Thursday, April 06, 2017

YouTube Partner Program Change

It appears that Google has changed policy for YouTube, in light of advertisers ads appearing alongside extremist content on YouTube's ad network.

Previously, YouTube's Partner Program allowed any user to upload content and monetize their videos.  As of today (4/6/2017), Google announced a change to this policy.  Channels that have had fewer than 10,000 total views can no longer run ads on their videos.  Per YouTube itself, they are using this threshold because it allows them enough information to determine the validity of the channel.

When a channel reaches 10,000 lifetime views, they will review the channel against their policies.  Such policies include:

  • Respect the YouTube Community
  • No nudity or sexual content
  • No violent or graphic content
  • No hateful content
  • No harmful or dangerous content
  • No violation of copyrighted material
  • No threats
  • No spam or scams

Then, if the channel is agreeable to the policies, YouTube will bring the channel into the YouTube Partner Program and start serving ads.  Per YouTube, this policy was created to ensure that ad revenue only flows to "creators who play by the rules."

Surely, this is in response to the long list of companies who complained about their ads being displayed with videos of hateful or extremist content.

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