HackerTubewatch
Surprise me
Frame from Youtube Takes Down CHESS PODCAST for Being HARMFUL or DANGEROUS Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Youtube Takes Down CHESS PODCAST for Being HARMFUL or DANGEROUS

agadmator's Chess Channel
Commentary
YouTube
Cited on HN 4 times, 2020–2021, never outright recommended score 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Cited as an example of automated content moderation misfiring, notably the incident where chess talk was flagged as hate speech.

Chess YouTuber agadmator reports that YouTube took down his podcast with Hikaru Nakamura as harmful or dangerous content. It was later restored.

4 citations · Commentary · news from the time

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@mikhailfranco Jun 2020 Cites it
on HN thread YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer for hate speech
Chess channel agadmator was taken down by a YouTube bot: [this video] He speculates the bot detected phrases like "white will always be better here...", etc., then goes on to say that in his ~1800 uploads "it's pretty much black and white to the death in every video". He appealed, but was immediately rejected by the automated appeals system. The channel was restored when further responses and feedback from subscribers eventually got a human in the loop at YouTube.
@jimmytucson Feb 2021 Cites it
on HN thread YouTube blocked chess channel after mistaken detection of racial slurs
I didn’t know Agadmator was censored so I looked for information and found a video of him talking about it here: [this video] He doesn’t know why his podcast was flagged. He mentions a few possibilities-one of which is the black and white thing, which would be a mistake. It’s notable how guarded his speech is, as though he might say something else verboten. I’ve watched hundreds of chess videos on YouTube and never heard of one getting flagged until now.
@tehnub Jul 2021 Cites it
on HN thread A YouTube chat about chess got flagged for hate speech
Agadmator, the person who made the video in question, also made a video soon after explaining the situation, and gave some hypotheses on why the video got taken down. In addition to the reason being hate speech, he suggested it may have been because they discussed Covid-19, lockdowns, etc, and YouTube was attempting to stop the spread of misinformation. The video I’m talking about is here: [this video]

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

Keyboard shortcuts

/
Search
j k
Next / previous video
r
Surprise me
l
Like (video page)
w
Watch later (video page)
?
This help
Esc
Close