Use the source, Luke [0] (or equivalent. I am not paywall jumping unless necessary today.)

YouTube crackles down on ASMR content (Boing Boing)

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For us who are not familiar with ASMR:

> Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, describes the tingling feeling that some people get when hearing certain sounds; it’s become shorthand for a genre of content where ASMR artists whisper, brush, tap or make other sounds near a microphone. A lot of ASMR content is meant for relaxation, mindfulness, and sleep.

I prefer classical music. Some works really do transport one to great places in the heart, because they are magnificent human expressions.

[0]https://boingboing.net/2026/07/31/youtube-crackles-down-on-a...

I feel like the discussion around this topic is a bit muddled.

I see a number of questions:

1.) Are the creators producing explicit content, on or off, YouTube?

It doesn't seem that there's many false-positives in this ban wave. The bulk of creators were definitely linking NSFW content externally and some had very suggestive videos on YouTube to begin with.

So if they are and got banned, I suppose that's not surprising. That leads to a second question though.

2.) Should they be banned for this -especially if it is off YouTube?

I feel like that's really the heart of the matter, is using YouTube as a pipeline to NSFW content something that should be policed? YouTube sure seems to think so. I guess it's "Twitch Bathtub Streams 2.0"?