Flintknapping YouTube Channel Demonetized After Algorithm Classifies Content as 'Weapons Manufacturing'

YouTube channel 'Knap Happy,' which has spent four years documenting the ancient craft of flintknapping for an audience of 23,000 subscribers, was demonetized overnight after the platform's automated content moderation system flagged its videos as 'weapons manufacturing content' in violation of community guidelines. Channel creator Dennis Cortex received the notification at 3 AM on Tuesday. 'Every video — all 247 of them — flagged simultaneously,' Cortex said. 'My tutorial on Levallois core reduction technique, my series on Folsom point replication, my thirty-minute video about how to select good chert at a gravel pit. All classified as weapons manufacturing.' Cortex's appeal, a four-page document, argued that the technology he demonstrates predates YouTube's community guidelines by 'a minimum of ten millennia and a maximum of 3.3 million years,' and that the projectile points he produces are 'designed for hunting megafauna that have been extinct since the Pleistocene.' 'I am not manufacturing weapons,' the appeal reads. 'I am replicating artifacts that belong in museum display cases. The last person to use one of these in anger was a Paleo-Indian approximately 12,000 years ago, and I think the statute of limitations has passed.' YouTube's response was a form email reiterating its policy on 'content that shows how to make firearms or improvised weapons.' Cortex has pointed out that his content shows how to make neither, as his products require no gunpowder, no metal, and 'a level of patience incompatible with criminal intent.' The channel remains demonetized. Cortex has migrated to a niche platform called LithicTube, which has fourteen users, all of whom are knappers. 'The engagement rate is incredible,' Cortex said. 'Everyone watches everything. It's just that everyone is also me and my friends.'