Popular vtuber Bao the Whale is once again dealing with banned videos on YouTube for reasons that don’t align with the actual content.
With 875,000 followers on her main streaming account, the Vietnamese American streamer Bao has certainly made waves in the community. Her content consists of both the whale deity virtual avatar and real-life action where part of her face is shown. Also known as the 52-hertz whale, fans enjoy Bao’s kindness and silliness as well as her collaborations with other vtubers like Shylily and Juniper Actias. Ye the vtuber has been having numerous issues with her main platform host, YouTube. Now it seems like she may need to fight moderators, or bots, one more time.
Here’s why Bao the Whale has found herself on YouTube’s bad side yet again.
YouTube banned Bato the Whale for spreading misinformation, though the vtuber claims it was a mistake.
On December 7, Bao the Whale released a video titled Bao & Lucy reads Reddit Posts. However, YouTube quickly removed the video for allegedly containing medical misinformation about vaccines. Bao has since shared the timestamp clip on her X account. It featured herself and fellow vtuber Lucy Pyre discussing a fan breaking Bao’s streaming rules, which is notably not medical misinformation. Her follow-up appeal was also automatically rejected.
After days of posting, YouTube reached out to privately DM Bao about the video ban over X. The vtuber has since posted videos on both her VOD and main YouTube channels, though YouTube has not relisted the originally banned content. It’s unclear whether or not the issue has actually been resolved.
Fortunately, those interested can still watch Lucy and Bao react to different Reddit posts on the latter’s Twitch channel. On Twitch, she has a sizeable 560,000 followers, which could make a platform switch easier if necessary.
Prior to this event, Bao reported several incidents of her YouTube content getting banned or demonetized over false flags.
This is far from the first time that YouTube has flagged Bao’s content for inappropriate content when there was none. Back in June 2024, the service demonetized a video in which conservationist and streamer Maya Higa states that “foxes don’t want to be touched.” A reviewer had confusingly deemed this comment as too adult for YouTube. Bao the Whale, however, believed that her video was banned because of bot reviewing.
Other vtubers have also reported issues with content getting incorrectly banned on YouTube. Bans usually result in strikes against creators, which can lead to account termination if YouTube assigns enough. Additionally, bans or content labels can lead to a video being demonetized or other videos getting less organic traffic. Bao herself has expressed concerns that she may need to make an entirely new account if she keeps getting falsely flagged.
Fans who want to support Bao the Whale right now can watch her videos on her YouTube channel specifically to offset any damage to her viewership the new strike will get her. As can be seen from her new videos, this whale isn’t one to let YouTube keep her down.
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