A French YouTuber has been banned from YouTube after uploading gameplay footage of the survival horror game Hellraiser: Revival, a decision he is now contesting as erroneous.
Hellraiser: Revival is not afraid to go there
The content creator, known as J0nathan, shared the ban notice on X (via IGN), revealing that his channel was removed for violating YouTube’s policies against sex and nudity. The notification cited “explicit content that’s meant to be sexually gratifying,” which the platform says is prohibited.
Hellraiser features full nudity at various points in its 10-hour campaign, including near the beginning—content some might expect would trip YouTube’s guidelines. However, J0nathan told IGN that these scenes were censored with black bars in his video. He had also applied a “not for kids” label but did not age-gate the upload.
Since the rest of the game played like a standard horror title similar to Resident Evil, he reasoned it didn’t require an age restriction and assumed YouTube would apply one later if needed.
The YouTuber’s channel had accumulated 190,000 subscribers over more than 10 years of content before its removal. In his public appeal on X, J0nathan said he was requesting a final review before pursuing appeals under the EU’s Digital Services Act and initiating legal proceedings with his lawyer.
So far, no response has come from YouTube or Hellraiser publisher Saber Interactive. The company had urged content creators to adhere to all platform policies when sharing gameplay, though it offered little concrete guidance beyond reminding developers to properly label streams with age restrictions and sexual theme tags.
J0nathan told IGN he’s observed other channels sharing footage from the exact same scenes without being penalized, making his ban appear inconsistent. He suggested this could stem from an AI review process or differences in how content was posted—or that YouTube may eventually flag those other videos as well.
Join the conversation