, education, or sleep support. 

I play ASMR as a background noise to help me sleep, study, or relax. When I am doing school work, taking notes, studying, or doing a creative hobby, ASMR helps me retain focus. I believe that limiting it to 18+ creation could create stigma that it is sexual, and further increase non-innocent ASMR creations, which may affect audience who uses ASMR innocently. It also limits creator options, and many of my favorite creators left the platform following the ban against minor-led ASMR. 

Furthermore, many creators and viewers are not are not aware that ASMR is mentioned in Youtube's child safety policy because the information is buried in fine print under a dropdown box mixed into the lengthy policy, that many users will miss, and be penalized for. I missed this policy when I created my account in 2023, and was upset that my hard work was being put to waste due to lack of transparency. When a creator discovers these restrictions only after having their hard work removed, it can create confusion, uncertainty, and anger. 

For further transparency, I ask youtube to:

• Clearly communicate restrictions surrounding ASMR creations on Youtube
• Provide a more detailed explanation when the content is removed, rather than the broad statement that it violates the child safety policy.
• Provide examples of content that is allowed, and content that is not allowed. 
• improve the transparency that regards enforcement decisions.

 

Many of the now successful online creators began creating content before adulthood. Restricting the entire category of a creative expression may discourage a young creator from developing media production, audio engineering, storytelling, community building, socializing, and content creation skills. I am a teen with social anxiety and autism, and my content creation was an outlet for me to reach people socially, due to my lack of ability to naturally socialize with people in real life. Content creation gave me a community that I struggled to find in real life situations. For many, this could also be the case for them. My biggest area of disability is socializing, so creating ASMR made me happy because it gave me a way to socialize despite my disability and Social anxiety disorder. So when I found my content removed it made me upset, and feel that a social outlet had been stripped away from me. 

Safe and supervised creators should never be grouped with harmful content solely because they create ASMR content. 

ASMR is frequently misunderstood by many. Although, some people associate ASMR with adult themes, millions of viewers truly use ASMR for sleep, anxiety management, studying, relaxation, and stress relief. Research and widespread user experiences consistently show that ASMR serves very many non-sexual purposes. The policy should distinguish between genuinely inappropriate content and harmless relaxation content so ASMR is not unfairly stigmatized as inherently sexual. 

My proposed solution: 

Replace broad restrictions on minor-led ASMR with a safe ASMR creator program for ASMR creators under the age of 18. This program would keep child safety protections while still allowing safe, supervised, and parental consented ASMR content to remain on Youtube's platform. 

proposed requirements for participation:

• Creator is met with a detailed, transparent, and clearly communicated base guidelines of how the program works, what they can, and cannot do, and other general rules and guidelines.
• Parent or guardian verification is required to join the program. Creators who are under 18 that wish to create ASMR content must have a verified parent or guardian linked to their account. The parent or guardian would approve participation, have access to moderation settings, and recieve all policy updates and warnings. Parent or guardian can opt the minor out of the program at any given time and must review and approve of posts before they are published.

The following content would be an approved ASMR category:

• Crafting sounds
• drawing and coloring
• book page turning
• study ASMR
• nature sounds videos
• slime videos
• product demonstrations
• tapping
• keyboard sounds
• collection showcases
• educational asmr

The following ASMR categories would be restricted and NOT allowed:

• personal attention roleplay videos
• romantic style videos or romantic roleplays
• suggestive themes
• content that focuses on the lips, tongue, or mouth, or movements of the lips, tongue, or mouth.
• personalized interactions requested by viewers
• mouth sounds videos
• fabric scratching on clothes that are being worn by the creator
• Eating videos
• videos filmed in a bathroom
• any other content that could be reasonably interpreted as sexualizing a minor

Enhanced protections and filters may include:

• Comment filtering, or comments being turned off
• Stronger harrasment, bullying, or sexualization detection
• optional comment approval reviewed by parents and/or human moderators before the minor sees them
• automatic removal of specific phrases, bypass phrases, or predatory phrases.
• Disabled playlist saving that can be turned on by the parent
• No ads on minor-led videos for peace of mind for advertisers
• optional removal from algorithm suggestion that can be turned off/on by parent/guardian. 
• Comments, playlist saving, and algorithm suggestion are automatically off until approved or turned on by parent/guardian

Channels that are in the program can receive a label that indicates the creator is a part of the safe ASMR content creation program, that would indicate the channel is heavily monitored and moderated by the YouTube system, human moderators, and a linked parent/guardian. It indicates the content complies with youtube's guidelines and all posts are approved prior to being uploaded by a parent and youtube's system, and also indicates that the creator is participating in enhanced safety protections. 

Rather than an automatic enforcement, a parent/guardian who believes a video was wrongfully removed, may request human review. 

 

The objective is not to remove protections for minors, it is to create a system that protects minors while recognizing that ASMR is a broad category that contains various safe forms of creative expression. The current approach solved one problem, but also unintentionally restricts safe creators. I am proposing a solution that still protects children, and satisfies advertisers, while still allowing safe ASMR content.