 Well, hello there beautiful internet friends welcome back to my channel. Oh my god. I'm so sorry You saw my prosthetic leg in the frame should have shot it differently, so I didn't disturb you by having to see that I'm gonna put some pants on I will be right back Okay, as long as that stays down. I look normal and thus can talk to you on YouTube Hello there. Love later net friends. I realized that was a very over dramatic and sarcastic info But that's kind of what I feel like I have to do right now to be able to produce content on YouTube as an amputee Because we wouldn't want to disturb anyone would we? Okay, my hair is not working So I'm going to explain to you what has been going on as I fix this if you don't know me I go by Footless Joe My name is Joe back with and I've been a creator here on YouTube for over three years now I started sharing my journey of going through limb loss of losing a leg of learning to walk again going through additional surgeries But recently I have been running into issues that have always existed But have recently become a lot more pronounced that I think it's really important to now speak out about Something I didn't realize was gonna be the case when I became busily different, right? We did the leg chopping thing Like I was aware of the fact that people were gonna leave some crappy comments that there's a lot of people who don't really love Disabled people out there and I'm hopefully working on changing hearts and minds when it comes to that but what I didn't expect is how Many additional obstacles there would be to being a disabled creator on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. YouTube has been age-restricting my videos where I am sharing educational Content with you about my life as an amputee because of disturbing imagery. I'm gonna play for you right now those three videos This is two three those three videos I really hope this video doesn't get age-restricted by showing you this but I want you to understand The type of content that is being deemed as disturbing for young audiences Use the timestamps below to skip ahead if you want to just go to the meat of this video You guys it's new foot day as you can clearly see you don't mind the dog hair This is holes in it meaning it is very overdue for everyone Now the actual process of changing up this foot shell is where things get interesting You take this end of it and you take down in here to pop it off. Oh, we got it guys. We got it Strong thoughts Joe. You have served me well, but it is time for you to go I feel like a raptor. Maybe I should just walk around like this. Next step put the Kepler sock over the carbon fiber foot to protect The foot shell from wearing out too soon This is a lot harder than it looks guys. Alright pop the foot on So beautiful and clean Joe, I'm gonna say we're not off to a very promising start here guys. Ouch. I don't know why I said out I can't feel that foot All right doing it. Is this really happening? I think I got it. Tada. Oh my god I am a whole new person so every time I get a pair of new leggings This is what I do to make it more friendly for me being an amputee in the course of a day in my life There are many times where I have to access my leg to like add layers of padding or something like that Which requires rolling this down and having two pant legs makes this completely inaccessible because it is so hard to get This high enough on my leg You can already hear the seams ripping to be able to access my leg So what I do when I get them home is a very sophisticated process of kind of eyeballing Yeah, it looks about right right there just chopping this off about mid cap So it becomes super simple to roll this up and actually get to my leg The great thing is that legging fabric doesn't really fray So when I put them on in the morning, I just kind of you know, tuck it under make it look a little bit more finished And I'm good to go. So when I first lost my leg It was absolutely mind-blowing to me how hungry I was every second of every day Especially when I started using my prosthetic learning how to walk again No joke I would like have a full meal of steak and potatoes and still be ravenous Which didn't compute because you lose a part of your body You think your body probably needs less energy to process False because your body is using so many muscles to balance stabilize and compensate for the loss of a limb If you lose your leg below your knee You are spending about 20% more energy than if you were walking on two meat legs Mind-blowing. I never would have thought that And especially as an amputee was the gift of being pretty mobile. I'm pretty active I am hungry all of the time In that first video, I'm talking about changing out my foot shell In the second one, I'm talking about modifying leggings to make them more accessible for my life and my body And then the last one, I am simply sharing the fact that I need to eat more Isn't that crazy, right? Like just these little silly facts about life as a disabled person showing my prosthetic leg on camera And in the past week alone, those last two videos you've seen were age restricted for anyone under the age of 18 Because YouTube needs to keep their audiences safe From me, from the sight of me Now if you are a little unfamiliar, which I previously was with age restricting videos The reasons that they do those are as follows I'm going to put a list up on here Violence, disturbing imagery, nudity, sexually suggestive content Or portrayal of dangerous activities The only possible category those videos could even sort of fit into our disturbing imagery Now when YouTube age restricts videos, it doesn't give you a specific reason So I am making the assumption based on that list that that is why they have done so But here's the thing, YouTube has tried to create a fair system by allowing an appeal process Because a lot of the like flagged content is run by bots or non-human beings That sounds way more dramatic Basically AI, right? And so sometimes they get things wrong Which is not great, but okay, we can