YouTube is making major changes to which channels will have ads
Yesterday, January 16th, YouTube announced that it will limit the amount of channels that qualify for brand and ad partnerships. As of February 20th, YouTube will remove any channels from YouTube’s Partner Program with less than 4,000 hours of watchtime and 1,000 subscribers. Under the old rules, YouTubers only had to reach 10,000 views to qualify for the Partner Program.
This news follows YouTube’s announcement that its fourth highest-paid content creator Logan Paul will be removed from its premier ad service, Google Preferred, after Paul released a controversial video that featured a victim of suicide.
These stricter rules are also meant to prevent ads from big-name companies like Adidas, Deutsche Bank, and Mars from playing before extremist group or terrorist videos, which has also been a problem for the platform.
In the announcement, posted on the site’s blog, YouTube’s Vice President of Display, Video and Analytics Paul Muret wrote, “while this new approach will affect a significant number of channels eligible to run ads, the creators who will remain part of YPP represent more than 95 percent of YouTube’s reach for advertisers.”
Many users and content creators have voiced concerns over YouTube’s inconsistent censorship policy. Last year it came to light that the platform put videos featuring LGBTQ content into restricted mode but didn’t flag recruitment videos from terrorist groups. The Washington Post reported that this is due to YouTube’s inconsistent algorithm which incentivizes “clicky” content.
We've made updates to the YouTube Partner Program to strengthen our community & prevent impersonators + spammers from harming our platform.
We understand this affects many channels, but believe it's necessary to protect our creators.
For the full update https://t.co/phnMnAHDaD— YouTube Creators (@YTCreators) January 16, 2018
YouTube said that these stricter policies will reward creators who make quality content and will prioritizing human judgment over algorithms when it comes to helping companies place ads. While it’s a long time coming, we’re glad the streaming giant is finally tackling this issue.