understand that So with the first video I submitted an appeal and it was reviewed by a human viewer A human viewer working for YouTube determined that I am disturbing imagery I let that one go hoping that it was just a fluke But then here we are where it has continued to happen And this is now the third time this has happened It has been reviewed by an actual human being Someone has sat and watched those videos and determined We must keep the children safe from the sight of me Good morning, welcome to my editing nest I realized I forgot to read you the email that YouTube sent to me When they determined that this content was still inappropriate for younger audiences I felt the show, we reviewed your appeal for the following content We have confirmed that it violates our community guidelines We know this is probably disappointing news But it's our job to make sure that YouTube is a safe place for all Cool And I am very hesitant to ever suggest that something is discrimination When maybe there could be another explanation for it, right? But I think we're kind of past that point Because it wasn't an AI flagging it by mistake It wasn't a one-time thing, this has happened repeatedly And if you're thinking, well, okay, people under the age of 18 Can't see your videos, that's a small portion of my audience Anyways, we would both be very wrong Let's go ahead and play a game I'm gonna show you a graph And I'm wondering if you can guess where the age restriction started If you guessed where the error was pointing, you would be correct Because when a video is age restricted, it is demonetized Meaning I can no longer make any kind of living off of it It seems to also be removed from the short speed Which is where the majority of views are coming from Basically all traffic on that video aside from a select few who slip through Completely dies It is removed as much as possible from the platform while still existing there Which means that my presence, my existence is being hidden Because it might upset some people Oh god, it's different, it's weird What are the kids gonna think? I'm sorry if I'm a little extra sarcastic in this video But I'm actually at the point of being frustrated I have run into this issue multiple times Specifically on TikTok I've had a lot of videos removed or restricted For sexually explicit content When I'm literally showing you my leg and nothing more There is nothing sexually even friggin suggestive about those videos I've had videos removed for nudity and for violence Or disturbing images or violent content When I am literally just sharing about my life As a person who happens to be disabled In a way that you can visually see And I totally understand that it's different for people I talked about this before I will link some of the videos down below But you know, once or twice a day I'll get a comment asking that I put a trigger warning Trigger warning Sorry cakes, I kind of disturbed you there My bad Pause for a kitty petting break She loves your belly rubbed Routinely people request trigger warnings before my videos Because they don't want to see me I am familiar with people's discomfort Seeing a body that is different than theirs But that doesn't give someone the right To then just, you know, erase you from society Erase you from YouTube Like individually, if someone doesn't want to see amputees They are more than welcome to block my videos I think that's a very close-minded and unfortunate way to live I would prefer conversation and education But that's your choice But when it comes to these major organizations That um, sure talk a lot about wanting equality And diversity and inclusion Because these are, so they say, efforts that matter to them And yet their actions are directly not in line with that There is a serious problem Dear YouTube reviewers I'm not disturbing content I'm a friggin' person who has gone through some shit And come on guys, it's 2022 Have we not at least publicly gotten past the idea Disabled people are gross and freaks And should be hidden from the world Keep them indoors Protect the children So hey YouTube, I'm Fullish Joe I'm a content creator on your platform Who works to educate and inform people about life As a disabled woman What being an amputee is like The weird, the cool, the frustrating, the difficult The awesome things about this life And this is my public appeal To please stop censoring my voice To please stop censoring what I am saying To please stop telling me and telling other people That I am a disturbing sight to look at I'm asking you to re-examine your policies Not only when it comes to what software Or machine learning or AI that you have That flags this kind of content But more importantly provide better training To the people who are reviewing these videos So that you are not discriminating against A federally protected class You're not discriminating against people with disabilities I would really like to start a dialogue with you YouTube about this I'm available, I am free Please reach out to me And you, my lovely viewer, my lovely watcher Watching this video I don't make a habit of asking for anything In return for watching a video Because you've already given me your time Which is a gift and I really appreciate But if you feel so inclined If you'd be willing to go comment on One of YouTube's recent Instagram posts Or tweet at them And suggest respectfully but perhaps firmly That what they are doing is wrong I would appreciate it Whether or not you have a time moment Or inclination to do so I truly appreciate you listening to this video here today Little cakes here, the cat nugget Also greatly appreciates your time All right, that's it for me I'm gonna go back to hiding in the darkness So I don't upset people I said I was gonna stop with sarcasm And then I didn't, sorry about that All right, that's it for now I love you guys, I'm thinking about you And I will see you in the next video Which will probably be a much more Tripper or not beat video But I felt like this needed to be said today All right, I'll see you soon Mwah, bye guys